Five on Friday: Open House

I have been very busy this week preparing for my new class of kinder kiddos! Our open house is on Monday and they will start school on Wednesday.

These are five of my favorite things I have ready for open house.

1.Interactive Door Display

Each student gets an owl for their name and chooses where to put it on the door. Instant ownership of the classroom. Even if they all end up near the bottom ;)

2.Student Gifts

Each student receives a book from our resource center and a bag of Jitter Glitter! I don't know who wrote the original Jitter Glitter poem, but you can find many variations of it on Pinterest. It is so cute to look down at their little heads on the first day and see some of their glitter still stuck in their hair :)

3.First Homework Assignment

I give the students their first homework assignment at open house. It is a family project to help us get to know the students. I also send home the small poster boards with them.

4."Owl" About Me Form

I ask each parent to fill out an "Owl" About Me page giving us a little information about their student and family. You can download your own version for free on my TPT store!

5. Photo Booth!

So fun! I have this up for open house and the first day of school so parents can have a little photo op.

And it includes fun props I made with my Silhouette! 

I am so excited for my new students to get here! Kindergarten Rocks!

11 Back to School Read Alouds

One of my favorite parts of setting my classroom up is getting out all of the great books!

I have a set of books that I keep out for the kiddos in the library. I change these out every couple of weeks depending on what we are learning about. 

Right now it is all ready for the beginning of school!

I also have a special set of books that I keep just for read alouds. Reading aloud time is probably my favorite part of the day.

I LOVE being able to share new books with my kiddos! If you share them with excitement, the students will react to them with excitement. It becomes one of their favorite parts of the day as well. 

These are some of the read alouds I include at the beginning of the year.

1. The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

The Kissing Hand is a back to school classic, so I had to include it! I know most kindergarten teachers read this book within the first week. There are a ton of activities out there to go with this book and make a keepsake hand print. I refuse to get paint out on the first day of school so we just use it to discuss our feelings. 

2. Pete the Cat:Rocking in My School Shoes by Eric Litwin

I read this one of the very first day of school and the kiddos love it! We talk about the different places in school that Pete goes to before we take a school tour. We also make a graph later in the week showing our favorite color of shoes. I use a coloring page and first day certificate from Inspired by Kindergarten that you can download for FREE!

3. David Goes to School by David Shannon

We read about David on the second day of school to review our rules and expectations. Then we do a sorting activity as a class where we sort behaviors into good or bad choices.

4. If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff

Laura Numeroff is one of my favorite children's authors, so I was pumped when Kohl's had her books and stuffed animals this summer. I grabbed the mouse to use as our class pet this year. My dad has named him "Colby". I am going to introduce Colby to the class with this book. Each student will get an opportunity to take Colby home throughout the year. We also revisit this book at the end of the year to write our own "If You Take a Mouse to Kindergarten" stories.

 5. Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London

I love to incorporate this book because it was one of my favorites as a child. I usually use it towards the end of week one as students are becoming more comfortable with school. You have to read it with lots of expression! It is a funny favorite of the kiddos.

6. Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney

 This book is perfect for kinder kiddos during the first week of school! I read it towards the end of day one when they are starting to get tired, cranky, and wondering if their parents are going to come back to get them. 

7. Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff

 

 I use this book during the third week of school to introduce our color unit. It is a very calming book and the illustrations are awesome!! One of my favorite read alouds!

8. Dr. Seuss's ABC Book and 9. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Classics! No kindergarten class should be without these books. I use them, of course, to introduce letters.

10. Never Ride Your Elephant to School by Doug Johnson

Another great humorous book! After reading this book, we make a graph about how we come to school. 

11. How to Read a Story by Kate Messner

I saw this book last year and just had to have it! I can't wait to use it to introduce literacy centers. Many students coming into kindergarten have never sat down with a book. This story is the perfect place to start!

I hope this gives you some ideas about books to read aloud in your own classroom. 

This time is so important to kindergarten kiddos!

Show them your love for reading right off the bat! :) 

Interactive Kindergarten Calendar

Thank you to Schroeder Shenanigans and Lucky Little Learners for setting up an awesome linky party! Today we are linking up to share bulletin board ideas with you.

One thing essential to my classroom is spaces that are functional and easy to maintain. I have two bulletin boards in my classroom. One is completely devoted to displaying student work.

The background is actually the fabric from my college dorm curtains. It lasted the whole year and still looks great for this year.

The other bulletin board is for our calendar time. We complete part of our routine on the Smart Board, but I like having part of it on the bulletin board to reference through out the day.

The actual calendar has wipe-off capability so I have the students physically write the date on the calendar each day. We then discuss what the day of the week is, yesterday, and tomorrow. 

We use the hundreds chart to play games and practice counting. The orange sentence strip is where we will start our number line. We add to it each day.

We keep track of our days of school on the ice cream wipe-off poster. 

I keep our calendar songs in page protectors and change them each month. This set is from growing kinders.blogspot.com. After introducing the songs, I pick a student to lead the songs.

The white sentence strips you see are for our letter of the day and sight words. They also have wipe-off capability and came from the Target dollar spot. 

We also keep our job chart on this board. This owl set is from Carson-Dellosa. 

I attached magnets to the titles and my kiddos' names to make them easy to change out each week. 

I designed this board to be interactive. Anything that needs to be written is completed by the kiddos. 

Like I said earlier, the rest of the calendar is on our Smart board. 

I am so happy to have my bulletin boards ready for the beginning of the year! Only 9 more days to go! :)

Don't forget to go back to the linky party for tons of great bulletin board ideas! 

WWW Wednesday: First Day

Today I am linking up with the Kinder Tribe blog for What Went Well Wednesday.

Click on the button above to check out some kinder teachers' awesome ideas and join in on the link up!

Since we are gearing up for another school year, I thought I would share what went well on my first day of school last year. These are things that I will definitely be implementing again this year with my kinder kiddos.

Line students up with numbers. 

  

This trick works wonders for quickly teaching your students how to form a line. Each of my students is given a number on the first day of school indicating which cubbie is theirs and where they stand in line. 

We practice finding their number a couple of times and after that they are good to go! No arguing about who stands where or confusion when we get in our lunch line. This also works in specials classes that don't have numbers on their floor because the students learn who they stand behind.

Collect a Work Sample

 I collect a work sample on the very first day of school with a simple coloring sheet. This quickly tells me who can write their name and who has never held a pencil before. We complete these sheets again on the 100th day of school to see how much we have  improved. This students love showing their growth!

Ask Your Students What They Want To Learn

I did not take a picture of this, but last year I asked the students "What do you want to learn about?" I gave each student a chance to answer and we recorded their answers on a chart that we displayed in the room. This worked well for many reasons. First, it gave every student the opportunity to participate on the very first day. It also gave me insight into the students' special interests. I then referred to this list throughout the entire year when planning lessons and special units. 

Include Playtime

    This is an entirely new setting and experience for your students. Build in some playtime during those first few days for them to explore and interact. They will be very curious and will also need the break time during those long first days.

Thank you for stopping by! Please leave comments if you have any questions about our first day of school.

Don't forget to also head back over to The Kinder Tribe for the linky party! 

Guided Reading Essentials

Yesterday I shared a Periscope about the essentials that I keep behind my guided reading table. Thank you to all of the viewers and hearts! :) Just in case you missed it, I thought I would do a round-up of the things I shared.

This is what my small group table looks like. On the top you will see that I have a numbered bin and binder for each group. I keep the lesson plans, data, and notes for each group in their individual binders. I also keep each groups' books and written work in those bins.

Under the bins you will see two green buckets. This is where I keep all of my essentials for guided reading and math. These are products and resources that I want at my fingertips because we use them all the time!

Here is a peek into the contents:

Alphabet Charts and Flashcards

These are especially important at the beginning of the year, but I use them all year long. The chart is from our Breathrough to Literacy program, but you can download them off of Teachers Pay Teachers as well. We use these to practice letter identification, sounds, and for reference when writing. 

Alphabet Game and Paper Keyboards

I found this alphabet game at Walmart last year and the kiddos love it! They asked to play it all year. They draw out a cookie and have to identify the letter that is on it. If the cookie has a bite taken out of it, they have to put all their cookies back into the jar! As the year progresses, I have them identify the letter sound or a word that starts with that letter. 

The keyboards are a free download from the blog Primarily Speaking. We get these out to practice typing sight words.

Sight Word Flashcards

The Crayola flashcards are from Dollar Tree and have examples of words with digraph and blend sounds. I keep these so I have a word list ready for any sounds we are practicing. I made the sight word flash cards with index cards. Often I spread the cards out across the table and have the students find and "slap" a card as quickly as they can.

Elkonin/Sound Boxes

I actually have sound box stamps, but you can print off many free versions. I put ours in page protectors so we can wipe them off and use them each week. (These need to be cleaned from last year!) We always start with two sound words and work our way up. Love using these to help students segment sounds!

Question Spinners

This set of guided reading question spinners is from Creative Teaching Press. They include a book preview, story elements, and reading comprehension questions. We don't use these every day, but they are a great way to keep the kiddos interested and volunteering to answer questions.

I also shared some books that have been extremely helpful to me when planning guided reading lessons. You can see all of the tabs I have marked in there! Both of these books are great for primary students of all reading levels.

If you have any questions about our guided reading or any of the resources, please feel free to leave a comment below!

Meet This Kinder Teacher!

I am so excited to participate in the Kinder Tribe's first linky party! The Kinder Tribe collaborative blog just launched yesterday and they are giving away some AWESOME prizes. So, head on over there to enter and participate in the linky party! Just click on the button below.

 

I have already met so many great teachers through my tribe. You can click through their blogs at the bottom of the linky post and get to know them a little better.

Here is a little bit of info for you to get to know me!

You can also click on my social media buttons at the top of the page or search for my username:

Instagram: @case_harlan

Periscope: @case_harlan

Pinterest: Grow and Enjoy

Thank you for stopping by! Make you sure you check out kindertribe.blogspot.com to meet the other teachers!

Five for Friday: Classroom Tips

I have been very busy working in my classroom and wanted to share five classroom tricks and tips to help you out this year! These ideas are super easy and cheap! Yay!

One of the most frustrating problems with setting up a classroom is hanging things on the walls. You have limited space and things either fall off or pull off paint.

 #1: Buy a pack of clothespins at Dollar Tree and attach them to the walls with Command strips.

 

I love this because I can easily change out posters throughout the year without a hassle! And the posters don't fall off the wall onto a student's head!

 #2: Cut up alphabet banners from Dollar Tree to create flashcards for literacy centers!

 

Last year we had these donated to us and I had no idea what to do with them since I already had alphabet banners. Now I seriously use these flash cards all the time! They are super cheap so you can make multiple sets for students to use during literacy centers, your own guided reading groups, and for your para-educator. 

We mix them up and practice letter naming fluency, sounds, magnetic letter matching, etc. They are also super handy to pull out when a student is struggling with writing a letter. I have them practice tracing the letter on the card with their finger. 

 #3: Give each student a pom to use as a white board eraser.

I've seen the Pinterest posts where teachers glue a pom onto the tops of markers and honestly, I just don't get it. I don't have time for that! And do you do it all over when the markers run out?!

Just giving the kids a black pom works for me because A) It's cheap B) It's effective C) It doesn't take up my time and D) They are easily replace if lost or swept up by the janitor.

That's enough for me! 

 #4: Use page protectors to give everything a wipe-off surface!

I put almost all of my center activities and games in page protectors. Kiddos use the dry erase markers, wipe them off with one of the poms, and they are ready for the next center. This helps your school save on paper and printer ink. Plus, I always keep mine ready for easy sub planning or a center emergency (paper jam, computer probs, para-educator dealing with potty emergency, etc.) 

 #5:Put your name somewhere visible for student reference.

Students want to include you in their drawings, stories, and notes! Place your name somewhere in your classroom for their easy reference so they don't have to ask how to spell your name everyday :)

I keep my name on the front of my desk and the students always refer to it.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope these suggestions save you time and frustration as you are setting up your classroom!