Dinosaurs are now extinct

So, I haven't even had a chance to blog about the rest of the dinosaur unit. It really is one of my favorite themes to teach! I'll just walk you through the pictures.

We did one of these anchor charts for t-rex, stegosaurus, triceratops, and velociraptor. I was smart this year and laminated them before writing what we learned on them. 

We did many different dinosaur activities. Here is our schema chart, some of our inferences papers about what was inside our egg we found, a labeled t-rex, and dinosaur story, and some dinosaurs with pattern plates.

We ended our study with the fictional story "If the Dinosaurs Came Back". We studied how the illustrator used only black and white for the backgrounds and used color on the dinosaurs. We tried to copy him.

For math we have been learning about collecting data and using that data to graph the results. This has been so much fun!

Freebie Friday!

First, just a few random things that I love! This is the new bulletin board design made by my co-teacher. I love it!

Also, I wanted to share my new organizational tool for storing all  a few of my zippered bad games and such. I love it! It's so handy to turn and grab an activity to work with my kiddos at my teacher table. As the year moves along, I'll just trade out the bags for some new ones. I used a small curtain rod, the large Command hooks, and medium sized binder rings. (I believe 1").

Now, on to my freebie! We have been doing DINOSAURS this week (which I also love)! Last year I made these for my freebie!

This year I made some cute little sight word dinosaurs that you clip clothespins on to spell the sight word. (They look really cool with their clothespin spikes!) I also made a few small letter sequence dinosaur puzzles. I hope you enjoy and HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

Weather

This week has been all about WEATHER! I really enjoy teaching this theme with Kinders. We began by exploring what meteorologists do. I made this cute little anchor chart.

Thanks to 

for the idea.

I made the weather words chart too!

Thanks to 

for the idea!

We studied the water cycle. 

Thanks to 

for the printables.

We LOVED the water cycle song from "Have Fun Teaching"!

The magic school bus has a good video about the water cycle also.

We studied clouds.

Thanks to Miss DeCarbo's Weather Unit on TPT for the cloud idea.

We studied wind. We tested different objects by first predicting which would move with the air from the fan. My favorite book to read when learning about wind is Vicki Cobb's "I Face the Wind".

Lastly, we studied tornadoes. With us being smack in middle of tornado alley and in tornado season right now, I find it a necessity to discuss tornadoes and how to stay safe. I found this video on youtube and it had their attention the whole time. I found the second video to give a visual of how to take cover.

It really was a fun week, now on to DINOSAURS!!!

I LOVE spring time!

I would have to say that the last nine weeks is definitely my favorite time of the year. Not just because my students are at mastery level in many skills and WAY more independent (although this is still worth a HALLELUJAH!), but because I LOVE the spring themes that we teach. I begin April with weather and usually some Easter stuff. Then I cover plants, insects, dinosaurs, and ocean. That's really all that there is time for and that's cramming as much fun and educational stuff in as possible.

Have you guys seen these cute little carrot eggs at Dollar Tree? They are perfect for placing a picture card and letters in for building words.

This is just one of the games included in my Spring Bundle. There is a SMART board version of this also. The student clicks on a carrot to reveal the picture and using the "fridge magnets" to build the word.

This bundle can be found HERE!

I've also whipped up a freebie that you might enjoy! My students need some extra work on identifying middle vowel sounds, so why not make an Easter egg sort for this week. Click on the pic to get yours!

Dramatic Play - Pet Vet

I have mentioned before that this is the first year that I have actually placed FOCUS on my dramatic play center. I began the year with the Kinder Cafe.

Then I changed it to a Doctor's Office.

Then I changed it to a Bakery.

And now it's the Kinder Pet Vet! I'm so excited to see their faces when they see their new theme! My co-workers grandson is in my class and he got to see a glimpse of it one day over spring break. He said "This is really fun and I like the name Pet Vet. It rhymes you now." lol It was a goal of mine to add more literacy and math aspects into this center. So many teachers struggle with their administrators not allowing dramatic play. Well, now you have some great points to argue  discuss. Students will be using the scales and cubes to measure height, length, and weight on the pet. They will also sign in writing their name and writing the time. They will also go through the checklists (grooming and medical) and recording their services. Lastly, they will complete the appointment summary by using the vocabulary cards displayed in the pocket chart.

 

You can find this bundle of FUN here!

Fairy Tales and a FREEBIE!!

So we began our unit on Fairy Tales this week. We read the 3 Little Pigs and then Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. These two books are perfect to do together in one week and then do some comparing and contrasting! I have created a bundle FULL of different activities that go along with these two stories. 60 pages of printables and 34 pages of SMART board fun!

You can get this bundle HERE!

How about a freebie Friday?? 

This is the ABC Order activities that are included in the bundle. Hope you enjoy!

Get your freebie HERE!

Read Across America Week

I haven't posted about Read Across America week yet, but it was absolutely fabulous. (even had a snow day in there) I was in charge of decorating the bulletin board in our Kindergarten pod and, thanks to Pinterest, I went with Seuss' ABC book theme. The kids did great on their letter artwork!

One hit with the kiddos were the QR codes for online readings of Dr. Seuss books. This is the first time that I have introduced QR codes this year and they did great using them.