Tending the Eclectic Kinder-Garden

Tags: kindergarten decor, Thanksgiving

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Sorry about the poor photos- the text reads:

One little, two little

three little turkeys,

four little, five little

six little turkeys,

seven little, eight little

nine little turkeys,

ten turkeys gobble, gobble, gobble!

Tags: classroom decor, Thanksgiving

Goodbye spiders, hello gobblers!

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~Paper plates colored brown

~various autumn themed paper (I had scrapbooking leftovers in a tub)

~tissue paper cut into fringe-y rectangles

~turkey pattern on tan construction paper (body and legs)

~orange triangle for beak

~black crayons

~raffia for bows

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Links:

~Turkey Alphabet Match Cards (uppercase and lowercase letters)

~ An easy pinecone turkey…

~ The children’s table set with turkey coloring books and a Thanksgiving silhouette tablecloth (from Martha!)

And here’s a silly stop-motion video for you:

Tags: classroom decor, kindergarten, Thanksgiving

It’s time for new patterns:

(bone, moon, jack-o-lantern, bone, moon, jack-o-lantern)

New border trim (Mary Englebreit):

Spiderwebs…

…a pumpkin quilt, cute characters…

… a new calendar

…and orange twinkle lights!

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While parents, blog readers and possibly some colleagues see a “cute” room each time I change the decor and learning centers, I see the monthly modifications as inspiration for my students.  Kindergartners enjoy holidays and special events, but also need to cover curriculum requirements and develop social, fine and gross motor skills.  Providing options, variety, and interesting materials is an essential way to catch the interest of even the most reluctant or anxious child.

~Cutting with scissors daily on plain ol’ zig zag lined paper can become boring and repetitious for students who need the extra practice.  Add deckle scissors to the cutting activity (and the opportunity to make some awesome art displays with their work) and watch even the most scissor-awkward child eagerly hone his/her cutting skills!

~Each year I have several students who are reluctant to write or draw because they “can’t do it” like their tablemate.  At the writing center, I provide colored pencils, washable markers, rulers, stencils and flip books with simple pictures and words spelled out.  Shapes added to the stencil tub this month: pumpkins, bats, cats, ghosts, leaves, and moon.  All students enjoy tracing the stencils and copying the environmental print as they make pictures, cards, and books for their friends and family.  Never fear, my aide and I help students sound out words for their writing too!

Patterns, environmental print (I have October word lists posted as well but my students’ names and photos are intermixed with them so I’m *not* posting them), dramatic play props (we’ve turned housekeeping into the “Creature Cafe”), autumn/October themed colors and materials not only make for a fun classroom, they also inspire my students’ expression and encourage my Stars to try new things.

November will see some classroom changes too- check back after Halloween to find maize, cornucopias, Indians, Pilgrims, and of course, handprint turkeys!

…but at least most of it was done using my own personal table top laminator!

My students drew self portraits:

I cut out white background paper and some smaller polka-dotted paper:

Used some glue:

… and took a moment to enjoy those sweet smiling faces!

My aide added “fiesta” fringe:

…and then we strung up the portraits in a boy/girl pattern on blue ribbon.  After hanging the banner up and photographing it from multiple angles, I muttered not-so-kindergarten-teacherish-words under my breath when I realized I couldn’t get the GLARE out of the frame!  **SIGH**

I’ll attempt another here’s-the-finished-product photo for you next week.

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We visited a farm today!  We learned lots and lots about animals and plants, a bit about Kansas history, and a whole LOT about BEES.  Can’t go on a field trip without the proper accessories, now can we?

Thank goodness for construction paper, yellow plaid scrapbook paper, black Sharpie markers, glue, a tabletop laminator, silver tone pin backs, and hot glue guns!

BUZZ!

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Tags: classroom, decor, tips

Goodbye stars, crayons and rainbows…

HELLO leaf spirals, apples, and autumn trees!  With the help of our buddy class, my students have transformed their Super Star classroom into a Super Autumn environment!

I traced my students’ hands on brown paper for tree trunks, cut them out, glued them to light blue construction paper, and had the Stars use their fingertips to “dot” autumn colored paint onto the paper to create leaves. After the paint was dry, they counted and glued die cut paper apples (an apple shape punch would work great too if you don’t have mini die cuts):

For colorful leaves, I cut transparency sheets in half, and cut autumn colored tissue paper into squares.  The Stars then used glue sticks to cover one side of the transparency sheet with glue, and layered the tissue paper on top, overlapping edges.  Once dry, my aide took the transparency sheets down to the workroom and cut out leaf shapes with different die cut blocks:

I cut dark brown spirals from 8 1/2 X 11 construction paper, and with the help of our Fifth Grade Buddies, my Super Stars cut out various leaves from red, orange, yellow, and brown construction paper.  Our buddies made sure the kindergartners used correct scissor position and that they turned the paper when cutting instead of the scissors…no more cut clothing!

Our buddies then helped the Stars glue the cut leaves onto the spiral (their help was appreciated since we didn’t want to end up with spirals that were glued closed!):

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This week I’ll also be changing out some of the artwork I hung at the beginning of the school year for more autumn-ey looking displays.

Check back in to see what I’m using the Stars’ drawings of themselves (first photo, upper left corner) for this week!

Tags: autumn, classroom, decor, tips

Isn’t it funny how productive one can be in the classroom when there are no other teachers or students in the building?

I went in around ten this morning and left at three-thirty, and though I didn’t touch *any* of the filing I had hoped to work on, I did manage to:

~Get my students’ daily schedule written up on sentence strips and displayed in a pocket chart

~Make new desk and cubby tags, laminate them, and get them situated

~Enlarge our word wall with another panel of blue bulletin board paper

~Create handwriting pages for my students using the Zaner Bloser font to spell out their names

~Relocate the Lego table, the computer center, and listening center for better flow

~Set up the discovery table for this week’s science exploration

~Make new Borrow Book envelopes

~Prep the photos of lunch time choices on our chart

(The English Language Learner Teacher/Department sent us photos of all of the food item choices for the year so we could have visuals to go with our lunch charts!)

~Cycle out the “welcome to kindergarten” book selections and add alphabet, shape, and autumn books to the reading center

~Set up the light box, colored transparent blocks and overhead projector with manipulatives

It was a good day, and despite the fact that I’m supposed to be “off” enjoying this Labor Day weekend, I just might be inspired to go back to school on Monday and tackle the filing, once and for all.

But not for the entire day, no sir-ee Bob.  I feel the need to BBQ.

Tags: classroom, kindergarten, photos

Tags: kindergarten

I’m ready, are you?

(Enjoy it, it’s the cleanest my desk will look all year!)

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A few more plants for the classroom, and I’ll be happy.

~Here’s a list of safe and poisonous plants to review before you purchase greenery for your classroom…  VERY important info since some kindergarten students are still *oral* when school starts, putting lots of non-food-items into their mouths.

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I’m baking Kissing Hands today- head over to Mrs. Fischer’s Kindergarten Theme page for  more ideas on how to use this special story on the first day of school!

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I hope you have a WONDERFUL start to the school year!

Tags: books, decor, kindergarten, tips

With the help of Dear Daughter, the classroom is *almost* finished. We had to do some rearranging of furniture today since I have fewer than twenty students presently (yay!), so I now have a larger table ready for math manipulatives (you can see the students’ desks in the background):

The listening center is set up at the front of the room for now, though the desk will probably house our laptop computers once they’re delivered:

My students’ desks have their nameplates ready for them, along with yellow “Welcome” cards for their first visit tomorrow.  My colleagues made some very cute cards of their own, and made buttons that say “I’m in Kindergarten” for the students to wear the first week of school- I incorporated the extra buttons they made for me into my own cards (I’ll try to remember to photograph the inside of one tomorrow):

By the way, the nameplates are NOT stuck to the desks yet.  I can’t always be certain what name a student will choose to be called, and spelling errors sometimes occur, so parents will have the chance to help me correct the labels and tags tomorrow.  I don’t usually adhere the nameplates to desks until I know my seating arrangement will work- some students will work well together, while others create an unsafe, unfriendly, or just plain rowdy scene when seated next to each other.  Cooperation and appropriate social interactions are key!

In case you were wondering, I do NOT ask parents to write their child’s name on every box of crayons, glue bottle, pencil, or Kleenex box.  Too much time is lost when students start the “Teacher, she took MY pink crayon,” or “Mrs. Sommerville, he touched MY green scissors” routine.  No, no, and NO.  Putting items without labels into group tubs (I purposely empty crayon boxes into a larger tub before distributing colors amongst tables) and modeling how students should share and help is another important experience children should have.  I will routinely ask students questions such as “May I please borrow a red crayon?  I would like to help J. color this apple red.  Thank you for sharing!  I will give the crayon back when I am done.”  It doesn’t take long for the students to adopt the polite tone and vocabulary in our classroom.

Our writing center (full of cards, envelopes, paper, pencils, crayons, and stencils):

One view of our reading center (do you like my apple quilt?), with a display about colors:

Calendar, months, days of the week, and weather at “circle”:

Pretend/Dramatic Play Center (have you noticed the little peeks of tan curtains in each photo?  I sewed those last weekend, and hung them on tension rods to cut down on the visual noise):

My reading table and teacher station (that’s a Happy Birthday display on the wall) that should be clean and presentable tomorrow:

When I’m new to a school, I post a bulletin board display in the hallway about Me, Myself, and I. I post photos of me, my family, and blurbs that my students might find of interest (”I have a cat named Anni.  Anni likes to watch dinosaur shows on television.” or “I like glitter, jewelry, motorcycles, and trucks…”) and always post drawings previous students have given me of…ME!  (I’ll photograph some tomorrow, today’s turned out blurry for some reason).  Since my favorite story is Where the Wild Things Are, I include a poster of a wild rumpus too!

While the display isn’t “all Vegas” or schoolish, its simplicity draws students and their families in to read, share, and look at photos, helping them to get to know me a bit better, quietly, peacefully transitioning them into their time spent with me.

My “welcome” display with students’ names on stars, and quotes about early childhood and developmentally appropriate practice for parents to read and think about:

Should family members come by to visit at a time we’re elsewhere, they can find us after checking our “locater” display:

“Mrs. Sommerville’s Super Stars are at:” and then tags with hook-and-loop dots on the back read “Music,” “Recess,” “the library,” “an assembly,” and “P.E.”  I still need to add a few more as we’ll also visit the dome theater, computer lab, and 21st Century Classroom (Science).

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I’m off to bake cookies!

Tags: classroom, kindergarten, photos, tips