Sunday, November 17, 2013

Saturday-Sick, Sunday-Sight Words

Ohmiword, this has been one of the worst weekends E.V.E.R!!!!

At 1AM on Saturday, Coop started coughing and the next thing I heard was vomitting. He choked on the ick he was coughing up. Nothing can wake you up like cleaning up a crying toddler and a crib can. The little guy was wide awake then. We read for an hour, that's right...my lil' guy who is near two will sit for an hour just listening to me read. I left his room and he refused to sleep. Around 2:30, I brought him into my bed for the first time since I brought him home from the hospital. He slept for an hour. I then woke to him "meowing" at my face, LOL. I proceded to sing every song I know for close to 45 minutes.

He choked and vomitted twice after that. Off to the doctor we went. On our way, I got the chills and a fever, ugh! He has a sinus infection. Fortunately, he is in fine spirits :0) On our way home, Coop started saying "uh oh" and the next thing I knew...vomit, E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

We're re-cooping. Today was a day of play, cuddles, songs, and lots of books...plus some wild weather here in the burbs of Chicago.


After finishing up my report cards, I decided to revamp my beginning sound sight word decoder puzzles. Originally, I had only made a handful, but my kiddos have always loved them! So, I remade them and included 38 sight words. Words that are included are: the, to, and, you, it, in, said, for, up, look, is, we, go, little, down, can, see, not, one, my, me, big, come, blue, red, where, jump, away, here, help, make, yellow, two, play, run, find, three, funny. Students take the laminated cards and use a dry erase marker to write the beginning sound of each picture. After writing each beginning sound, a sight word is revealed!

They're laminated and ready to go! Click the pic to purchase.

Beginning Sounds, Sight Word Decoder Puzzles

Here's hoping our week is less eventful than our weekend!
Shannon

Monday, November 11, 2013

Fall Fun and a little sale...



Hello Friends! Or as Coop says (in his deepest voice) HallOW!

Some Coop for your viewing pleasure....


Agnes and her minion


Onto school...
We use PBIS in our school. Our class can collectively earn "Willow Wildcat Certificates"...for every 20, I let my students vote on a party. And, let me tell you, allowing the students to choose whatever pops into their little Kindergarten brains is absolutely silly. I let them pick whatever they want. One year we had a beach day in December. I cranked up the heat and we all wore beach attire, some of them actually wore their bathing suits ALL day. It keeps me on my toes and inspires some creativity on my end.

Our first Wildcat party was a bear party. Too.cute.for.words! We started planning our day and then I took some things from my Bear Unit and our day was planned. One of my little Hoppers asked, "Is Jay Cutler coming to our party?" Ummmm, who? My assistant was dying, first because of the question, second because I had no clue who Jay Cutler was. Upon reflection, perhaps I should have know just based on the fact that he is married to Kristin Cavallari...but hey, I wasn't into The Hills or whatever MTV monstrosity she came from. I mean she's no Teresa Giudice, just sayin'.

I digress...our day included, wearing Chicago Bears colors/clothes, bringing a bear to school, bear snacks (Honeycombs, Goldfish Crackers, and apple juice), tasting and graphing our favorite teddy grahams, making a Bear class book...which is a.dor.able (I wish I had a pic), reading The Three Bears, doing Bear songs....just so much fun. It felt like Kindergarten, ya know when they learned without timing them on everything and expecting them to have first grade brains. Crazy thoughts, I know.

I took a ton of photos, but most of them have my little Hoppers in them and as you can see by picture number two...warping their faces is creepy. It makes me feel like there is the offset chance that someone may be climbing through my television set soon and nobody wants that.


My bear unit is full of some cuteness.


My lengthy description...
OVER 150 pages of FUN! This pack has some of everything, 14 literacy and math activities; including 2 emergent readers, 11 centers, a class book, Teddy Bear Picnic ideas, parent notes, a class graph, and a few whole class activities.



Click on the pic for TpT 

Other Fall Hoppenings...

I found this poem on Little Miss Hood's Adventures in Kindergarten (link to her site on the pic). We used it to start off our Fall Unit. Some of my little Hoppers guesses about what the poem was about was, let's just say interesting ;-)

We made these AWESOME leaves. My kiddos NEED, NEED, NEED all the fine motor help they can get! So, we practiced using stencils and did some labor intensive cutting, but then followed it up with fun sponge painting. I've been making these leaves forever and they always turn out beautiful. Pretty simple...take red, orange, yellow, green, and brown pain and put it on a paper plate (like blobs of paint all over it. Instruct the kids to press lightly into the paint and gently press up and down on their paper. It doesn't matter if the colors mix, as long as they don't go back and forth to paint.



My kids current addiction would have to be Tackle the Quarterback. It's a spin on the math game Bump and they beg for it!


Tackle the Quarterback is in my Fabulous Fall pack on TPT.



Both the Bear, Fall, and Thanksgiving units are on sale this week on TPT, be sure to check them out :)

Have a wonderful week!!!
Shannon