Five For Friday 12-18-15

It's the final count down!!!! The last Friday of school until January 8, 2016!!!!! I must confess that I am more than ready for a nice long break! This month has been CRAZY hahaha!! It is also time for another installment of Five for Friday with the fabulous Doodle Bug Teaching!

 

We had our first school wide "Deck the Halls" on Monday night. It was a huge success! The parents and kids had a blast. We had over 700 people at school that night!

At our faculty meeting this week we had a teacher share about finding your why. He did a wonderful job! We know our what is to teach children, but what is your why?  As teachers we can get burdened down with the politics of teaching and all the paperwork ha! Even the behavior problems get to us. It was a great reminder for me personally to remember my why! I ma not here to collect a paycheck. I am here to make a difference in my students lives to inspire a love of learning in each and everyone of them! I want them to feel loved, respected and appreciated. Their opinions matter.

Yesterday I finished up my Christmas shopping!!! WOOHOO!! Now to finish wrapping them!!

On of our first grade teachers has a huge Polar Express in her classroom. She generously offered for my class to come and visit! We had a BLAST! We read the Polar Express by flashlight and listened to train sounds our whole trip. My kinders loved every minute of it!

Our Christmas party was so much fun! The kiddos were absolutely bonkers and had a blast!! We wish you a very Merry Christmas from our class to you all!!
Head over to Doodle Bug Teaching to link up and share your Five for Friday!

Five for Friday 12-11-15

 Long time no BLOG!!!! What better way to jump back in than to link up with Doodle Bug Teaching for Five for Friday!! We have had a CRAZY, BUSY and EXHAUSTING week!! How many more days till Christmas break??????????????????

These memes crack me up... and they are straight up truth! Teaching in December is an experience all on it's on ha! This week our class elves Pip and Jingles have had some fun! They toilet papered our classroom, made a mess with the lite brites and spilled legos all over the place while they were making a chair for themselves!! Our elves like to make messes but they do remind us to make smart choices each day! Keeping my crazy... I mean darling kiddos engaged this week has been a challenge they are so excited about Christmas!! Here are a few of the centers that were a hit and kept them busy! Building sight words! QR codes are always a class favorite! These finger lights from the Dollar Tree were a huge hit! They loved reading with them! This book is from Markers and Mascara's December Emergent reader pack! My kids love these books!
My kids absolutely LOVE math time! It is their favorite time of the day! Math is my favorite subject to teach so I enjoy this time as well! They are so engaged and on task during math centers that it is like magic in my room!! These centers are from my newest Christmas creation! This year our school is hosting a Deck the Hall event! Each class had to choose a Christmas book and decorate their tree using that book. My class chose The Gingerbread Man. They love all the variations of this story! We have been busy making ornaments for our tree! Our parents will come Monday night and judge all the trees! You know it's been a fun day when you have almost as much glitter on you as the ornaments the class are making ha! Today we made cinnamon applesauce ornaments! My classroom smells fabulous and the gingerbread men turned out so cute too! Now we are hoping they will dry so we can hang them on the tree Monday morning! Our Gingerbread Man tree! This year on Tuesday afternoon our SUPER, AMZING, FABULOUS interpreter is teaching a Spanish class for teachers! I have learned so much and can't wait to learn more! My daughter bought me a Feliz Navidad ornament for the tree this year!! Next week we will have our "test" at Munoz!! We all have to order everything in Spanish!! I will be ordering uno taco de pollo blando and salsa de queso with an aqua ha!!
This week several kinder teachers went out to eat together! It was so much fun to be with each other outside of school! Sorry for the fuzzy photo ha! Head over to Doodle Bug Teaching to link up and share your Five for Friday!
  I found this quote on FB the other day and absolutely love it! Especially this time of year this is a good reminder!! Thank you all so much for you encouragement! I truly appreciate this blogging community!!

Spotlight Saturday: Sensory Tub

It's the first Saturday in September down south which means FOOTBALL season  has officially started!! I love college football and am looking forward to sitting in my pj's watching it all day:) 

Saturday also means it's time for Spotlight Saturday with my blogging bestie over at Kindergarten Dragons!

This weekend I am going to spotlight the Sensory tub!

 

This is the first year that I have used a sensory tub with my kinders! I know I am behind the times ha! I have struggled the last few years with trying to balance developmentally appropriate kindergarten and the rigorous standards that we have to teach our kinders in order for them to be successful as firsties. I have always taught through thematic units and worked very hard to make learning fun and engaging. I still felt that I was missing something! I was missing play! This past summer I did a lot of research, blog stalking and Pinterest stalking to find new ways to incorporate play into my classroom and keep the learning going! We all know that kinders learn best through play so why not bring it back. I am very fortunate that my school system as a whole and my administrators are realizing that our children need this! Ok off my soap box and back to the spotlight ha!!

 My kinders absolutely LOVE the sensory tub center! I am so thrilled I decided to jump on this band wagon and wish now I had incorporated this into my classroom much earlier! This center has quickly become a class favorite. They will even ask if they can go to this center during our social/play centers in the afternoon!

I have been leary of putting food in my tub because of critters ha! I plan on using rice soon though!The first few weeks I put colored pom poms in the tub. They had to find the letters and match them to the letter on the cards. 

The next week we were learning about Pete the cat so they had to find the letter cards and then trace the matching letter. 

I found the leap frog letter magnets at the thrift store for $2.00! It had the upper and lower case letters!! So I added the magnets to the sensory tub and used a sharpie to write the letters on a cookie sheet I got at the dollar tree and the kiddos matched the letters. 

My little friends said this was the best center ever ha!

I wanted to change out the filler for this upcoming week so I found these colorful paper shreds at my local Dollar Tree. I spent $10. I also found these foam letter puzzles and thought they would be perfect! So I put the letters in the tub and the kiddos will match them to the puzzles. 

I would strongly encourage you to incorporate a sensory tub in your classroom. It is a super fun and engaging center for your kiddos and Pinterest in loaded with ideas!! It is not super expensive to get started either. go for it your kiddos will thank you! I would eventually like to have a sensory table and am looking into ordering one or having one built for my classroom. 

Now I am off to watch some football and will leave you with a little Bama humor:) Roll Tide!

Head over to Kindergarten Dragons to link up and join in on the fun!