Encouragement for New Teachers

Ages ago I had website with great resources for new teachers.  I would love to rebuild some of these resources for teachers.  Here's my first shot! :)


Jennifer at Simply Kinder shared this great resource that I'm sure you all would love!  Take a look!

What Would You Tell Your First Year Teacher Self?

I'll be adding my favorite new teacher resources!

Summer Bucket List

I'm happy to say I made it through my first year as a KINDERGARTEN TEACHER!  This was an exciting year.  As I look back, I realize I didn't do all I wanted to do and there is so much more that I want to do next year.  I also have a loooong SUMMER BUCKET LIST for my classroom.

The top of the list are two things I wanted to do last year but didn't:  Completely organize my library and organize and label all of my math manipulatives!  I know I can do it!

What are your plans for your classroom this summer?

But the most important plans for the summer are to have fun with this little girl, my Breha!

Rocks and Soil

Today we continued our study of rocks and soil by collecting soil samples from our playground.  Tomorrow we will make observations about the soil we collected.

We also read Rocks:  Hard, Soft, Smooth and Rough and sorted our own groups of rocks by properties.

Here's my first post about our Rocks and Soil unit.  Introducing Rocks and Soil

Class Dojo

Do you use Class Dojo in your classroom?  I started using it this year!  I'm still trying to decide if I love it or not.  I definitely love some things about it.  Some things about it I don't like :).

The first day I was out and knew I would have a substitute I worried about what to do about Class Dojo and my sub!  This teacher does exactly what I do!  I feel so smart LOL!  Take a look and see what Juliet at Tech Crazy Teacher does!

For more on Class Dojo visit this site!

100th Day of School

This year our 100th Day of School fell on a Friday before the long Dr. King holiday weekend!  How great was this?  We did loads of math activities with the number 100.  Many of the ideas we used came from Pinterest.  We also had a costume contest and a door decorating contest.  Here are some pictures!

Here is our door.  We made "Smarties" candies.

This is our neighbor's door, decorated to look like the number 100, how fun!

Another kindergarten classroom with 100 words!

Math & Technology Night

Each year our school celebrates learning in math and technology through our "Math and Technology Night!"  This year we had a carnival theme.  Here are some pictures from our kindergarten carnival games and activities.  All of our games focused on beginning addition as that's what we were starting to teach at the time of the carnival.  The ideas are from a variety of resources on the web...mostly modified from Pinterest :) one of my favorite places to visit on the web!

This is the entry to our hallway.  We used  bulletin board paper to decorate the entry way. 

One of our games was "Duck Pond."  Numbers were written on the bottoms of the ducks.  Students picked two ducks and added the numbers together, using the cubes provided, if needed. 

We purchased the ducks at the Dollar Tree...three ducks for a dollar!

Another game was "Toss and Add."

We used posterboard to make "circles" for the targets.  Students threw bean bags into targets and added the numbers together.  

We sent each family home with a packet of activities for working on math at home and an addition game and cubes to play at home. 

We got the game from Teaching in Progress

Egg Hunt Fun

Friday was our last day of school before SPRING BREAK!  We celebrated with "Careers on Wheels" and an egg hunt!  For our egg hunt, students brought in eggs and candy.  I filled the eggs with sight words and addition and subtraction problems.  I saved the candy and made each child a goody bag to take home after the hunt.

The idea for our bunny bags came from All Kids Network.