Saturday, October 26, 2013

Five for Friday/TEAM DELANEY


{1} A Kinderlicious Halloween!
So, late Wednesday, I started out with this lovely thrift store find, and dreams of portraying my version of Goldilicious.

A couple of half priced yards of gold lamé later, along with a gallon of tacky glue and oodles of borrowed accessories, Goldilicious was born. She was so happy to meet her friends at school.  

Presenting...Goldilicious, Blualicious, Pinkalicious, Purplicious and Yellowlicious 

{2} Witch's Brew
We've been singing vocabulary rich, Witches Brew by Hap Palmer all month. 


To culminate, we made the cutest ever craft from Miss Kindergarten. You can find it here.  I modified the inside to extend the song and had my kinders put 3 yucky things in their brew (girls???...hmmm).

{3} Patterned Pumpkin Matching Game
Using Patterned Pumpkins from Krista Walden , I made this memory game (a.k.a. Concentration) for my stations.  You can find the clipart here

{4}  Sight Word Flip Books
Having trouble getting your little ones to remember finger spaces?  Try taping a witch finger to your model...works every (ok, almost) time! Witch fingers work great for tracking while reading too!

{5} Last, but not least...TEAM DELANEY

A little story to share about a precious little girl...
Many years ago I had a wonderful room mother named Diane.  I became friends with Diane and her family outside of school.  Diane was special not only because she was my room mother and friend, but she had eight sweet, smart, beautiful children, who teachers would fight over to have in their classroom.  One hot summer night, Diane passed away in her sleep of heart failure, at just 43 years of age. Just two weeks later, her husband passed away, of a broken heart they say.   Her eight children were mostly teenagers at that time.  They all wanted to stay together, so they did.  The two oldest children were in their early twenties and were given guardianship.  Janice was one of the two sisters who dedicated her twenties to going to parent-teacher conferences, handling finances, chauffeuring her siblings to sporting events and sleepovers and all of the other obligations involved in being a parent, including ultimately celebrating graduations.  After all of the children became adults, Janice married a local firefighter and now has children of her own, a baby boy and a two and a half year old girl named Delaney.  Delaney, the fierce one they call her, is fighting the battle of her life.  She's fighting brain cancer and thus, Team Delaney has been formed by her dedicated uncle and the community.   Janice and her older sister, Jennifer, helped me make this scarecrow about 26 years ago when they were very little.  I thought it would be fitting for him to wear the t-shirt this month.   You can find out more about Delaney and her fight here and here. 

though she be but little, she be fierce
~Shakespeare

  

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Throwback Thursday - The Letter People

Mr. N and his Noisy Nose
Anyone out there still doing the Letter People?  We are!!!  The Letter People was a literacy program and PBS television series started in the 1970s.  I bet some of you bloggers are young enough to have met these "Huggables" when you were in kindergarten.  Well, last night, at a Team Delaney Fundraiser, I ran into this cutie, Daniel...


... who I had 26 years ago in my kindergarten class.  I asked him what he remembered about kindergarten and without hesitation he said, "The Letter People"!!! 

My current kinders look forward to Monday morning when they meet a new Letter Boy or Girl and listen to the Letter Person sing.  In these days of assessments, data and iPads, it's refreshing to do something that is proven effective for sound recognition and really hits the affective domain.  My students sing the songs with L-O-V-E and as a bonus, the variety of tempos, rhythms and genres provide music enrichment! 


Sadly, the materials are now only available for a premium on eBay or some really grainy YouTube videos :(

Live on Letter People!  





Saturday, October 12, 2013

Spiders and Bats with a Freebie!



Link up time with Hoots N' Hollers and Doodle Bugs Teaching 









{1} Spider Memory Game
      (Concentration)
Adorable scrappy spiders from Graphics from the Pond were used to make this game.  I simply mounted and laminated pairs of them.  My kinders loved looking and all of the silly faces to find differences in the details.  Thank you Graphics from the Pond!

{2} Silly Spiders 
******FREEBIE******
I used Graphics from the Pond again to make this silly spider color by number.  Get it here for free.

{3} Spiders in a 10 Frame
I got this really fun idea from Miss Kindergarten's blog. We used these perfect pumpkin ice cube trays, found at the Dollar Tree, as manipulative ten frames.  I modified the worksheet, also from Miss Kindergarten, to meet my students' needs.  I really should have put "Roll * Count (spiders) * Color * Write" at the top because, after all, the spiders are the best part!  But the chance of the kinders forgetting that part is nil! I modified one of the die with 2 stickers to block out the 5 and 6 so no rolls could total more than 10.

{4} Hanging Bat Directed Draw w/Labels

We have been working on labeling and learning about bats.  For the drawing tutorial click here.

{5}  Evidence Based Writing with Bats

After reading this book by Kari Schuetz we discussed and wrote about bat facts.

Bat Directed Drawing Tutorial

Tips:  I usually start with the eyes when drawing animals. Kinders have difficulty estimating the starting point in relationship to the rest of the paper, so I usually mark it with a dot.  In this case, I marked a small dot in the center. 

Materials:  Paper, fine-tip black felt markers, crayons, overhead projector or document camera for you to demonstrate on

1.  Model the dots and circle strokes for the eyes
2.  Model head and ears
3.  Model mouth, fangs and body
4.  Model top of wings
5.  Model bottom of wings and legs (the feet are "off the page" but you could draw a branch and feet here as well)
6.  Turn the paper upside-down for a hanging bat

You can extend this art lesson into a reading lesson by adding labels.  Last, have the students color their bats.