Busy Year So Far!

So this year has already been so busy in school and out of school. I am having a blast getting to know my new little babies. There are really sweet and I am beginning to see our routines connect. This year as a team we decided to change our literacy center time and make it like the Daily 5. This has definitely been a challenge because I am really not sure what I am doing. We are introducing it a little slower then the book suggest, we are taking two weeks to introduce each part. I am slowly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We are also changing out math center time based on the Debbie Diller book. My school district has changed our math plans to base it on this concept. Changing both of these center times has made me feel like a first year teacher again. I know it will all be worth it in the end but man is it exhausting! Hopefully I will get back some time and get some pictures posted of my classroom. I have made many changes! Enjoy your FRIDAY!!!

~ Miss. Foehser

MIA

Well, it has been a long time since I have posted anything. Now that summer is behind us and a new school year has begun it is time to get busy. There have been many changes in my classroom this year. One of the main ones is having 22 students in my room. It is amazing how adding 3 students can make the room feel smaller and change how the room feels. Another change is we are going to be doing the Daily 5, which I am really excited about! We are changing it a little to make it a little easier for kinder, such as making it only 4 days and 4 centers. We also are going to introduce it by taking a little longer then they do in the book. I will let you know how it works out. Then my district is making math centers more along the lines of math workstations, like the Mathwork Stations book by Debbie Dillar. This is nice because I was planning on attempting this anyway this year, so I am a little ahead of the game. If anyone has any suggestions on either one of these management ideas, I would love to hear them. I hope that your school year has started off good!

~Miss. Foehser

Giveaway!!

Hello,

Head over to Patton's Patch and enter her giveaway. She has hit 400 followers and is celebrating. Below is the link to her blog...GOOD LUCK!!!

Patton's Patch

~ Miss. Foehser

Turtles

Well this week our theme is pond and pond animals. Today, we created our own turtles using paper bowls as the turtles shell. I saw this in a copy of a Mailbox page that a teacher on my team had. I went online and found the legs and face of the turtles (Turtle Parts). They used watercolors to paint the bowls and crayons to color the legs and head. Then, I had them think if they were a turtle what would they want to carry in their shells. They could either draw pictures or write words, and then they glued them inside the bowl. I decided I wanted to hang them in my room so I went around and added a staple to make sure they didn't come off. They turned out super cute, and the kids had so much fun doing them!

 Using watercolors to paint the bowl.

Coloring the legs and head of the turtle.

The finished product...hanging from the sealing!

~Miss. Foehser

New Layout!

Hello All,

Well I am super excited that I have finally found the way to change the layout! I hope you enjoy the new look and I'm sure it will get changed often! I hope you have a great rest of the week!! :)

~Miss. Foehser

Oviparous Animals

Like I said in the previous post we studied about oviparous animals a couple of weeks ago. This is an activity that I created to reinforce the knowledge of silent e. Each group makes a silent e word. The students add the egg to the end of the word. They must then read the word and find the correct picture to go above it.

Eggs-ellent Eggs

Let me know if this worked or not. This is the first time I have posted an activity.

~Miss. Foehser

Eagle Nest

Last week my kindergarteners were learning about oviparous animals. They really enjoy this unit because it has to do with animals. We do all types of activities to help them learn which animals lay eggs. At the beginning of the week one of our 5th grade teachers sent out a link that showed an eagle's nest with three eggs that were supposed to hatch sometime around the 1st of April. I started showing it to them and they loved watching the eagle sit there. A few times we saw the eggs when the eagle would switch we was sitting on it. The first eagle hatched on Saturday the 2nd and the second one hatched on Sunday. On Monday we got to see the two babies being fed by either the mom or dad (very hard to tell which one is which). They loved it!

This is from the live feed. The mom/dad eagle is feeding the babies. I have a video that I took but I will have to try uploading it later. It is not wanting to work right now! :( 

Here is the link to view the live feed. My kinders still ask if I can turn on the eagles.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/decorah-eagles

ENJOY!!!

~Miss. Foehser

Farm Unit/Open House

Well, it has been a while since I last posted. So this unit we did at the beginning of March, but better late then never. We use our farm unit to display for open house. Below are some pictures of the activities that we do.

This is the example that I used to show my kids of what they could do on their barn. We use these as a portfolio to hold of the kids work. 

This is my kids painting the spots for their wind socks. Each windsock is then hung above their chair. 

Here are the wind socks completed. They love these and got so excited when I hung them up.

 For this activity they used squares, circles, triangles, and rectangles to create an animal. Sorry it is a little hard to see.

Throughout the two weeks leading up to open house we research farm animals. After we read a few books on the animal we recall the information and put it on a poster. They then have to choose two facts to put in their research journal. This year I laminated the posters to reuse them each year. I then hang them up around the room for decoration. You can also see in the picture our directed art horse. We create a barnyard in our hallway and each class makes a different animal. I will post a picture of the hallway later this week.

We do so many different activities for open house. This is just a few that I had pictures of. I hope these will come in handy some day for you!

~Miss. Foehser

Awesome Blogs!

I just added a couple of blogs that I have recently found. I have loved getting to go through and find great ideas that other teachers have tried. I think we can learn some great ideas from communicating with other teacher and finding out what has worked and what has not worked. To get to the list of blogs that I follow you have to scroll all the way to the bottom. These are just the ones that I have added, I will add more later. So, make sure to check back!

~ Miss. Foehser

I'm Finished!!!

Throughout the year I have ben trying to figure out the best thing for my students to do when they finish their work. I usually had them choose a book from the library but then some were reading. While others are constantly up to get a new book. So over the last week I have put up two file folders on my board with extra work. They know that if they finish their work they may go choose something from one of the folders. The work that I put in the folder is usually something that we would have done but didn't have enough time for.

Here is a picture of what it looks like.

~ Miss. Foehser

Valentine Critters

I know that we have already past Valentine's Day but my kids really enjoyed creating these. I pass out different size hearts to each table and different colors of construction paper. They have to create "critter" out of hearts. They then glue the "critter" on a piece of black construction paper and complete the writing prompt "My critter is a________." Here are a view pictures of how they turned out this year.

~ Miss. Foehser

Learning to Blog

Well, let me start by saying that blogging is all new to me. I am learning as a go and I am very excited about beginning this. I hope to post a least one new idea each week, but as you all know sometimes life gets crazy! If you ever have any suggestions to something that I post I would love to hear them.

Over the last month I have loved going through other blogs and finding some amazing ideas that I can't wait to implement into my classroom.

~ Miss. Foehser