Our Class Pet

Meet our class pet Lucy!

She is an excellent, quiet pet and  I don't have to feed her.  The kids love her!  The inspiration for Lucy came from these books:

I loved this cute little beagle in the books. When I spotted the adorable stuffed animal beagle above, I couldn't resist. 

Lucy has a couple different jobs. When students are sitting nicely and being great listeners, she can sit in their lap for a few minutes. This is a great incentive! 

She also makes a great reading buddy!

Soon, she will get to spend the weekends with students. They will be asked to read with Lucy over the weekend.  Students will fill in a journal about their time with Lucy and share it with the class on Monday.

You can grab this freebie here.

The kids have been excited with Lucy from day 1. She is great addition to our little classroom family.

A Peek at My Week

Hi! I thought that I would share what my week will look like this year.  Not surprisingly, over the course of this first week, there were some minor changes but nothing too big! I am so lucky to have only 10 third graders this year.  To me that means lots of small(er) group and individual instruction opportunities!  This is going to be a great year for my students and for me!  This week, we spent most of our time practicing the routines that we will use for each of our subject areas and for things like entering the classroom, walking through the hallways, and turning in work.  I think I have a pretty good schedule set. Although we are required to teach Religion first thing in the morning (I would prefer to teach Religion in the afternoon), I think I have a good amount of time for the other subject areas. Below is my weekly schedule:

I plan to use 20/80 (20% whole group 80% small group) for both Math and Language Arts this year.  I am also going to try to use this model at least 2 days a week for Science and Social Studies.

Check out some of these pictures of Science small group practice from this week:

Hands on "Observation Station"

Fact Finder station

Vocabulary Sort Station

Yesterday marked our first full week of school and so far, my students have been rocking the small groups! I have loved the enthusiasm and authentic learning that I have seen.  I look forward to starting our first unit in the Treasure's reading series, Numbers to 10,000 in Singapore Math, and learning about rocks and minerals next week!

I hope everyone is having wonderful first days of school and if you haven't started school yet, enjoy your last days of summer!

Caitlin

Kindergarten Classroom Tour

It is so hard to believe school starts Monday!!  Although I'm excited, I am already tired just thinking about the first day.  There will definitely be caffeine involved.  I am lucky to have a nice, big classroom.

I am never truly done with my classroom, but here is ready for the 1st day.

Focus Wall and Stations/Centers
Number posters by Proud To Be Primary
Comprehension posters by Class of Kinders

The picture above includes my focus wall. We will add anchor charts throughout the year.  You can also see the classroom library, computer station, and word work station.

Here is a close up of my word work station, mainly because  I love to show off my pretty table my husband painted for me! 

 

I love the pretty book boxes I found at the Dollar Tree. I bought all the green and blue ones they had! I couldn't fit all of them on one shelf, so the rest are over the nap mats.

Classroom Library

Teacher area and small group table

All the math manipulatives in one place

Calendar Math

Word wall, prayer wall, and big book stand.

I am using chair colors to let students know which table they sit at.  The plastic drawers will hold their crayons and folders.  No one ever needs to look behind those curtains. It is not pretty in there.

There you have it! Thanks for checking out my Kindergarten classroom!  --Jill

One Thing I Love About My Classroom Love Linky

 

One thing I am loving about my classroom this year is my calendar setup!

Here is why I love it:

1. My tens frames are ready to count up to the 100th day of school. We are going to use stickers to fill it in.

 

 

 2. There are not a lot of pieces for the weather and season chart!  I was always wasting time searching for the piece we needed that day, now all I have to do is move a clip. Easy!  Also I love the real pictures for the weather chart. 

3. The month headers are so cute! I love that little monster on October!

4. This is the first time I have used a pocket chart for a calendar. Why have I waited so long?!  No sticky tack, sticky clips, or Velcro for me this year!

5. The pennant above it! I am loving pennants this year. 

You can pick up this set in our TPT store here.  It comes in purple and yellow too. It also includes many other pieces that I didn't hang up and can be easily used for older grades. Right now it's 10% off!

--Jill

   

Sight Words and Word Walls

You have heard from the other half of Journey through Elementary, Caitlin. I am so lucky to work with her and now blog with her! This is my first post. I have put it off because blogging is a little intimidating. I am going to start with what I know-- sight words and word walls. I have to admit I am a little obsessed with sight words, is it just me or is that a Kindergarten teacher thing? I am all about making sight words fun! We exercise to sight words, play games with sight words, cheer our sight words, etc. Then, of course, the sight word goes onto the word wall. But I don't want that word wall to be a big waste of space! I make sure it gets used-everyday! My word wall is magnetic and I love it. We can pull the word down and use it during writing, and then put it right back up on the wall.

I would love to give credit to whoever created the sight word cards, but I got them years ago and can't remember where I got them. When we have a few extra minutes in the day (think dismissal time),we play Guess my Sight Word. I give them a hint so they can guess what word I am thinking of- for example, I am thinking of a sight word on the word wall that is 3 letters long and starts with the letter t. Then they all gasp in excitement and throw their hands in the air.

I also have this handy sight word of the day sign hanging by our door on a clothes pin. We will take it down each morning and fill it in with a new word. Every time we come in the classroom they have to read the word to me, and sometimes I even ask them to spell it. You can get this for free here in our TPT store.

Like I said, we play lots of sight word games and today I am very excited to share a game I just made to add to our sight word and word wall fun. My class last year begged to play sight word hangman, which inspired me to create a different spin on hangman. The idea is the same, I pick a word from the word wall and they have to guess letters. In this version, for every wrong guess we start building a potato head! I am so excited to use this game this year. I know my Kindergarteners are going to love it!! I think I am going to add magnets and put it on a cookie sheet. You can purchase it here in our TPT store!
  Thanks for reading if you made it to the end! I would love for you to comment below on how you use sight words and word walls in your classroom! -Jill

Potato Head Sight Word Game

Classroom Love Linky!

One Thing I'm Excited to Use This Year!

I really wanted to be able to blog about my whole classroom and to show pictures or maybe even a video.  After working at school (working and chatting and trying to choose matching teacher t-shirts and staring at the wall) from 9:30 to 4:00, my room still isn't done. Not video ready, not even photograph ready really.  As I was desperately trying to take pictures at an angle that would hide the mess that still looms in my room, I had an "aha!" moment.  I would love to share one thing in particular that I am really excited to try this year.

Have you all heard of Wall Pops?? I had never seen these things! They look like this:

Fancy, right? Not at first glance, I know! But the possibilities with these things are endless!  They are actually adhesive vinyl circles that are DRY ERASE! Yes, dry erase! They can be stuck to almost any surface and the adhesive is removable and they can be repositioned! Ok, so how am I going to use these magical circles in my classroom?  Check this out:

Above is my small group table.  I stuck on a circle for each student.  I'm going to use the "Pops" to have my third graders write notes, vocabulary words, questions they have about the text, connections, etc. This will be easier than having the kids hold or try to manage separate personal white boards.  I thought these would be great for other subjects as well and I plan to use these for diagrams, word problems, and equations.

This picture is of my writing station.  The students can use the Wall Pops here to list words, check their spelling, write title ideas, brainstorm, make outlines, and more.  I know you're probably thinking, "Doesn't she know that you can dry erase on tables?".  Yes, I do know that BUT this is so much cuter AND it gives the students defined space for their work.  

Love these as much as I do? You can check them out here: Amazon.com. Of course, there are a few different colors to choose from too!

I'll be sure to take more photos of students using the Wall Pops and I will update with an other post about how well they are working out for my classroom!  Thanks for reading and good luck with your own classroom set up!

-Caitlin

Friendship Friday!

Hi! This Friday we will join Mr. C's Classroomtopia in a link up for new teacher bloggers.  If you are a teacher or teacher blogger, please check out the new blogger links on his page!  If you are checking out our page for the first time, please scroll down to the previous two posts to learn more about us! You can also follow us on Facebook or check out our Instagram account by following Journey_Through_Elementary!  Jill and I head back to school tomorrow for a staff meeting- look out for new classroom tour blog posts in the next couple of days!