Centers, Awards

I've been dragging this week because of some upper respiratory virus that has me sooooo tired by the time I can connect here in bloggy land. My super sweet hubby let me take a nap while he made dinner this evening so I have the smallest amount of energy to put into my blog before the cough meds kick in.

Here are some pics of what we are doing this week in our literacy centers. There are only a few photos because my phone was ready to die...

Matching picture cards of rhyming words.

Our ABC center:Writing the missing letters then coloring the vowels red and consonants blue.

 

Write the Room 

 There's more and I'll try to post them later this week. This is our first full week back from Christmas break and I'm trying to keep our centers simple this week so we can review routines and procedures. My sweeties seemed to have lost their minds right before Christmas, so we are going to move slowly back into our routine. <fingers crossed that they continue to do well>

I was reading through some of my comments from earlier this week and saw that I got the Versatile Blogger award! Thanks to  Kristy and Laurie . It just amazes me to know that there are people out there who stop by to read this little blog. Here's the rules for the Versatile Blogger:

1. Thank the person who presented the award to you and link back to them. (Check)

2. Tell seven things about yourself. (Check! see below)

3. Pass this on to 15 newly discovered blogs and let them know they've received the award

I'm passing it along to
1. LaKeta at The Polka Dotted Desk,
2. Tricia at Queen with Class
3. Caitlyn at Ms. Preppy
4. Jeannie at Kindergarten Lifestyle

I'll add more when I find more new blogs to pass this along too.  (It's Really Hard to find new blogs!)
Okay so here's 7 things about me.
1. My two favorite things are anything that's pink and shoes so I combined them into my pink walk in closet  :) This pic shows one small section of the closet.

2) I REALLY want to go to I Teach K in Vegas this summer! Anybody else wanna go? I'm taking donations ;)
3) Now that my oldest is in Kindergarten, I hate homework! I really don't want to practice popcorn words after teaching them all day. Sigh.
4) I'm secretly jealous of the blue eyes my babies inherited from Daddy and consider colored contacts every now and then. Just look at them!

5) I hate cold weather! (But love snow days!)
6) I'm a huge Twilight Fan! (Team Edward-Let Bella have him so I can have Jacob!)
7) I married my best friend right after high school and we've been married for 12 years. Our anniversary and Christmas gifts to each other is a cruise to Cozumel in 3 weeks! Woo Hoo!

So I was going to add to this post about the Organization Project that I'm doing, but my cold medicine is kicking in... I'll be back tomorrow with another post :)

Funniest story ever!

You all have one. That one little guy who is as sneaky as can be and will try to steal anything he can fit into his pocket, pencil box, or book bag. He's an equal opportunity kleptomaniac who will take anything regardless of it's value. He's been caught red handed with everything from an orange connecting cube to some body's snack. He doesn't mean any harm in taking any of this stuff, he just knows he wants it so why cant he just take it?
Well I have one this year. He's a sweet kid who wants nothing more than to make you happy, but his ADHD is severe and taking random objects from the class is just one of the challenges I have had to get use to. It's actually gotten to the point that anytime I see one of his pockets bulging, I know it's time to go pat him down and then inspect his book bag. He takes things from me and the other kids almost daily. If I don't catch it before he goes home, his mom will send it back the next day in Ziploc baggie. Today was no different from any other. He was actually having a really good day. (The other two who came in without meds today-well that's a whole other posting!) We were on our way to art class, just getting started to line up when I noticed him at the back of the line....shoulders hunched up, one hand in his pocket, and his eyes shifting left and right to see who was watching.
I knew right away there was something in that right front jeans pocket that he didn't want anybody to know he had! As I approach him, I see his pocket is bulging! He barely has room to get his hand out of it! I slid up next to him and the conversation went something like this:

Me: "B", what's in your pocket?

B-Nothing! (his rips his hands out of his pocket and his eyes are wide as saucers right about now)

Me: I think you have something in your pocket because I saw you playing with it. What do you have? You know we can't take toys with us to art class.

B: Nothing!

Me: Now "B" you know that if I have to, I will take it out of your pocket. This is the last chance you have to just give it to me. By now he is clutching his pocket with both hands. He knows I'll do it.

Me: Okay, move your hands. (I reach for his pocket and he gives up. He knows it's no use drawing attention to himself by arguing with me).
I reach into his pocket and grab a handful of stuff. There's a broken purple crayon, a Popsicle stick and what I think at first glance are some markers. But I keep looking at these markers. Something is not right. Markers are not this shiny, or all one color. Markers aren't usually retractable. As I stare at these colorful plastic tubes in my hands, it finally dawns on me what I'm looking at. I didn't recognize them after pulling them out of a five year old's pocket unwrapped!!!!!!

Those aren't markers my friends!!!! Those are unwrapped tampons!!!!
I was so shocked! I instantly start wondering if they're mine, then realize I ran out of those about a month ago and had to run to another teacher down the hall....Phew! That's a relief!!!

Me:(Now trying to hide them behind my back and keep a straight face just in case any other child just happens to recognize them. I can only imagine the stories they would tell later at home about Mrs. S and a handful of tampons!) Where did you get those?!?!?!?
B: From home. (He obviously has no idea what they are)
Me: Well I'm just going to hang on to them. I don't think your mom wants them back now.
And then off we go to art class.

After I dropped them off, I shared this story with the girls in my hallway everybody I met in the hall, because it was so unbelievably funny! And also, I wasn't quite sure if I should send them back home. Should I include a note? What in the world do you say in a note home about that?!
I decided that I would be horrified if my 5 year olds teacher returned the tampons that my son had taken to school that day and decided to just threw them away without sending a note. I am a little scared now of what he will bring in for his Show~N~Tell next week. :)

Stories like these are just one of the reasons I love kindergarten.

If you made it this far through this post then you deserve a freebie! I'll be posting tomorrow some classroom pics and a freebie or two! Stay tuned!

Snowman Freebie and Followers

I think I figured out how to save a Word doc into a PDF. Now if I can just get it into Google Docs.......
When I finally figure all of this stuff out, I will be posting lots of freebies for my bloggy buddies! I need some help from my 9 followers, please send your other bloggy friends my way. I'd love to share the things I've made and found with more people in bloggy land :)
It works! Click to download ---->
Chubby Little Snowman Poem

Retell the story (from Mrs. Drakes Room)

I will be using this poem to create something similar to this story prop from Mrs. Drakes Room. However, I'm thinking some light blue paper and some paint, maybe some glitter---Oh, this could be fun and messy :) Isn't that what's great about Kindergarten? I usually put this poem in a pocket chart and we read it throughout the week. My kiddos love this poem, especially acting it out!

Another favorite activity is a snowball fight in the classroom. It's not as messy as it sounds! All you do is write your sight words onto pieces of paper and wad them up into balls to make paper snow balls. Give each child a 'snow ball' and throw them around. The children then pick up a snowball and read the sight word on it. Hopefully they get a different snowball than the one they threw. Wad up the balls and repeat. It's so much fun!

What are some snow/snowman/winter activities you like to do in your classroom?

Ready to jump back in with Snowmen

My break is winding down and I'm ready to get back into my routine. I'm going in tomorrow to get some cleaning done before the kiddos get back. While I'm there I will be covering the kids' tables with white contact paper. Thanks for the inspiration Kristen! To see her post about contact paper on tables, click here.

Meanwhile, I've been busy getting some planning done for snowman activities. Since I love my followers and bloggy friends, I made a freebie to go with the poem The Chubby Little Snowman! However, I have no idea how to convert it to a PDF or upload it. HELP! I really want to be able to share with you, so please let me know how to do this!
Until then, here are some things I plan on doing in the next few weeks:

Interactive writing from KinderbyKim

I love interactive writing! My children love it too, so I always try to make word walls like this so they can reference them while they are writing.
                                       

Another interactive writing idea from Kinderbykim

 I've done this interactive writing with my class as Spider Spaghetti when we read Miss Spider's Tea Party and this will be the first time I'm doing Snowman Salad. With it being so cold here, I might change it to Snowman Soup...



The fabulous Mrs. Jump has made another wonderful unit with some really CUTE activities that you can check out here .
She also has some cute snowman freebies you can grab on her blog! Thanks, Deanna for  another great unit and some awesome freebies :)


Oh, and can I just say I got no sleep last night thinking about the Organization Project going on at CFC. I kept imagining how wonderful it would be to have all of my nooks, crannies, drawers and cabinets organized and cleaned out. Then that led to how I could rearrange some small things, which led to wanting to rearrange some big things and by  3:30 in the morning I was ready to jump our of bed, get some paper and make a whole new diagram of how I want to rearrange my classroom! I was inspired! Then I realized that I will actually have to do the organizing before I can move anything around. ...Sigh... Back to bed...
The next realization was that I will posting pics of my room and how cluttered it is right now! Can you say embarrassing? Oh well, the worse the before pics are, the better the after pics will look right? ;)
You can read all about the Clutter Free Classroom Project here. Are you going to join in and get organized in 2012?