Apples!

Our apple unit is already off to a great start! We have a ton of apple themed lessons going on. Here are a view that we are focusing on this week.

Today we started creating our schema chart about apples. Credit to Mr. Greg over at Kindergarten Smorgasboard for such a good idea! We gave it our own spin by using apple cut outs instead of post-it notes.

  

We will add to this chart throughout the unit. We will be using these books to help us learn as well.

 

One of our literacy centers this week uses my apple themed sensory bin pack. The pack includes differentiated recording sheets. We have already completed the page where students color a letter, so this week we are practicing writing the letters.

The pack also includes apple themed letter cards to place in the sensory bin. I switched it up this week with beans and letter magnets. 

I have also found some great freebies from some other awesome bloggers!

Check out Mrs. Albanese's Kindergarten Class for this bobbing for apples freebie.

 

 We will also be using a free interactive math book from Mrs. Kelly's Klass.

Hope you enjoyed this peek at our week! I'll be sharing more apple fun soon!

Fact and Fiction Cows

In the midst of grad school homework, I am coming to you to share just a small part of our farm unit from the past two weeks. Of course we have been reading a lot of farm literature! So I thought this would be a great way to introduce the concept of fiction and non-fiction.

I decided to focus on just one animal for this activity. I chose cows because most of the students in my class had some general background information.

Our librarian helped me find a wide range of books for our unit. Here are just a few of our favorites.

 

After reading each book, the students had to tell me if they thought the book was fiction or non-fiction. They also had to provide reasons for their thinking.

This part was completed over the course of the unit. We recorded our thoughts on a very simple T-Chart.

As you can see from the chart, the cow theme also went along with our nursery rhyme of the week: Hey Diddle Diddle. The students did a great job!

 

Today we also created a graph about our favorite farm animals. I love using Post-Its for our graphs! The horse was the winner.

Next week we are on to apples!

2015 Classroom Reveal

 

Thank you to Schroeder Shenanigans and Lucky Little Learners for hosting another awesome link up! This month everyone is sharing their classroom reveal. I can't wait to see all of the awesome ideas!

Creating a classroom really is a labor of love. Being a second year teacher, my classroom is mostly made up of hand me downs and yard sale purchases. Also, keep in mind that we have already been "living" in our room for about a month. It might not be perfect, but its our home away from home.

Welcome to Ms. Harlan's Classroom! 

 

 

I kept the owl theme for this year, but I've already picked out my theme for next year!

 

This is our main carpet area in front of the SMART Board and calendar bulletin board. The numbers on the wall are crooked because they are attached with velcro and the students remove/replace them by themselves.

We complete part of our calendar routine on the SMART Board, but we also keep a calendar, our job chart, or growing number line, and some other odds and ends on the bulletin board.

 You can see more details about this board on my #2getherwearebetter post from last month.

 

 

One of my favorite parts of the classroom is our reading and writing area! This includes the library, listening center, and writing center. I change out the materials in this are regularly depending on what we are learning.

There are clothespins attached to the wall to easily switch out anchor charts. You can see that there is also a small clothesline for displaying student work. 

 

 

The little blue chair came from a yard sale and the cushions are actually for lawn chairs.

 

This area is where we keep our workstations/centers and materials for indoor recess. The easel is another yard sale purchase and the kiddos love it! It was definitely worth the 5 bucks!

Here is where I conduct small groups during literacy and math blocks. I have some more clothespins on this wall for rotating anchor charts. I keep all of our small group materials on the white bookshelves. The number posters and small easel are from Really Good Stuff.

Now you are looking at our back wall. You can see our awesome color wall! Look for an upcoming post about that project. I use this bulletin board for displaying student work throughout the whole year. Underneath it is the blue table that we use for computers.

And finally, the desk area! This area is kind of my catch all. The top owl print is from the Dollar General and I painted the bottom one myself. I keep my master copy binders on the top shelf, instructional books on the second shelf, my read alouds on the third shelf, and my snack stash on the fourth shelf (Everyone has one of those, right?) 

 

 

My favorite things in this area are the giant clipboards and the personalized candy dish my sister made for me! The clipboards came with school scrapbook kits and I am not sure that they are available any more.

It may not be much, but it is just right for us!

Thank you for stopping by my classroom!