Terrific Tuesday!

Today we read this book

And then completed this worksheet I made to go along with it. 

Here are a few examples from today. 

We also played an ABC Kooshball game on the smartboard.  Each child took a turn throwing a Kooshball at the smartboard.  It then opened up a page with a letter on it.  They told the class the letter name and sound.  I make a lot of different Kooshball games.  The children LOVE them! 

(I'd be more than happy to email it to anyone who wants it.)

 

And we did "The Wheels On Our Bus" from Mrs. Jump's Literacy and Math Fun with Names Unit. 

It was a fun, successful day!  :) 

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First Week Fun!

We survived the first week!  Here's a peek into our first week's activities. 

We spent most of the first day doing activities and games to help reinforce our rules and get to know each other.  My favorites are Simon Says, to help remember "Follow directions quickly" and  Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar, to help learn names.  We always have fun with those! 

We went on our gingerbread hunt/school tour.
I printed each clue on brown construction paper, laminated them, and then hung them around the school for the children to find.   

Gingerbread Hunt Clues

We started reviewing our numbers.  For each number we practice on the smartboard, sing the song, and practice on a paper. 

Number Writing Song

Number Pages

We ended the first day with Abby's Jitter Juice!  This is by far my new favorite first day of school activity! 

We read the poem and highlighted rhyming words.

 Then we made up our own Jitter Juice recipe.

And finally we made the REAL Jitter Juice!  It was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S!

I bought these mini, lined whiteboards from the Target Dollar spot.  Four double-sided boards for only $1!  :) 
A brilliant teacher at my school said she uses them with her Kindergarten class to practice names.  I loved that idea, so I wrote each child's first and last name on the board with a yellow sharpie.  Now the children practice tracing their names and writing them neatly in the lines in the morning and when they have extra time after finishing their work. 

We drew our self-portraits.

We made Abby's First Week of First Grade Book. 

We ended the week with a much needed Sesame Street video about going to school.  Educational, but relaxing.  It was a fun week, but I was very glad for a long weekend to recover.  :) 

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Play Dough Fun!

I decided I needed to try out the play dough ahead of time, to see how it looked, how much it made, whether it did stain hands, etc. I had so much fun testing it out with my friend’s sweet little Max!

He’s a little younger than my intended audience… but just as cute and fun!

I’ve seen play dough mats on a bunch of different websites, so I decided to make my own. I only made a couple to demonstrate with Max, but I plan on eventually making some with numbers, letters, shapes, sight words, and names. I’ll laminate them after they are all printed and cut out. Then, the children will roll the play dough into little snakes, and form the words/shapes/numbers on the cards. I made them with the DJ Inkers font DJ Stitch. I couldn’t decide which font to use. I love all their cute fonts!

Mickey Mouse! Created by the super talented, Michelle!

Kool-aid Play Dough

Mix together:

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup salt

2 pkg kool-aid (unsweetened)

2 tablespoons cream of tarter

Add:

2 cups boiling water

3 tablespoons oil

Mix 3-4 minutes or until cool enough to mix with hands.

Knead and store in an airtight container in refrigerator.

The play dough turned out great. I used fruit punch kool aid and it turned a really nice red and smelled delicious! I didn’t notice it to stain my hands, unless it did but was no darker than my actual skin color. I figured I will need to make 2 or 3 batches for the first day of school activity.

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