Peek at my Week of Turkeys!

This is the beginning of many days within the month of November that we have half days, conferences, or NO SCHOOL!  BOO!  We are beginning our GLAD unit on Turkeys and I want to teach!  Yesterday, we did our Inquiry Chart and read our Big Book: Let's Talk Turkeys. Our BIG CONCEPT is: The most important thing about turkeys is they come from North America. We also did an input chart about the parts of a turkey.  They LOVE the word and action for snood!  That piece of skin that wraps around the turkey's beak.  Did you know that?  Ha!
My Kinders were INCREDIBLE with how they are making connections to what we've already learned about living things and GLAD strategies.  We are also continuing to use basic Sentence Frames/Accountable talk frames to foster their acquisition of academic language:

A turkey has_______________________________.

A part of the turkey is__________________________.

The _______________________ and _____________ are similar because________________.

The _______________________ and _____________ are different because_______________.

I've also posted new printables in my TPT store!  Be sure to check them out.

Check out the other blogs who have linked up!

Be Blessed,

Peek At My Week 10

Here we are at a brand new week.  We had great success last week studying spiders.  I stand AMAZED at how effective GLAD strategies are for helping my Kinders acquire academic language.  They have already grabbed onto the BIG CONCEPT: The Most Important Thing About Spiders is they eat pests!  That same vocabulary from chants is transferring to their writing and the ideas they generate when given a sentence frame such as:

The little spider is___________________.

The moment when one of my boys stated "eating pests" I was a BELIEVER!  I'm super excited to join many other teachers in our district who have been selected to attend more GLAD BOOT CAMPS to go deeper with these incredible strategies.

This chants will also set up success with our Sentence Patterning Chart, and later be used for writing.

Chants are a golden way to teach academic vocabulary in a non-threatening and fun way!  We have chanted for anyone who happens to pop into the classroom!

Each GLAD unit has a social skill that you are working on the entire 6-8 weeks. We are working on Being Respectful.  Anytime I see a child or a group being respectful and doing what we've determined, then I will add points to my various tables.

 Here is a sentence frame: if the child gave me a verb it was written on white using green.  If it was a prepositional phrase, it was written in orange to be linked to our sentence patterning chart we'd create the next day.

 Our Input Chart: Each Category is "color chunked: to aid comprehension.

Spiders Syllables from A Differentiated Kindergarten

This week we will finish our Sentence Patterning Chart and begin a Comparison Inquiry Chart for two Books:

Just wait till you see how GLAD Compares two books!  I was floored by this new strategy, since it's usually a Venn Diagram used for comparisons.  Nope!  Stay tuned.  

Come link up to other great bloggers at Mrs. Willis' Kindergarten

or click here: http://www.mrswillskindergarten.com/

Have a wonderful week!

Be Blessed!

Peek at my Week #9

I'm super excited to start Week #9!  We will be spending the next several weeks studying spiders. I participated in a GLAD training last week and am excited to implement the new strategies I received.  
Here are my plans for the upcoming week and a FREEBIE book I made to facilitate learning. Enjoy your week!

Be sure to hop over to Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten and see other great bloggers.

Be Blessed!

Peek at My Week 7

This year is teaching me so much already.  Note to self: when doing a letter craftivity, be sure that all the children have their letters facing the right way...seems obvious right?  Ugh. Between all the other monitoring and and assessing I was doing a few escaped my sights until...they were beautifully glued. Well, tomorrow is a new day. Mistakes are great teachers!

My class will be introduced to Class Dojo this week.  I spent time entering my kiddos into the program and setting us up for success.  If you aren't familiar with Class Dojo be sure to follow this link to a great positive, behavior management system.  I know that my students will buy into it and am excited to share back with you about it!
They have tons of free resources and printables detailing how to make a smooth transition.  The great thing is, it will work with any grade level and you can use any Android device too!     Check it out!

This week we will be exploring Apples and the letter /Bb/.  My students needed some extra time to understand the routines and expectations of Kindergarten, so we are beginning our deeper study of letters now.  This has been a tremendous learning curve for a teacher of 15 years.  Most of the activities that I had re-planned were too difficult, thus I began with truly blank slates.  One may look at the situation and scream but I LOVE a challenge.  I feel privileged that I have been called and chosen to teach at Whittier Elementary.  It's an amazing opportunity to give these children a great jump start...to love learning.  Yes, I will be creating  A LOT of resources, but it will be worth it.  So, if you find yourself discouraged remember that we do a wonderful work.  We are their first taste of magic....hope...opportunity.  What an honor....wouldn't you agree?  Here's a peek at my upcoming week.  Be sure to link up with us at Deedee Wills' page, so you can join in on the fun!

or click here

Here are my Lesson Plans for this week.  If you'd like to download them, just click HERE.  I'd love to hear from you and see what you are all up to this week.  Feel free to leave your ideas and comments here, as well as check out my TPT store for new Printables and Freebies.

Be Blessed,

  

Peek at My Week!

Whew!  The weeks are just flying by!  I missed posting my plans for last week...sorry.  But here is what is happening in the Emerald City this week! We are prepping for our yearly trip to the Pumpkin Patch by studying pumpkins (parts and life cycle) before we have our adventure!  I was thrilled with how much my kids knew about pumpkins yesterday as we began our GLAD inquiry chart.  Today, I will be creating an Input chart with them using realia photos and color blocking to aid their comprehension (pictures to be added ASAP).  Come Link Up with other great bloggers to see what is in store this week in their classrooms, as well!  I have included links to other printables that I will be using this week and they are FREE for you too! 

To download your own copy click HERE and HERE.

or click HERE

Here are the Realia Pictures I will be using today.

Grab your own copy by clicking HERE.  

Lastly, I will be having my students do the hand print pumpkin poem below.  Click HERE to download your own copy.

Have a great week!  Be blessed!

Peek at My Week 2

A big shout out to my new favorite girl, Tami over at Learning and Teaching with Preschoolers!  She has such great FREEBIES on her blog that totally helped me create my plans this week!  Yahoo!  I love people who share!

Feel free to download the plans HERE and check them out! 

Have a blessed week and be sure to hop over to Mrs. Wills' Kindergarten Link Up!