Calling All Kinder Teachers!

I am laid up at home sick today completing resting and relaxing going crazy in my mind all of the things I need to do. I have a question for all of you Kindergarten Teachers. It is hard to believe, but we are planning for Kindergarten Registration in 2 weeks! I freak out just writing that! Having said that, I am grateful it is early this year. Here is why: Our district is HUGE on kindergarten readiness. Our school started an initiative in our district with a few activities to make sure our kiddos were ready for Kindergarten when they came to us. We came up with a way to help those parents be prepared and ready for the big Kindergarten year. Here is what we do at my school:

• As parents register their child, we give them a gift bag that includes a T-shirt, upcoming dates, parental information and newsletters.
• They then sign up for an assessment date (in April) to have their child play "fun games" in which we assess what they know.
• On this date, we assess their child on letters, sounds, colors, rhyming, counting, number recognition, beginning sounds, and sight words. They then meet with the principal so he/she can discuss what they need to be working on and are given a handout on how to do this. This is where we can really stress those kiddos that need to be working on their letters over the summer.
• In May we have an ABC night with free food and activities to teach students and parents ways they can read with their child and work on letters/sounds.
• In June we have a 123 night in which we do the same except with numbers.

I have to say that although this all takes a lot of time, it is SO worth it. We asses the students when they enter K to see if they have improved and we usually see some improvement. It gives parents a chance to say "Whoa! I need to get on it!" We also really get to know the parents and kiddos before they come and this really lessens the amount of tears we have on the first day (by kiddos, not necessarily parents - they still cry! :)

So..here is my question - Do you do anything to prepare students for K or any type of pre-registration? I would love any ideas, websites, handouts, etc. I'm looking for a couple of things to jazz this up a bit. If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer then!

Oops and a Sale

I know we are all knee deep in Dr. Seuss this week. We are having so much fun! I had a small Ooops! in my Dr. Seuss unit. On page 69 on the tree picture I had the word telephone, not tree. That is now fixed so you can go back to TPT and redownload it. You should just have to re-print page 69! Sorry for the error and thanks for letting me know! I probably wouldn't have noticed it until we were doing it on Thursday and Friday!
I am throwing my first sale in my TPT store on Wednesday! I will have everything 20% off and along with TPT's sale of 10%, you can stock up! I know I will be! Just click below to go to my store! Thanks!

As promised....A Freebie

I think I promised a freebie to go with my Dr. Seuss unit, but I'll be honest. I'm Dr. Seussed out! I worked on that unit for so long that I was seeing The Cat in the Hat run around my house. I have all of my Dr. Seuss things pulled, ran, and laminated so I am ready to move on to St. Patrick's Day! It is my FAVORITE holiday (at school anyway). I LOVE it. Why you ask? Because my favorite color is GREEN! I can't get enough of it. I seriously own NO red, orange, purple, or yellow clothing. Like none. My closest consists of green, black, green, black, pink, green, pink, and green.
We do it up big time for St. Patty's day. As in we do the leprechaun traps and all. We have really good parental involvement so these traps are so good! (As in dad does it all and it takes a Masters degree to figure out how to work it.) Here is the note I send home asking for traps. You can grab yours by clicking on the note.

That sneaky little booger starts visiting about a week before the big day. One day he leaves shamrock confetti, one day he messes up DESTROYS the room, one day he leaves us little treats (necklaces and glasses), and the last day he leaves his little green footprints all over the room. We have to go on a hunt and find clues until we come back to the room and he left us his pot of gold (chocolate coins). They love it and I find it so sweet that they totally think he is real!

We also graph Lucky Charms cereal and answer questions. My kiddos love graphing (especially if it involves food). Click on one of the photos below to grab your FREEBIE in my store. I would love it if you would follow me and leave me some feedback if you grab it! Thanks!

Seuss Fun and Freebie Coming Soon

Whew Wee! I FINALLY finished my Seuss Fun unit!

It is 71 pages of Math and Literacy Centers! I have worked all.weekend.long. I love doing these units but they take up lots of time! :) You can check it out here in my Teachers Notebook store or in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I promise to work on a freebie this week to go with it, so check back. I can't spend another minute on it. My family, house, and bottom can't take me sitting down anymore!

And the next holiday is...

Dr. Seuss' birthday. That counts as a holiday right? I mean, I have to have a "theme" to decorate my room. It looks so bare once Valentine's is down so I am on to Dr. Seuss very soon! I like to spend the whole week before his birthday doing fun (and educational of course) activities related to his books. I've been stalking checking out ObSEUSSed lately. Have you seen her blog? WOW! I love it!

So as I am planning this week, here are a few things I am definitely doing:

I LOVE this from First Grade Fresh to go with Oh the Places You'll Go.

via pinterest

I thought these were good for Cat in the Hat:

via pinterest

A fun math activity from Lil' Country Kindergarten

via pinterest

I am SO doing this for one of my kiddos scrapbook pictures for March:

via pinterest

We always doing something school-wide for Read Across America Day. This year each teacher chooses a book and craft to do. Students can sign up to visit the classroom of their choice for the 45 minute block. I am doing the Lorax.

I found this cute craft. I can't wait!

via pinterest

Our sweet lunch ladies are making these for each kiddo on that day. We have the BEST cafeteria staff!

via pinterest

I am working on a Dr. Seuss unit that I would love to finish up this weekend! I have found tons of units I have in my cart on TPT and hoping to make a decision which ones I will purchase and use that week. What are you doing for Dr. Seuss' birthday?

Happy Valentines Day

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone had a great day! It was CRA-ZY in my class but we had oh.so.much.fun! Here is a sneak peek of what we did:

 They LOVED racing to 50 from Live Laugh Love in Kindergarten found here:

We graphed our conversation hearts. This was a freebie from my Teachers Notebook store:

The most challenging thing we did was unscramble word wall words from Cara Carroll:

I have to say this was a bit challenging too. We are having lots of trouble this year with question words. This is from Randi from Teach It With Class in her Owl Love You Forever unit at her TPT store:

We loved Babbling Abby's Be Mine Boxes. I have to say we had beads rolling everyone and I may have to think of something different to count! :)d

I have to show you one of the CUTEST Valentines that my kiddos brought in. (Obviously I blocked the picture and name.) His mama found the idea on pinterest.

Also, I keep a scrapbook of the kiddos all year and take 2-3 pictures of them each month to include. Here is what I took for today's photo. I thought the Heart "frame" was pretty cute.

 Hope you had a great day! I have two really good friends with some very ill family members and they are both having a hard time tonight. I would love any extra prayers you could send! Thanks!

Drama For Your Mama and Bad Words

Whew wee! I am SO glad I teach Kindergarten. I.kid.you.not. I COULD NOT teach intermediate. It just isn't in my blood! We have a few 5th graders who don't like "recess" time so they come down to help primary teachers during this time. I totally get that. That was me. I would have WAY rather help a teacher than go run and play outside. So I have had one little girl come down since early October. She pulls kids and tests with rainbow words, math facts, etc. Lately 2 other girls have been coming as well. I love some volunteers but I TOTALLY snapped yesterday. I had noticed during morning duty, halls, etc that those girls had some DRAMA, but didn't know how much DRAMA they come with. They had a little PowerPoint they had made to show the kiddos. They went to go put it on their USB to come back to show us. Long story short. They come back hands on hips, finger snapping with the "She did this" "Well she did that" "No I did.ent" You get it. I lost it. I basically said "You better be glad you aren't in my class. I have these sweet kinders because I don't do all the drama and if you have drama you can stay in 5th grade land. All that drama is poison and I don't want it anywhere near me or my classroom." I was so ugly, but I just can't take all of those hormones. Well...they didn't come back! :) I hope I wasn't too hard on them, but I don't do well with all of those hormones. I like my sweet babies who the only drama they have it "He cutted".
Know what else I like about my sweet K kids? They don't know when they are flat out cussin'. We are working on rhyming words. We need all the help we can get. Usually I make them come up with "real" words but at this point....I'll take anything. So we are playing around the world. I give a word the kid has to yell out a rhyming word. Here is how this game went today:
Me: Cart
Student A: SHART (Hee. Hee. Yep. That is the 5 year old coming out in me. I lost it. They have no idea.)
Me: Duck
Student B: F*@! (And no one said a word. Seriously. No one went UH OH! Wasn't sure if it was such a common word that they didn't know it was bad or they had never heard it and didn't know it was bad).
Me: Leaf
Student C: ...well I can't even put it on here. It's so embarrassing.

So...that is what kind of day I had today. How about you? I've been so busy posting for Teacher Blogger Giveaways that I haven't had much time to give this blog TLC. I'll be back more often and with some good stuff soon. Don't leave me!

Giveaway Number 1 and winners

Okay so giveaway #1 is up at Teacher Blogger Exchange and the winners are posted! It was scheduled to post at 6 am (well so I thought...I had pm). Sorry! :) Congrats to the winners! From now on, all posts will be up by the early morning! Make sure you add our new blog to your google reader and put us in your blog roll! You won't want to miss these giveaways.