October Smartboard Calendar

If you are interested in my October Smartboard Calendar you can download if from here:

http://schuellerslessons.wikispaces.com/Calendar

Happy Fall :)

I Heart Your Blog Award

Thank You 

Today I received an award from Jody at Camp Kindergarten

Thank you for such a wonderful award.  This is my first award for The Very Busy Kindergarten and I am honored that Jody has recognized my blog as one of her top ten blogs.  

When you are given the I Heart Your Blog Award you must follow the guidelines:

1. Give the "I Heart Your Blog "Award to your favorite Top 10 Blogs that have touched your heart and inspired your teaching by listing them on your blog.

2. Contact that person and let them know of their heartfelt award.

3. When you receive the award, copy and paste the graphic on you blog and give a shout out to the person who nominated you.

4. Spread the LOVE by passing the "Heart Your Blog" Award on to your Top 10.


So here are the Top Ten blogs that Inspire my teaching and touched my heart.................


1.   I love Chalk Talk  ....Mrs. Larremore is amazing.  Her blog has great ideas and she shares a lot of her wonderful ideas.  This is a must read blog.

2.  The Very Cute.........Doodle Bugs Teaching......lots of cute ideas.....and some are even free :)

3.  Miss Wills Kindergarten......This blog has a lot of wonderful ideas....and one of these days I will figure out how she makes those cute scrapbook pages for her layouts.

4.  A Place Called Kindergarten......Another great blog with awesome ideas.....I have learned so much from this blog.  I like her Friday Favorites......

5.  Kindergarten Lessons.........I don't know if this counts as a blog but this site has greatly influenced the way I teach over the past two years.  

6. Kindergarten Creativity  This is a new blog but she has some cute ideas........I like how she used smilebox to motivate her students to read.

7.  Kindergarten Kindergarten  This blog has not been updated lately but has a lot of great ideas.....well worth reading.

8.  Eberhart's Explorers....This blog is full of awesome ideas....practical and easy to do.  I love this blog.:)

9.   Kindergarten Rocks...........Great Ideas on this blog......lots of ideas you can do right away...The kids in my class love the ideas I do from this blog..

10.  Little Warriors......This has been my go to blog for math station ideas....This blog is awesome.  

Sorry some of my links are not working correctly I will fix as soon as possible.  Computer Troubles :0

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3 Ways to Read

I am just starting out with the Daily 5 in my classroom.
It will not be a big stretch for me because I already do some of the basic concepts already in my centers.

My goal is to introduce one new element a week.

This week I am introducing the anchor chart...3 ways to read........

So I started out on Pinterest to see what good ideas there are for posters and I found two that I loved

http://mchaffiek.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-01-30T13%3A10%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=10

and

She even has an excellent student response sheet!  I will definitely use this!

http://frogsinfirst.blogspot.com/2011/08/three-ways-to-read-book.html

I put them together and got.....

Unfortunately the t's did not turn out well in the laminating process......I would recommend taping things down better.  

I love looking on the blogs and Pinterest for good ideas.......thank you :)

Apples Week

This week is all about Apples in my classroom.

We started by sharing the traditional poem: Two Red Apples

Then I had a little secret to share with the boys and girls.....there is a little star inside the apple.  

We made an apple card.

We did a little word hunt in the rhyme with our highlighters.

In the Art Center, there was an apple project too.

Some children even tried to make stars inside their apples.  :)

My Favorite Art Project

I am so fortunate to have a fantastic art teacher at my school.  

Mrs. D.  does  amazing projects with the children.  This is one of my favorites......self portraits.  I absolutely love these.........each one is really unique and wonderful.   The beans for teeth are so funny.  I hang these up in the front of my classroom and they stay up the entire school year.    

They make me smile each day.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Day

Finally the day has arrived in Kindergarten ..................... our first PARTY!!!

We were very excited........

First we put on our shirts....

......then our Leis.

We read our two classbooks

 and  

Next we had CCBB Centers......

We made bracelets

This is Lola's name.

We had a CCBB worksheet I modifed from Making Learning Fun.

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/CoconutTreeColorbyShape.htm

I added a chart on the side where the children counted how many of each shape including the circles.  On the back they did the dot to dot.

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/CCBBNumberDottoDot.htm

Years ago, I made Alphabet and Number Bingo Games for the children to play......

We had a great snack with alphabet letters on them and colorful dots.....all safe treats  made by a parent.  

We watched the dvd....

We had a wonderful day   :)

And as the children left I came them some Chicka Chicka Boom Boom pops I made for them.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

CCBB Look Who Is In Our Room

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Look Who Is In Our Room 

is a name of another class book we made this week.  I created this class book for the children to practice the sight words:  I & am & names of classmates.   The children love this book.   It is generally popular all year long and the children like to read it right up to the end of the school year.  

Number Number Zoom Zoom

I found this idea about 10 years ago at a Susie Haas workshop.  Each year I need to modify it a bit depending on how many children are in the class.

I have to admit it is a lot of cutting and organizing on my part.

It goes to the number 30.  I don't know if she still sells it, here is the link to her website:

http://www.scribbles-n-dots.com/default.html

Getting Ready for our CCBB Party

On Friday my class will have a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Party, so each day we have little projects to get ready for our big day.

During story time we read......

Today during our Math Stations we made, Hawaiian Leis with help from a parent.

The directions were simple.
Make an AB pattern with the flowers and put the same number noodles between each flower.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Trees

This is one of my literacy centers this week.

My students will be working on matching the beginning sound for each letter of the alphabet.

You will need to put these long alphabet strips together ahead of time.

(It is hard to see the black tree trunk on the black window sill.  )

This week the children will color these pictures. 

pictures were from a Susie Haas project

After they color the pictures they cut them out and glue them on to these long strips that I prepared for them.

The entire alphabet strip rolls up and fits inside the coconut tree.......so the whole alphabet will be inside the coconut tree when they are finished.

I will let them put some colorful stickers on the tree to spell their name......I found some letter stickers at Target in the $1 bins.

This is always an interesting project for me........who can do this by her/him self.......who needs a lot of help.    Who has a hard time keeping track of the pictures........

I highly recommend that the children cut out one picture and glue it down right away!!!!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Right Now, in my classroom we are doing a lot of alphabet review.
 All our activities center around the the book, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

I love this book for so many reasons.  

First and foremost....Lois Ehlert is from our state of Wisconsin.   

After reading the story, we painted CCBB t-shirts that we will wear to our CCBB party next week. 

More ideas to come soon........

Dreaming

Thank you, Lori, from Preschool Teacher for inviting me to dream on your blog and share with your readers my wish list item for this year.  

 My name is Sue from The Very Busy Kindergarten, I am new to blogging this year but not new to teaching.

  As a teacher of many years I have accumulated a lot of things over the years and so I am not lacking resources in my room.  The parents where I teach are extremely generous and kind and are willing to provide the best for their children. 

But given the opportunity, I am not above wishing and dreaming and wanting to improve the learning experience I am providing my little learners. 

Right now I am looking at ways to improve my aging listening center.

My tape player is older than the hills and believe it or not the cassettes are starting to fall apart, some are 20 + years old.

So I was starting to think that I need to upgrade……… Will books on CDs be on their way out soon?

Nooks, Kindles, ITouch, Ipads …..books online are the new thing…..So I am thinking I am going to upgrade to the IPad2.

 However, I sure love the feeling you get when you open that Scholastic box with all the new books.