The Kindergarten Smorgasboard

It's time for another Kindergarten Smorgasboard classroom video.

This video is a request! Remember, ask and ye shall receive!

We start each day with our morning meeting. The morning message is a vital part of that meeting. The message contains a greeting and the date (Good Morning Mr. Greg's Mustaches. Today is Monday, February 2, 2015), the message which tells about what's happening that day, a closing (Love, Mr. Greg) and a math/literacy activity.

Our morning message is very interactive. Starting on day 1 of school, the students are involved. Very quickly I like to turn the writing of the greeting and closing to the students. At this point in the year, the message part of the meeting is almost completely independent. If you were to watch our morning meeting, you would see me in the back watching. The students do the writing and for the most part, reading of the message. I do differentiate the message. Depending on whose turn it is to right, I might leave more or less blanks in the greeting and closing.

The message is a great way to work on handwriting, beginning sounds, stretching words, and sight words.

Today's video is a "close up" of students writing the greeting. You will see two different clips of two students writing the message. This gives you a glimpse of how it looks on different days.

If you're interested in our morning messages, you can check out my morning message creations.

There are 2 sets: set 1 and set 2. There is also a bundle!

Set 1

Set 2

AND how about a super fun freebie?!

You asked ....see, ask and ye shall receive!

It's a February Count The Room freebie!

Every Friday we throw out our regular schedule and have Foodie Fun Friday and Mad Science! For mad science, I dress as a mad scientist and we do a hands on science experiment.

Where does Mr. Greg find his experiments?? PINTEREST! I try to find things that relate to our theme or current unit....but that doesn't always happen so sometimes we just do things that Mr. Greg thinks the 'staches would love. (And let's be honest...things I wanna try! hehe)

Last week we made elephant toothpaste and people, it was EPIC good times.

To quote one of my 'staches: "THIS IS AWESOMEST!"

Yeah. Awesomest. It's that good!

Here's what you need:

hot water

yeast

peroxide

dishwashing liquid

food coloring

plastic water bottles

1. Pour 1/2 cup of peroxide into bottles.

2. Mix 1 tsp of yeast and 2 tbsp of warm water in a separate cup.

Make sure to mix until all of the yeast is mixed.

3. Add 2-3 drops of food coloring and some soap into the peroxide.

4. Add the yeast mixture to the bottle!

BAM! Be prepared for the shrieks of delight!

I am super excited to be linking up with my friends at Teaching Trio for their monthly favorite things linky!! I mean who doesn't love sharing their favorite things?!

Glitter. The world needs more glitter. If we all threw a little more glitter each day, the world would be a more sparkly, happier place!!!!

You can never have enough glitter. Ever.

Ink pens. I am an ink pen hoarder. I can't have enough. Ever. Wanna make me happy??? Give me new pens! Ink Joy are some of my favorites! What's your favorite?

And finally...the TBFF (teacher best friend forever!) I am so stinking lucky to get to work next door to this hilarious, sweet, helpful and fun teacher. She's so inspiring. And we just get each other. She's my Karen.

I mean seriously...how fun?!?!

We keep asking the principal to tear down the wall between our classrooms...someday.

Be sure to check out her blog at The Hartmann Sparkle!

Head over to Teaching Trio and link up to share your favorite things!!

Here's a truth from Mr. Greg, about Mr. Greg....

Mr. Greg does not do Valentine's Day. Never have. I think it's silly. It's soooo much pressure on people...for one day. We always watch a scary movie and have pizza. No biggie.

Anyways...it's also the wildest day in kindergarten. Worse than Halloween and Christmas. I'm not sure what it is about Valetine's...but it's a cray cray day.

But we still heart it up in mustache land!!! So I wanted to share some ideas with you for the week of love!

Candy heart estimating! We talk about estimating being a "smart" guess. We estimate how many candy hearts we can hold. Then we grab candy hearts and count. We see if we were even close! We had so much fun with this today!!!!!

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECORDING SHEET!

We also do a tree map about Valetine's Day!

We read The Day It Rained Hearts and do this super cute art project and math project to practice making 10! I found the plain and glitter hearts at the Dollar Tree (teacher heaven!) and bout about 1000 of them. They were super fun for this activity! I love that it is art and math and literacy!!! See..art is common core!!!!

This idea was inspired by Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten!

We also HEART nouns! We make torn paper hearts.

Then we list nouns on 6 hearts and make a fun noun mobile!

We do nouns every Friday in our morning message so we're very familiar with nouns! We brainstorm a list of nouns and we can use those nouns or come up with our own nouns.

Art and literacy skills...art is common core!

Of course, there is some science! Candy heart science. We hypothesize (hello vocabulary!) about what happens to hearts in water, soda and vinegar. We decide if they will sink or float and if they will dissolve or not. We record our predictions on a class chart. Then we observe the hearts all day long and draw our results on our recording sheet at the end of the day!

Click the picture for your freebie!

We make love bugs for our Valentine's bags!

We wish you a HOPPY Valentine's Day with our mustache frog!

And of course, we make a silly hat! We use heart stickers on a sentence strip and giant hearts on pipe cleaners! Fun, simple love bug hats!

And finally, how about a fun, easy and CHEAP gift for the 'staches!

This was a Pinterest inspired idea....but for the life of me I cannot find the pin to give credit. If it was you, let me know so I can shout you out.

HOW FUN! SOCKS. I go to Wal-Mart and find these 6 packs of neon socks. I give each 'stache a pair of socks and a little cup with a pencil, eraser and some mustache goodies!

SOCK IT TO ME! Seriously...cuteness overload!

Click here to get your free cards!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Howdy ya'll!! It's that time again. Schedulin' Sunday! This week is the week of Valentine's Day. We can make it through this. It's ok. We got this. I've planned some fun, engaging activities and lessons that hopefully will keep us on task and working hard until Friday.

As always, you can download my lesson plans by clicking on the picture!

We will be reading these books this week!

(click these to see them on Amazon!)

This week we're starting on word families (formally). We've worked on word families with adding and deleting sounds, but we're going to spend a couple of weeks working with them in a more...deliberate manner! We're going to use our beloved circle maps. My 'staches LOVE this activity every time we do it. It's probably because they try to outdo each other and come up with the hardest words for me to draw. And then they laugh at my lame drawings.

"...they're all gonna laugh at you..."

If you would like some sparkly and glittery (without the glitter mess!!) circle map labels, click the picture to get your freebie!

We will assess our word family skills with a picture sort on Friday!

Click the picture to get your freebie!

We've been working on writing what we know (informational writing) so this week we're going to write a book about what we know! I've created some writing paper, if you'd like it, you can snag it on the freebies page!

This week is a review week for us in math! We're going to spend some time reviewing subtraction and measurement!

We're going to do a fun subtraction sort that I call "Subtraction: It's In The Bag!"

This idea was inspired by Mr. Elementary Math. His activity is much more higher order than ours. We're still struggling with subtraction so we're going to KISS! Keep it simple smarty!

We're going to label gift bags ($1 a bag at Wal-Mart) with numbers to 10. Then we're going to use our subtraction flashcards and sort our equations. After we sort, we'll check our answers and record them on our recording sheet!

Click the pictures to download your freebies!

The flashcards are designed so each set can be printed on different colored paper or cardstock!

We're also going to do a little subtraction smash! This idea was inspired by Primary Possibilities!

It's math. It's play-dough. It's common core. It's going to be epic.

Students will choose a card. They will read the equation and make the right number of play-dough balls. Then they will SMASH the number of balls to take away! And we record the answer! BAM!

Download your free cards and recording sheet by clicking the picture!

For measurement, we'll be using my Measuring Love creation to measure Valentine's pictures and recording the answers.

And we will be measuring to see how many Hershey Kisses tall we are. My amazingly talented teammate, Mrs. Stuffin, made some larger than life kisses from foil. We will have each 'stache predict how many kisses tall they are then we will measure them to see how many kisses tall they are!

Click to get your freebie!

Of course, it's Valentine's Day so we'll be doing some fun art projects and writing activities!

A Valentine's Day thinking map...

A frog...

We will also make this fun, mustache wearing frog art project! HOPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

We will also make a tree of love! Each student will paint their hand and arm brown for the tree and then use their fingerprints to make purple, pink and red hearts on the tree!

We will write about something we love and why we love it!

And of course, Friday will be a PARTY!

Here is a Valentine's Day poem and emergent reader for you!

Click the pictures to get to the freebies page for your freebies!

If you're interested in any of our activities or need some fun center activities, check out these creations!

Howdy people! It's time for another super fun morning meeting greeting for your classroom. And it involves SHOES!

Have students remove one shoe and pile the shoes in the middle of your circle or carpet. Student chooses a shoe, finds the shoe's owner and greets that person. Continue until everyone has been greeted!

I also had to share this super fun Valentine center (we can't call them centers anymore so we call them hippopotamuses!). I found these heart boxes at the Dollar Tree and Walgreens so I snagged about 100 of these Cuz you can never have enough....

I put letters in the boxes. They open a box and say the sound. Then the student colors the picture on the recording sheet! BAM! It's a huge hit in the classroom!

You can get the recording sheet on the freebies page! (click the picture!)

Happy Hump Day! It's Wednesday! We're on the downhill slide! We can do it!

It's time for our weekly roundup of centers! We're no longer allowed to call them centers because of a district mandate. "Centers" has a stigma of "play" (ummm...yeah and that's a good thing!) so we were told to call them "workstations!" BUT if you know me, you know I don't always follow the rules. So...in our classroom, we call them "hippopotamuses" just to prove a point! hehe

Anyways...here are some of our hippos for the week!

Our data showed that we needed to work on 1 more and 1 less. Hence this "hippo!"

People, golden girls! ADDING WITH THE GIRLS! EPIC!

I found these awesome dice at Target last year. They make a great addition hippo center! If you want the free recording sheet head over to the freebies page! (Click the picture!) Add in smelly markers and BAM! EPIC fun!

Golden girls and sight words?! YES!

These ten frame cards are free on my TPT store! (Click the picture!)

I found these heart boxes at Walgreen and the Dollar Tree. I added a magnetic letter to each box. Students open the box, say the sound and color the picture! (Recording sheet is on the freebies page!)

Lightbox addition!

This is a great differentiated addition center! You can use the cubes to add to 5, 10 or more!

See Count Graph! A great way to work with data, counting one to one!

Sensory bin. Differentiated? YEP. Caramel scented rice? YEP!

Subtract and color teeth. And mustaches!

Building CVC-E words! Teeth, mustaches and vowels!

If you're interested in any of these centers, check them out below!

Happy President's Day. Well, here's the deal....I live in Nashville and the mere mention of a snowflake sends the city into shutdown mode. Now...imagine a forecast of 4-8 inches and some ice. People, it's the end of the world. OK...not really but it's pretty bad. I mean we've had snow days for a dusting of snow...so you can imagine what 4-8 inches will do.

I went ahead and planned for the week, but I seriously doubt we will have school at all this week because it's not going to get above freezing until Friday. HMMMMM I'm sad because tomorrow as a professional development day and I was scheduled to do 3 presentations for teachers from all over the district. BUMMER!

So here is our presidential week of fun and learning!

As always, you can download my lesson plans by clicking on the picture!

Each day we will read about a president and use the non-fiction and informational books we read as our research. We will fill in our learning on our schema maps and in our research journals.

Friday, we will write about what we would do if we were president. I love this activity because it's so funny to see what a 5 year old thinks the President does!!!

We will be using my Presidential Research creation to conduct our research and writing!

We will also be making these adorable presidents from my amazing friend Katie at Teacher To The Core! These little guys are found in her American Heroes Informational reading creation!

We will also do a fun heads or tails graphing activity with pennies and quarters!

Click the pictures for your freebie!

We also read our President's Poem and read our presidential emergent readers!

Click each to download your freebie!

We're also working with word families again this week! This week the word families are: ig ag ug og!

Here are some sparkly chart labels for you!

In math we're working on place value!!!

We're using pool noodles, pretzels and marshmallows to learn all about place value!

We start with pool noodles. Because they're pool noodles. And they're fun.

Click the picture to get a recording sheet and number cards!

We will also be using my Place Value Mini-Creation to do a place value write the room activity!

Of course, we're also going to be doing some Mad Science and Foodie Fun Friday!

For Mad Science, we're doing an experiment with eggs to show us what happens to teeth with different liquids! Then we get to brush the eggs to see what happens when we brush our teeth!!!

Here's a free recording sheet to make predictions and record observations about your toothy science!

We will also be making Abe Lincoln's log cabin for our snack!

Bananas, graham crackers and Hershey syrup!

If you're interested in any of these activities and our centers for the week, check out these creations!

Happy Snow/Ice Day number 2~ We were forecast for 6-8 inches of snow. Well, that snow didn't happen but we have an ice storm. It's a nasty mess out there. We haven't let that keep us down. We've had Smorgie1 out and about. We've been sledding. We've been napping.

My prediction: we will be off all week!

So, I want to share a super fun, super engaging, super effective subtraction lesson that we did in our classroom last week. People, if it involves play dough and smashing something, you know it's a hit!

For real. Smashing things.

So my 'staches are still struggling with the concept of subtraction. We're addition experts but subtraction is...well...not our friend.

I found this idea on Pinterest so I just had to try it.

You'll need some play dough and some flashcards. You can get these fun play dough cards by clicking on the picture.

Students make the correct number of play dough balls and then they smash the correct number to take away.

It's fun. It's smashing things. It's engaging.

Check out our video of smashing subtractions!

Snow/ice day #4! Not to mention it's FREEZING! I mean below zero which is unheard of here in the south. And...we're expecting 2 more inches of snow and another 1/4" of ice tomorrow night...I'm kinda over winter.

So today I want to share another fun, hands on, engaging subtraction activity that we did in our class. Can you tell we're working hard on subtraction?!

I love this activity because it's easily differentiated. It's easily put into centers or workstations. It gets us up and moving and we get to practice not only solving subtraction equations, but also writing those pesky equations!

See all that?! Work smarter, not harder!!

So you will need 10 paper bags labeled 0-10, flashcards and a recording sheet.

Place the bags in a spot that's easily accessible.

Place your flashcards into a container.

Student's choose a card, solve the equation and place it in the correct bag.

We did this in a very quick rotation. I called 3 students at a time and as soon as one finished, I called the next one. No one had much downtime between turns. The fast pace helped keep everyone engaged and focused!

After all the flashcards have been sorted, we checked to see if we were right.

I pulled the cards out of the bag and we solved the equations whole group!

And finally we recorded some answers!

I mean, how freakin' awesome and cute is this?! Everyone looks so professional and executive with their clipboards! SO HARD AT WORK!

If you want the materials for this lesson, guess what?! THEY"RE FREE!!

Just click on the picture to get your freebies!

And here's another freebie for ya!

Our data shows we need some more practice with 1 more and 1 less so I made a fun I Have Who Has game for us to use during our morning meetings!

It's free on my Facebook Page! Just click the picture to go to my page. On my page, click the FREEBIES tab at the top or on the left side and download your freebie! (And like my page when you're there....and tell your friends!)

And I have to share my creations from this snow week...at least I've been productive!

Happy Sunday ya'll!!! Let's try this again....last week was...wait for it...a SNOW WEEK! That's right. We were out all week because of ice and snow. I really anticipate another day off tomorrow...the roads just aren't quite ready yet...but just in case, I am planned for a full week of DINOSAURS!!!

I am super excited to finally get to do a dinosaur unit!!! I finally put my foot down and threw a glittery tantrum and said WE ARE DOING DINOSAURS THIS YEAR! It was the glitter that convinced my team...glitter is powerful stuff people.

As always, you can download a copy of my lesson plans by clicking on the picture!

Here are the books we're reading this week: (Don't worry, I have about a billion dinosaur books but these are my read alouds for the week...)

We will be using my Dinosaur Research Creation to become dinosaur experts!

We will study all about dinosaurs and fossils and paleontologists. Next week, we will study some specific dinosaurs.

As we research, we will be recording our learning in our dinosaur research journals.

Of course, we're making dinosaur art projects to accompany our learning!

Of course, we cannot start a new unit without a hat. It's a requirement. It's a must do. It's super fun and who doesn't love a class in a silly hat?!?!

This is my awesome TBFF! He made a template for the hats and modeled for us. Check her out at The Hartmann Sparkle! She's pretty dang awesome....and I get to teach next door to her every day. Yeah! #jealous

We will be making our own dinosaurs. Each 'stache will get some construction paper and some basic guidelines and we will create our very own dinosaurs.

We will make ....wait for it....wait for it....SPARKLY DINOSAURS! Yes people, dinosaurs and GLITTER!!!!

Check out this glittery awesomeness. These are from The Craft Train. If you head to their page, you can even get the free templates for the dinosaurs. Glitter. Dinosaurs. OH MY! I can't...I just can't. It's too much.

We will also make DINOSAUR FEET! Foam sheets. Some feathers and BAM! We have dinosaur feet!!!

This idea came from broogly.com

For Mad Science Friday, we will become a paleontologist. We will be digging for fossils in a chocolate chip cookie!

And for Foodie Fun Friday, we're going to have:

this is good stuff...

dino claws (Bugles)

dino eggs (grapes)

dino bones (pretzel sticks)

and....wait for it...

DINO DROPPINGS! (Whoppers!)

But here's the best part.

These dino snacks will be delivered by.....

SMORGIE!!!!!!!

Yes people. We did this. We had a mascot made for The Kindergarten Smorgasboard. This is Smorgie. A few months ago the mister said, "Hey, what do you think about a mascot for the smorgasboard?!" UMMMM Who doesn't want their own mascot. So we found a company and worked with them for two months and BAM! Smorgie has arrived!!!!

So Friday, Smorgie is delivering our dinosaur snacks for Foodie Fun Friday!!!!!!!!!! I mean, how much are the 'staches going to love this?!?!?! And really...that's what it's all about. Making their days more fun!

We're also doing math this week. If you're interested in seeing our place value activities, check out last week's Schedulin Sunday post.

CLICK HERE FOR PLACE VALUE AWESOMENESS!

Here are some freebies for ya!

If you're interested in any of our centers/activities for the week, check them out below!

Happy snow day number 6. Right?! I spent the day working in my classroom switching out all of my centers and prepping for DINOSAURS! I'm super excited to get back to the 'staches...but it ain't happening tomorrow. BREAKING NEWS: Snow Day 7 tomorrow. OVER IT!!

So, here's a super fun and easy way to practice and assess making 10 with some fun thrown in. Learning must be fun. IT should be fun. So let's make it fun. AND EASY!

If you're like me, you have 7,987,342 of these snap cubes. And I'm convinced that they multiply weekly...they just turn up...taunting me...teasing me and pressuring me to come up with ways to use them...

This activity meets Common Core Standards: KOA3, KOA4, KCC1

(PER FEEDBACK, I will start including the common core standards for activities I share! Hope this helps!)

All you need....some of your billions of snap cubes, crayons and paper.

I poured the cubes into a big pile on the carpet. Literally. Dumped them out.

Then I told the 'staches to grab 10 cubes using two different colors.

Then we build our towers of 10.

Then we wrote the equation.

Then we drew the picture.

See that....making 10, adding, writing equations and a little drawing fun!

And now for a giveaway and an announcement!

The BIG TEACERS ARE HEROES SALE at TPT is Wednesday, February 25th! My creations will be 20% off and with the code HEROES you save another 10%!

So , who wants $20 to spend during the sale? Just enter and I'll announce the winner, Wednesday morning!!! (TELL YOUR FRIENDS!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

OK, now who's ready for the next installment of Submissions For Smorgie LIVE?!

We're excited for this one becuase we're trying something a little different. This time the 1 hour live chat will be all about LITERACY! So, start planning your questions about all things literacy! Join us Wednesday, February 25th from 7:00-8:00 PM CENTRAL TIME!

This month's event is sponsored by SCENTOS! Scentos has sent over a mega prize pack of goodies for us to give away during the event!!!

Happy Snow day number 7! Seriously! BUT GUESS WHO GETS TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL TOMORROW?!?!?!?! ME!!!!! I can't wait to see my little 'staches!!!

Who doesn't love a freebie?! And a differentiated math freebie?!?!?!

I just finished my March Differentiated Count The Room freebie so I wanted to make sure you all got your freebie!! Cuz I luffs you!

Just click the picture to go to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store and download your freebie!

Don't forget to enter for you chance to win a $20 TPT gift certificate!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

The TPT Teachers Are Heroes sale is tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25th! My store is 20% off and with the code HEROES you can save an extra 10% off!

And tomorrow is also the next SUBMISSIONS FOR SMORGIE LIVE!

We will be discussing all things LITERACY!!!

And we have a mega prize pack from our friends at Scentos to give away!

Wednesday, February 25th 7:00-8:00 pm CENTRAL time (8:00-9:00 eastern)!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL!

Hello snow day number 8. Seriously, ya'll. Over. It. I mean, I love a good snow day...but we had 7 in a row, went back for 1 day and had today off. And today???? A HALF INCH OF SNOW!! People, it's the south, but come on. This Indiana boy could have driven all of the buses to school today. A half inch. Snow day. Guess what?? All melted by 10 am.

I'm officially giving this snow day ANGRY ARMS!

Now to the dinosaurs...

How about a super fun and easy dinosaur snack for your dinosaur themes and dinosaur units?!

You can munch on dinosaur bones, dinosaur eggs.....and wait for it....dinosaur droppings!

Here's what you need:

Pretzels=dino bones

Grapes=dino eggs

Nestle Crunch Buncha (or Whoppers)=dino droppings

If you can find Bugles (which I have not been able to...more angry arms..) they can be dinosaur claws!

You also need snack bags and lunch bags.

I put some of each dinosaur snack into the bags and added the labels.

Then I put the bags into the dinosaur snack bag.

BAM! Dinosaur snacks!

If you'd like the dinosaurs and labels, you can download them for free by clicking on the picture!

These awesome dinosaur toppers are from my sweet and talented Alaskan friend, Teaching In The Tongass!!

And don't forget the Teachers Pay Teachers SUPERHEROES Sale! It ends at midnight tonight!! Use the code HEROES to save 28% off all of my creations!

Click on Superman and Spiderman to check out my store!

Howdy ya'll!!! Welcome to another riveting, enchanting and fun Schedulin Sunday! This week there are no lesson plans...because...well...I'm using the same plans from last week!

TRUE STORY! I'm that teacher. But honestly...I planned for the whole week last week and we had 3 more snow days. SO...we're just going to redo last week!

If you want to see the plans we are using, you can click HERE!

It's reading week. The crazy cat who wears a hat will be making an appearance in most classrooms this week!

But I'm not a fan of he who shall not be named. I won't get all on my soap box, but you can always email if you want to know why I feel the way I do.

BUT we do celebrate reading week. Of course.

Here are a few ideas from our celebrations!

We have green eggs and ham. Of course. You can't not have green eggs and ham during reading week. It's just...wrong.

Then we graph if we liked green eggs and ham or not.

And you know our rule....you can't celebrate a holiday...or special event...or new unit...without a hat! So we make Thing 1 and Thing 2 hats. Super easy.

Red strip for the head. Then we curl 10-15 blue strips of paper and glue them onto the red strip. BAM! Thing 1 and Thing 2 hats!

We read my favorite Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax and discuss how we can love the Earth.

Then we pose with our Lorax mustache.

Umm...duh...we're the 'staches...so a Lorax mustache is a must!

You can get a Lorax mustache template by clicking HERE!

Then we write about what we can do to love the Earth!

(CLICK THE PICTURE TO GET YOUR FREEBIE!)

We're also continuing on with our dinosaur unit!

This week we'll spend Monday talking about dinosaurs in general.

Tuesday we're going to meet our friend Paul The Paleontologist.

I searched for a good book about paleontologists, but there wasn't anything good.

So, what's Mr. Greg to do??

WRITE A BOOK!

(click the picture to get your free book!)

After we read the book, we will make an anchor chart to learn all about the tools paleontologists use.

Then, we will use our tools (toothpick, paintbrush, chisel (knife)) to excavate fossils from the dirt

AKA chocolate chips from chocolate chip cookies!

This idea came from my friend Ms. Solano at Mrs. Solanos Kindergarten!

The rest of dinosaur week will be spent learning about specific dinosaurs: triceratops, tyrannosaurus rex and apatosaurus.

In math, we're working on subtraction and solving word problems.

We will do whole group practice. I project story problems on the Promothean board and we use our white boards to write the equation and solve the problem.

Then we do some individual practice.

And that's pretty much our week!!!!

Here's a crazy cat graphing freebie for you too! I made it in color and blackline!!!

If you're interested in our activities and centers for the week, check out these creations!

It's time for another kindergarten smorgasboard classroom video!!!!!!

Recently, we've made some changes to our calendar routine.

We removed the counting to the date part of the routine at the beginning. And since data (look at us...adjusting our instruction based on data!!! We so good...) shows that the 'staches need some work on 1 more and 1 less, we tweaked greater than and less than. Now, we give the number that is 1 more (greater) and 1 less (less than).

We also rearranged the order of the activities to a more logical sense. Now it's date, digital date, days of the week. THEN number sense stuff. Number of the day, ten frame, even and odd, tally marks, 1 more, 1 less, and counting on and counting back. We now end with our days in school and place value!

Calendar takes about 10 minutes and meets so many standards: KCC1 KCC2 KCC3 KCC4 KCC5 KCC6 KCC7 KNBT1

That's a lot of standards everyday...in just a few minutes!!! BAM! Calendar time ROCKS!!!

In this video, you see our struggle with writing the number 110!!!

You also hear me ask one 'stache to stay quiet during calendar...this is my friend DogPound...and we can't let him do all of our work...

You might also hear me remind my student of the day to slow down! Sometimes we get in a bit of a hurry!

I hope you enjoy our latest video! Let me know if you have questions or comments!

You can view the video here or head over to my YouTube Channel!

Who wants to win $20 to my TPT Store!?!?! We are going to have TWELVE winners!!!!!! Yep. TWELVE!

This give away is only open to attendees of the 2015 Illinois ASCD conference. You must claim your prize in person at our booth in the exhibit hall on Friday, March 6.

(Don't worry! We're going to do a give away for everyone!! Just hang on...)

If you're attending the conference, make sure to enter! And make sure to come by our booth for freebies, to chat, and check out all of my creations! And meet Smorgie!!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Howdy! I posted the picture of my my 'staches using number bonds and had many requests for a video. Well...ask and you shall receive.

To see more about these giant number bonds, click the picture! The link will also get you the FREE decomposing practice pages!

Today I used a hula hoop to draw a large number bond on the floor. We practiced decomposing numbers using our selves and the large number bond.

Then the 'staches worked independently on their practice page using the large number bonds. I worked with a small group at my table.

Here are some additional creations for decomposing numbers if you're interested!

Happy Schedulin Sunday!!!

This week's Schedulin Sunday post is going to be a bit different...because we just got back from a trip to Chicago! We had a booth at the Illinois ASCD Pre-K/Kindergarten conference and then spent the weekend in the city!

People, we had a blast meeting so many incredible teachers! The conversations and exchange of ideas was mind blowing! TEACHERS ROCK!

Thanks to everyone who stopped to say howdy!

And now for the goods...

No lesson plans this week...I have a plan but I didn't write it down!

This week and next week is all about WEATHER!!!!

We're using my newest research creation to study all types of weather. We're going to research weather, write about weather and even do weather art projects and science experiments.

And you know....wait for it...there's going to be a hat!

Here are some of the books we're using to study weather this week:

Here's the general plan for our weather unit:

Day 1-what is weather? Word web.

Students brainstorm everything they can about weather and we record our thoughts. We revisit this throughout our unit!

Here is your FREE silly hat. ACTUALLY...hold on to your hats...you have TWO FREE silly hats to choose from. My TBFF at The Hartmann Sparkle whipped up a fun weather hat and said I could offer it up as a freebie! So here ya go! Just click the pictures to get your hats!

Day 2-Sun

Day3-Wind

Day 4-Rain

Day 5-thunderstorms

Day 6-tornadoes

Day 7-8-clouds and cloud types

Day 9-Water Cycle

Day 10-meteorologist

Each day we read a book about the weather type and we do a tree map for the type of weather. Then we do an art project or science experiment for the type of weather. Our learning is recorded in our journals.

Here are some of our weather activities:

Be the wind! How car can we blog a feather!

Cloud people help us learn the four basic types of clouds!

The water cycle! We learn that clouds get full of water and then it rains!

All of these activities plus many more are included in my weather research journal creation!

We're also working on CVC-E words all week! We will be doing circle maps, and lots of writing activities for CVC-E words!

In math, more subtraction and addition practice!

And of course, we're throwing some St. Patrick's Day fun into the mix!

It's gonna be a super fun week! Tons of hands on science and art projects all tied to COMMON CORE STANDARDS!!! I love when we do research journals because we get to do so much fun stuff while meeting the standards! BAM! See, common core can be fun!!!

Here's a free emergent reader for you too! (These are both found on the FREEBIES PAGE!)

Here's a fun weather related subtraction freebie for ya!

Here are some of the creations we're using this week:

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? When I was a little boy I was obsessed with dinosaurs. And trust me...my 'staches were no different. The excitement around our dinosaur unit was almost more than we could handle.

TRUE STORY! I was having my final evaluation of the year and was doing a dinosaur read aloud. Every time I read (or butchered) the name of a dinosaur, my friend DogPound would correct me. In front of the principal. hehe

On with the dinosaurs!

As always, we kick off our units with...of course...a silly hat!

To make these, just cut out 6 green diamonds. Glue to a green strip and glue the points together. Tape to a green strip and measure to fit! BAM!

And yes, I got in the dinosaur hat mania. DUH!

Our dino unit was based around research and writing. We conducted research with read alouds and videos and recorded our learning on class charts. We then took that research and did writing in our research journals.

I love schema maps because it provides the opportunity to record all of our thinking and then we can address any misconceptions as we study and learn. I love the Post-It notes because they make the schema map so flexible and fluid!

Here's my tip of the day: When doing class tree maps, draw a box around each statement or sentence. This makes it easier for the 'staches to write the statements. Usually they just write the first line or word, but the box helps them understand that they must write the whole statement. BAM!

We made giant dinosaur feet and did the Dinosaur Stomp on GoNoodle!

These were super cheap and easy. The foam sheets are 33 cents at Wal-Mart. Total cost for a class set was $9.

I just traced a giant dinosaur foot and cut them out! Slice an X in the middle and BAM! Dino feet!

Thanks to my friend Tanya at Mrs. Solano's Kindergarten, we got to be paleontologists! We read a book about being a paleontologist and then we went digging for fossils.

When I told them we were going to dig for fossils, they were beside themselves. They kept asking if we were going to dig for real bones and fossils.

I mean just look at the excitement on DogPound's face. It's just too much!

The fossils were actually chocolate chips. But just like real paleontologists, we wore safety goggles and used our tools to find and excavate fossils!!!