First Day of School Rewind

Oh the first week. It was this week and to say I am exhausted is an understatement. Because you know there is tired and then there is first-week-school-tired! It actually went pretty well today...as well as the first week of Kinder can go, you know...like herding cats...or ...something. It was definitely one of my better first weeks.

So I have been teaching Kindergarten for the past 8 years and have been slowly perfecting my first day lesson plan. My school is half day (8:50-12:10) Kindergarten up until the 2nd trimester. After that we go full day. This makes a perfect little transition time for the kids to get acclimated into school life. It also means I am crunched for time! It stresses me out like you would not believe. The plus side is that I am more organized during this time of the year. It's a different story after November, but ask me about that another time, ha!

Back to lesson plans. I am not sure if this will help anyone but maybe you can glean a few ideas off of it for those of you still *lucky* enough to be on summer break! (I envy you!!)

Here is what my day looks like:

So let me break it down for you:

This is where our parents meet us and after all the students are in the line with their parents in tow, my principal makes some announcements and we are set free. It's kind of a chaotic, hot time but whatevs... I roll with it :) When it is all over, the parents get to come with us to the classrooms.

I let my students into the classroom one at a time. I greet each child with a handshake and a comment or 2 on their new school clothes. I hand this paper to each parent and ask them to complete these steps:

It gives the parents and children a task to complete while I greet the rest of the students and talk to parents. 

Once we've said goodbye to our parents ( I had one itty bitty that didn't want to say goodbye, hence he became my shadow for the rest of the day), I show the students my attention getter and we practice it a few times before they clean up the blocks and come to the carpet. Normally, we will have a carpet routine but the first day is a little different. I take roll and teach them to say "I am here!" when I call their name. This is always the hardest part because I haven't taught them to raise their hand or to stay seated yet, so of course in between calling names I am reminding students not to get up or to let me finish taking roll before they ask me more questions. Which is a perfect time to lead into...

We have a little talk about why we can't all speak at once (it sounds like blah, blah, blah and I can't understand) and I go into the steps. I display the chart with it's steps and we practice a few times. I make a big deal of those who follow directions.

 After going over these rules, I read them a story I wrote about... me! And my family too.  It's an ABC book of my family. They enjoy getting to see the pictures. I created my book using Shutterfly and a free code I got when we went to LegoLand over the Summer (Summer -I miss you!!).

 By this time, I usually have children chomping at the bit, practicing the new skill of raising their hands and asking me if they get to use the pencils, crayons or scissors yet.  To which I reply, "Of course!!"

I whip out my Name Writing Self Portraits for August. I LOVE these. I have been using these for years (I just revamped them this summer) for name assessment and showing growth. Then at the end of the year, they double as part of the memory book. They are super fun to look back on. Plus I keep them up on the wall all year, I just tack the newest portrait on top, then I can see the growth with just the flip of a page.

Don't they look so good hanging up in my room??? I love it!

For this, my buddy teacher and I helped each other (as we always do, isn't having a good teammate awesome?!). She took all the girls into her room and I took all the boys. We used this time to go over our bathroom expectations. I always tell the kids that there are 3 things they can do in a bathroom: poop, pee and wash their hands. Nothing else. Just saying the words poop and pee gets their attention, it's amazing. We make a little poster of looks like/sounds like for each rule my buddy teacher and I came up with ahead of time. The kids came up with the looks like/sounds like portion. They loved making the sound effects for Do Your Business. Inappropriate? maybe. But definitely necessary! ha!

Before we go to the bathroom, I also show them this quick video of ducks walking in a line behind their Mama to show them what I mean by a line. Then we practice.

 After getting the chance to show off our skills of how to use a school bathroom and walk in a line appropriately, we headed to the playground for snack. While they ate, my buddy teacher and I traded off narrating and using the playground equipment appropriately while they watched us. We probably looked completely ridiculous but we all know we do it. We are Kindergarten teachers, right?! We had also made a powerpoint showing the kinder team using the equipment both correctly and incorrectly, but as most first days go, we ran out of time!!! I did show it the next day though. I will spare you the horribly (I guess funny) pictures we took...well, maybe I will share just one :) Only because we look... the least amount of ridiculous compared to the other pictures, haha! I am the one on the left. My buddy teacher next door is next to me.

 After recess, we brought the kids for a little story time with our favorite bad boy, No David! That little naked butt running down the street becomes every kindergarteners obsession from this day out. Amen?
Anyway, let me backtrack for just a moment. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the I Teach K conference in Las Vegas over the Summer (AMAZING experience, best PD ever, hands down) and on the last day there, I changed one of my classes to see another presenter. Her name was LeAnna Wolkis-Goldstien. And OMG, she was completely adorable, first off, and her ideas!! Oh such good ideas! That I just had to stay in her class the whole rest of the day. The reason I am telling you about her is that she introduced me to the magic prop bag. This is a cloth bag I sewed together with scrap cloth real quickly one day. I made one for me and one for my buddy teacher.

 Inside I included the book, a broken toy (my daughter found a broken tiara for me), a toy pot and pan with spoon and a happy/sad face.

Before reading the story I *dramatically* introduce my "Magic Story bag".  I pull out the book first and we all gasp. I really ham it up as I peek in the bag (and they are all up on their knees "What is it?! What is it?!") and pull out items one at a time and make guesses as to why that item might be in there. After reading the story we discuss if our guesses were correct. I now use this bag to introduce every story and I have them just eating out of my hands. They cannot get enough! I'll create a post more about this later as it is one of the best teaching tools I've learned.

 Now it is time for using glue and scissors for the first time! Eek! I am VERY explicit with my rules for scissors and glue. I created a powerpoint that showed me using those tools right and wrong. They thought it was great. And it works!

 (just an example, not the whole PowerPoint)

 Then I print out the pictures of me and we sort them on a anchor chart and keep them up all year. This way I can refer to it all year long when I spot someone who forgot the rules.

After we have gone over that, I let them practice by creating the snack calendar. Each month, we create this calendar as a keepsake of art work that children's parents can delightfully hang up and at the same time it gives the parents an easy way to keep track of what is going on in the classroom and when they need to bring snack for the class. I didn't get a picture of this one, dang it! Next time!

It's finally the end of the day!!! I take the last 20 minutes of the day to introduce them to dismissal procedures, where their cubbie is, things like that.

So, that's my day...what I got done at least.I had a craftivity for No David that we didn't get to until Thursday! We all know we over plan that first week because so much time is spent getting them to just stay put, stop tapping you (my pet peeve!) and to teach procedures. I felt really good that my class was heading in the right direction by Thursday and I am super excited to see them again tomorrow! I have fun week planned for them. I would like to give you a peek at my week but Mommy duties have been calling my name. I have been trying to ignore them, but they are as persistent as Kindergarteners.

Sight Words And Book Bags

When my children were in Kindergarten they had a fabulous teacher, who shared many things with me. We would send ideas and things we do in our classes back and forth to each other in my children's back pack (first my daughter had her, then the very next year, my son had her).  She ended up inspiring many organizational ideas that I still use in my class and passed ideas onto other teachers in my grade level. One of them was book bags. The way I do it is very simplistic that many of you may be nodding your heads thinking "I do that too" or "I know someone who does something similiar" and that's awesome for me because it shows great minds really do think alike!

Book Bags

Very simple. A freezer bag. That's it. A freezer bag with their name written on it and a card stock paper inside that says where to return if found, since I do put real books in the bag. I find slider bags are easiest for kids to open and close but regular Ziploc kinds work well too. These bags serve a multi purpose for my class. They contain not only books they read at home (both real and paper), but notes from home, parent signed papers, AR book logs and sight word bags. The kids have to return them every single day whether they are empty or not into my book box. I set this box outside my door every morning so the kids can put their book bags in before heading off to morning recess. Each morning, while the kids complete their bell work,  I checked each bag for notes from parents, books that needed to be returned and who still needed an AR or sight words test to be set aside for later. The rest would go back into the cubbies. The fact that the bags were see through and easy to replace were the best things about the bags.

Sight Word bags

These were kept in sandwich bags and inside the book bag. They each contained the sight word list the student was working on, flash cards for words on their list they didn't know, and the sight word lists the student had passed. All my students were working at different places so I kept track using a manilla folder and mini post it's with their names on it. As they moved up list numbers, so did their names. This way I could see where they were working at a glance. I am lucky enough to have a college intern working in my class so testing and keeping part of this data was her job. However, I think this is completely manageable on your own. Each list is printed on card stock and on different color paper. This makes it easier to keep the lists separate and visual for the parents ("oh, I haven't seen a pink list in the bag before").

As the student reads their list, they get to put a small sticker on the ones they know. Letting the students put the sticker makes it more engaging for the student. When the students is within 3 words of completing their word card, they are given a chance to work on the next card up. All of the word cards have 18 words on them. Starting with the Dolch Pre Primer words, I let my littles work as far as their little brains will let them. Last year I had a student get all the way to list 16 out of 18!! He would have kept going if Kindergarten hadn't ended, dangit!

Since the sight word baggies are in the book bags and go home every night, I also keep flash cards for the words they are still working on in the bag. This way the parents can practice with the children all week until we test again.  Testing generally falls on Monday and Tuesdays.

I have used this system of book bags and sight word bags in my classroom successfully for 2 years now. Do you use book bags in your classroom? How do you keep track of sight word progress? I'd love to hear what you do!

If you would like to purchase my sight word assessment, I have them listed in my TPT shop! I added an assessment recording sheet to go along with it and the lists are based on Dolch Pre Primer, Primer, 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade lists as well as the Dolch Noun lists. It includes over 300 words!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Assessment-Dolch-word-lists-1923929

Ice Cream Please!

This unit is my first ever and it took the longest to create. Simply because I had a mish mash of ideas that I put together at the end of the year rotating around the theme of ice cream. Everybody loves ice cream, right?! I know I do and I doubly know my kids do. So when I told them they had done so well gathering all the knowledge they needed to take to first grade and beyond that we could make all our learning be about ice cream, they about fell out. And then they were like Bring.It.On. So this little unit was born. I tried to incorporate subjects we had learned in the year that had been a bit of a struggle to get at the time and just far enough away to need a refresher. I wrote a little bit on this unit here. You'll want to check that out too as there is a freebie in that post from this unit (woo hoo!)

Predictable Text 

Something I knew the kids could work on their own. Super easy to put together too. I just duplicated the second page a few times and then stapled together. The idea was that the students write a flavor in the blank as they read and color the ice cream scoop to match. These could be real or made up flavors, I left it up to them.

Describing Words

This was my kids favorite part...being creative and making up flavors. I used several graphic organizers to use to draw out those describing words.

I also included 2 more bubble maps that looks just like these but the directions say:
-Use adjectives to describe your favorite flavor ice cream
-Use adjectives to describe your ice cream you designed

Cinquain Poem

I included first a brainstorming sheet then a frame for creating a simple and basic cinquain poem. I also included a little craftivity to create an easy ice cream guy. I hang up the craft with these poems, they are very cute together on the wall. I wish I had a picture of that :(

Writing

I included several writing pages with primary and upper grade line style. I included these prompts:
-Convince me to try the ice cream you designed
-Convince me to let you have an ice cream party

Sight Words

My kids love solving mysteries, I bet yours do too. I included 3 mystery sight word pages like this.

Math

This is mainly geared for Math Centers. The students are in charge of putting together scoops  of ice cream that match the numeral on the cones. They have to find the number word, tally and ten frame. Then they record and color the scoops according directions at the bottom of the recording sheet.

I included another center just like this one but with numbers 11-19

If you like this unit, you can find it here on my little shop on Teachers Pay Teachers. Let me know how you like it and if there is anything I can add to it.

Looking forward to hearing from ya!