Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving! I'm ready for the break - can't wait to have some good food and enjoy good company.

I am working on some holiday items that I will have out soon - for now though I am couching it up and feeding my Pinterest habit!

What the Teacher Wants is having a linky party - a perfect topic for the week - "I'm Thankful for..."

Classroom Thankfulness: This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for my Kinderstars in my classroom - who make me tear up when they work on "secret projects" during recess time. (It's me - complete with matching shoes and earrings!) I am also thankful for my awesome team - I know we couldn't do it without each other!

Person I'm Most Thankful For: ***Spoiler. I have to cheat on this one.***On the home front, I'm thankful for my husband and family. My hubby is my rock - and often hears the ups and downs of daily life in Kindergarten - especially the downs! My Mom is my anchor - I am who I am because of her. :) Nuff said. My sis is the other half of the anchor - I love her humor and her personality. Have a huge family that I am thankful for as well (can't just focus on one person - oopsss).

Blogs I'm Thankful For: Goodness this is a hard one - I seriously have a full time job blog-stalking. Which is sometimes difficult with my other full time job - uhm, teaching?!? These ladies are seriously awesome - and inspiring. They help still young in my career and don't always know what is happening "just a few years under the belt" teachers like me stay organized and focused!




My teammates blog - who gave me a kick in the pants to start my own. Love her creativity and positive attitude!



Guilty Pleasures I'm Thankful For: No judging allowed...but any and all things MTV, any gossip magazine or website, any "Real Housewives" of any city. And Peppermint Mochas and O'Charley's rolls.

Don't forget to check out the linky party happening at What the Teacher Wants!

That's me in a nutshell. :) Hope you have wonderful Thanksgiving dinners/activities planned.

Turkey Time!

We went a little crazy with turkeys - or chickens or hens as my kiddos call them. Sigh. Hopefully by the end of November they will call them the right name. Ha.

Homework for the first week was to decorate a turkey with your family. We have some really cute turkeys! As a class we do interactive writing about what types of materials were used on the turkeys (a great vocabulary lesson too!).

Check out these turkeys! I don't have a link - one of my teammates had the paper original so we guard it like gold!

It's a really fun project. Here they all are on our bulletin board:

My team's boards:

We colored a pattern on these turkeys.

Turkey Patterns


My favorite and it's free!

Mrs. Miner shared a free turkey pattern - my kiddos loved it - especially it's little eyes.

Awesome Turkeys

Happy Turkey Day!

50's Day!

We had so much fun celebrating 50's day at school! We decorated the hallways and our K-2 teachers really got into the whole celebration, which was awesome.

We went bowling and graphed the number of pins we knocked down.

We learned lots of new dances, like "The Twist" and "The Handjive". My students liked both but said dancing made them tired! Ha!

Some kiddos even dressed up for the occasion! Adore this!

We made records and added our picture. The record template and lots of other awesome 50's day activities can be found in Cara Carroll's TPT store.

We made root beer floats! Yummm.

We had a giant sock hop in the gym...complete with teachers on skates. Love my K-2 team!

All in all a fun day! Here's my fabulous team - 50s style. ♥ these gals!

And special thanks to my Momma who made my poodle skirt (in case the one from high school didn't **cough cough** fit anymore...haha).

If you haven't tried 50's day - go for it! The kiddos loved it (and secretly I think the teachers did too).

November Math Journals

I am diving into Math Journals this year - September seemed crazy though - and I had kiddos all over the place! I like giving them open ended prompts - it lets them think aloud - which my students don't get enough time to do.

I copy them front to back and staple the journal 3-4 times (any idea how rough K kids can be on paper?? - HA!). My students store them in their cubbies and get them each day after our specials classes. We read the prompt, have a quick think time and then they have around 4 minutes to draw out their response. The range is amazing. I talk with 3-4 students during that time. After we are finished, we have share time (usually 2-3 students).

So for those of you using math journals - I have lots of questions!!
-Any best practice tips?
-What about my kiddos that just aren't there yet?
-How can I kick them up a notch?
-For assessments - do you do them? If so, how?

Any help would be awesome. :) Thanks!

November Math Journals
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Happy Thanksgiving!

Goodness me it has been way too long! I have some great kiddos this year - but they have required all of my attention and then some. I'm hoping to get back to regular posting - but you know how it goes.

I made a November/Thanksgiving Letters Megapack - with different activities to use with small groups or with a whole group. Enjoy - and if you use, please leave me a comment!

I ❤ comments!

Thanksgiving Pack

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Oh Snap!

Popsicle sticks galore=games, games and more games!

Snap is a letter review game. Students draw a stick and identify the letter on the stick. If they identify correctly, they can keep the stick. If not, it goes back in the cup. If they draw the alligator stick, all of their sticks go back into the bucket. Simple as that.

I printed the letters on mailing labels and the 2nd label is to put on a can! Enjoy!

Letters

Label