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. 

A New Product!

I have definitely enjoyed my week off! I have spent lots of time sleeping. I still can not get into my classroom though. I am one of those people who has their classroom done by now. This is silently killing me I think. Next week will be interesting . . . I hope it all gets done.

About a month ago I started a new project - to create an Interactive Notebook with my district's Kindergarten High Frequency Words. I don't know about you, but my friends have 127 words to learn. Is it me or does that seem crazy to you? Well, I finally finished it this afternoon (it was my goal), and have uploaded it to my store.

There's actually 4 different parts (one for each quarter) and then one large bundle. Here's the link for the bundle in my TPT store.  I'm quite proud of myself! Let me know what you think. If there's anything I need to change or add just let me know.

Now, I must finish packing and be off for a little sun and relaxation before the supreme craziness of next week sets in.

High Frequency Words and Vocabulary

How many High Frequency Words are you students expected to know by the end of the year? This is a question that is often on my mind. My kindergarten friends are expected to know 127 words. Yes you read that correctly - 127 words! Is this normal?

So, how do I organize all of those words for the word wall? I use an index card box and three packages of index card dividers. I turned the dividers around and numbered them by week. Then at the beginning of the year, I take the time to sort the cards based on the week they will be introduced. This may not be much, but with the 897 other things that have to be done each week, it is really nice to just be able to pull the exact words I need with minimal effort.

I also sorted my vocabulary words a few weeks ago so they are easier to locate too. I love having visually appealing vocabulary cards for my friends, but in the past have been overwhelmed with trying to dig through to find them . . . maybe it's more like try to remember where I stored them, having no luck, and reprinting them again. So as part of my goal to make this coming year a bit easier, I organized all of my vocabulary cards! First I sorted all of them. I wish I had taken a picture for you to see them laid across the entire floor. After that, I took some scrapbook paper I had laying around and cut it a tad larger then most of my vocabulary cards to create dividers. Each divider is labeled with the content area and the type of vocabulary cards in the section. Originally I thought I was going to have two bins of vocabulary cards, but I was able to fit all of my Reading, Writing, Math, and Science vocabulary cards in the one bin. WooHoo!! 

My husband did not quite understand how excited I was to organize my vocabulary cards. He was more excited that it didn't cost him any money. Oh the little things.