Five for Friday . . . Fraturday

Let me just start that I began blogging this post last night, fell asleep, and then spent the day taking my mother - in - law to the airport and running errands with my husband and E. It is now 9:00, and we have been ready for bed since 7:30.

So after taking the last 7 weeks off to focus all of my attention on to being a mommy, I am finally ready to return to my little space in the blogging community. What better way to rejoin than with Doodle Bugs weekly Five for Friday now Fraturday . . .

This week I returned to work. While I love being a mom, I also love being a teacher. I wish I could just strap E to me and bring him along. It was a slightly crazy week with the end of the quarter with grades due today by noon. Monday was a district work day, and Wednesday my school provided subs for all of the kindergarten teachers to have a planning day. Enjoy my five highlights from the week.

I've really been trying to figure out how to explain what went on in my classroom while I was away. In January, my district decided to contract all subs through a third party. Because of this, my administration and I did not get to select who would be my long term sub. Let's just say I've had a lot of nice, thoughtful, brilliant, intelligent colorful language. Look closely at this photo and see if you can figure out how many things are wrong. My husband and I spent 2 hours Monday night sorting through and organizing all of the centers I had left for her. It looked like she threw 8 weeks of reading and math centers into three bags. I could dedicate an entire post to just the mistakes she made. Let's just say it was BAD!!

 My friends should have learned about matter while I was gone, but that would have required a sub who read plans and actually wanted to teach my friends. Obviously that didn't happen so we did one of my favorite experiments for matter. This experiment requires, a snack size bag, ice cubes, and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. We start by placing ice in a snack size Ziplock bag. Partners then had the challenge of changing the ice from a solid to a liquid (it does help that it is still 85 degrees here in Florida). Then we added one Alka-Seltzer tablet  to the baggie and watched  a gas form as the bag expands. My friends understand solids and liquids, but gases are harder for them to understand, but with this experiment they are able to see a gas right in front of their face.

I took some time redoing the words for my word wall and creating two charts for our first and second quarter High Frequency Words. I noticed that our HFWs were getting lost with the letters. It was just very busy and hard to determine what the words were because they had a heavy border around them.  So I created all new word cards. It is turning out much better than I thought. I also took the first and second quarter words and made a chart for each quarter. Then I added name badges for each chart. As my friends master the set of words, their badge will move up to the next chart. I normally do something similar at the end of the year, but I am hoping will encourage my friends to learn their HFWs now. I still have the third and fourth quarter words to write. Once they have all 127 words they will move their name badge to a chart that says, "I'm ready for First Grade!". I love healthy competition and encouragement, and this provides just that.  

This week it was nice to be back in my classroom with my friends working together. There's something I love in helping my friends learn to work together, have fun, and achieve a task or goal. I can definitely tell the few who ran circles around the sub, but I know they have missed me and are ecstatic I am back.

It wouldn't be right unless I included the highlight to my week: coming home to Edison. He has grown so fast. About two weeks ago he finally started wearing 3 month clothe and in about 3 weeks he will be completely out of them. I'm trying to have him wear as many as he possibly can. E has some adorable outfits, but the weather is still too warm for many of them. 

That's about it. This coming week is Read Ribbon Week among every child's favorite free candy holiday. We'll be working on some creative character projects this week. I hope they turn out. Check back to read all about it. 

Modifying the Daily 5

Once upon a time I taught second grade. There were many aspects of second grade that I loved including implementing the Daily 5 into my classroom. When I made the giant scary change to kindergarten several years ago I couldn't quite process how to implement the Daily 5 in kindergarten. There's just a lot more moving parts (and kids) in kindergarten that all have to turn and function at the same time. It was slightly daunting. So upon my third year in kindergarten I think I have figured out a manageable solution! YAY!!!

Due to time restrictions and other requirements by my district, it is just not reasonable for my friends to complete all five components each day, but we can get to two a day. So my friends will participate in one reading based center and one writing or word work center each day. It is also not reasonable for my friends to self select their own centers as we start off. Students will look at the pocket chart to determine where they will be going. Once I have more friends in my class the groups will be split into teams of two. One team will go to one center while the other team is at the other center. Then they will switch and complete the other center. For example the giraffes have four friends, the top team will Reading with a Buddy while the bottom team is at Word Work C. When it's time to switch, the top team will go to Word Work C and the bottom team will go to Reading with a Buddy. My friends will learn to switch with each other and then they have someone built-in if they need help. Throughout the year I will give them more freedom, but for now I am guiding them to where I want them to be. The picture below highlights how I paired each of the components together.

Read with a Buddy
My friends will complete this twice in a week. One time partners will get to select their own books and read together on the carpet. Students will have complete control over what they choose to read. The other Buddy Read Station revolves around the Monthly Poetry units from DeeDee Wills. The BUNDLE can be found HERE. Each week we read a new poem and as a class complete the corresponding activities. The next week this poem can be found in the center where partners complete the activity and record their work.

Read to Self
I chose to only set this up as a station once a week because my students have many opportunities to read books throughout the week. As the year progresses, this may change but it works for us as we start the year.

Listening to Reading
This is also a center my students will do twice a week. One time my friends will go to our listening station where they will listen to a story I have selected and complete a task I have left for them. The other time they are at Listening to Reading my friends may choose between listening to a story in the computer through Tumblebooks or StorylineOnline. Eventually, I have four older ipods I have used in the past for Listening to Reading. My goal the next few weeks is to get them updated and allow my friends to have this as an option too.

Work on Writing
Twice a week my students will be Working on Writing. One time my friends will complete an activity from the Monthly Writing Station units also from DeeDee Wills. The BUNDLE for this can be found HERE. My favorite part of this center is how the activities build off of each other. The other time my students are at writing, they will complete some Write the Room activity. Currently this center revolves around finding the cards with pictures that start with our current letter of study. Then they write the word. It's a great way to provide additional beginning sound practices. Throughout the year, this will change to Read and Write the room for HFW .

Word Work
In Kindergarten this seems like a much BIGGER component than it was in second grade. IT'S HUGE!!! So my friends will be doing three - yes three - different word work activities. I have found I love the monthly centers from The Printable Princess. Her centers include several opportunities for students to practice different skills and include an accountability piece. Plus, each month the routines stay relatively the same. I do have many other centers that I pull out, but I have found that her centers seem to be the bulk of what I use.

The best part was my class did one round of centers today AND they were successful!!!!! Today is the 6th day of school. This has never happened!!! Happy Birthday to Me (It is this week)!!!!! My friends did a fabulous job!! Hopefully the rest of the week will be just as fabulous.

The Orange County Housewives Reunion Part 1 is on tonight! Let the fighting commence!