Mrs. Vento's Kindergarten Class
A Blog where I can share what I am doing about creativity.
Prepositions. We learned about them last week. I was scared. Some of the CCSS intimidate me. Is anyone with me here? I mean, some skil...
For this activity I wrote sentences on sentence strips. We read the sentences aloud together and then they helped me find the nouns by addin...
Fish Cracker Ocean Preschool Craft Fish crackers aren’t just for snack time, they’re for craft time too! Their fun shape are familiar to preschoolers and make a great addition to this Fish Cracker Underwater Scene Preschool Craft. It is very simple to make and even the young ones will have fun. Just make sure you have enough set out to munch on while making this cool craft with your preschooler! What You Need Fish Crackers Blue Paper Green Paint Sandpaper Scissors Glue Paint Brush How To Make It Step One: Have your preschooler paint seaweed onto the blue paper with the green paint. Step Two: Parent: draw a starfish shape onto the sandpaper. Then let your preschooler cut out the shape. This may be a little tough depending on the type of sandpaper you are using so you may have to helpl. Step Three: Glue the starfish onto the blue paper at the bottom of the “sea.” Step Four: This is the best part – glue the fish onto the paper so they appear to be “swimming” in the sea. You’re done! Variations You can change the shape of the background and cut it into the shape of a gold fish bowl to change the project a little. Source: http://crafts.preschoolrock.com/index.php/crafts/fish-cracker-ocean-preschool-craft
{my favorite finds from this week} Greedy Triangle activity... L-O-V-E these... shape activity... rainbow writing... digital frame sight words...
Welcome back to school!! We only had 2 days of school for our first week, but next week, we're going to be going right in to all of our curriculum. It's a great curriculum, so that doesn't bother me any. Last year, I was just trying to stay afloat with all the NEW in my life. SO this year, I'm going to try and blog about our week so you can take a peek into our Classical Academy life. It's quite grand. Here was my Meet the Teacher Picture - I shared a reel over on my instagram, if you want to see that! This is what the board has looked like in the past...but we don't have bulletin boards yet (new school... doing things in stages as the money comes in), so I just improvise and put them on the white board with magnets. Now, obviously, we take a LOT of time going over procedures, the notebooks, folders, and binders...and alllll the other to-do list items we have to get done on the first day or 2. But these are some of the fun things we did throughout. We read one of my favorite books for the first day. And it was really awesome last year since our school was a new school. I also took their picture for their memory books. I was so proud of myself for actually doing this the first day! lol That's why my sign says the first week...because sometimes I don't get to it on the first day. Although, now that my students wear uniforms, no one would be the wiser, right!? ha! They also started coloring some of their pages in their Memory books. I love these books every year. Here's what they beginning of the year looks like.... And then at the end of the year, they get the same pages, but don't remember their beginning of year responses, so they can compare their answers...but also their handwriting and their drawings! In math, we do an activity where we try to figure out the teacher. I give them some different math problems, and they have to try to work it out on their desk. It's a great way to see who remembers what strategies from First Grade. To get them up and moving, we play a "Snowball" game where they write their name on a piece of paper and crumple up the paper. I play music and they throw around the snowballs at each other until I stop the music. Then they have to open the paper, find the person whose name is on the paper and then introduce themselves or say hi to each other (using their names). We do a few rounds of this, and they love it! Another ELA activity we do is to read Listen Buddy, and then talk about Whole Body Listening. Now, you would hopefully know your students at this point, if they have a 504 or IEP. They may not listen like this...but in general, these are the things we focus on when we're listening. We also did the "M&M" activity - Marvelous to Meet You. I played KidsBop music and they walked around (or danced around!) and when the music stopped, they did "hand up, pair up" to find a partner. I told them the person with the shortest hair always went first. They grabbed an M&M and read the chart for the corresponding color. Once that person was finished, the other person went. We did a few rounds of this, and the kids asked for more! You can click THIS LINK to download a printable copy of this. I just hand wrote this real quick the day before. And since our heat index here is through the roof, we had inside recess on Friday. So that meant we had plenty of time to get done with our first window clings! I did the pineapples at the end of the year last year, but my teammate convinced me to do them first this year. I just love how these look on our windows. Check out THIS post for more ideas throughout the year. And then it was time to go home, after a FULL two first days. Next week, we're hitting the curriculum and first up is Fairy Tales! Hopefully, I'll be back to share with you more on that.
One of the quickest ways to turn back the hands of time is to get a more flattering hairstyle. Here’s how to choose one that does the trick for you.
Cause and Effect can be a tricky lesson to teach. It usually takes students multiple exposures to understand and master it. I want to share with you how I teach it. I use multiple resources, including several read alouds, picture sorts, flip books, and writing. Pin Me This Cause and Effect Activity pack has everything ... Read More about Cause and Effect
Happy Spring! This is a quickie post with a few little things you might like! Thanks to Stephanie for Show and Tell Tuesday! What do you do to celebrate spring with your kiddos? I usually do a planting project, but I am a bit overdosed with special projects at the moment... between St. Patrick's Day, Dr Seuss week, and worm day in the last couple weeks– whew! So I was looking for something pretty easy in the planting department. I have done the kids faces on cups, so it looks like they are growing hair. You can see a photo from a couple years ago and you can see they did turn out pretty cute. I posted about it and you can see the details if you click on the photo. However I passed on it this year because the prep to get those face photos to fit and be waterproof was more than I wanted to do. I've also done the egg carton caterpillar where the grass makes the caterpillar fuzzy. You can see it if you click on the photo below. The problem with doing the caterpillar this year though is that we go on spring break in less than two weeks and the grass won't be high enough to take home, but there won't be anyone around to water them at school. Those little egg cups hold just a small bit of soil that dries out quickly. Sooo... what to do?? Hairy Hedgehogs! I put Jonathan's drawing skills to good use and had him draw a hedgehog to fit on a sauce cup. I gave each student a paper hedgehog and colored pencils to color him in. They cut them out along the heavy black line. Then I carefully placed a strip of wide packing tape across the hedgehog so that he was sealed around the edges and placed that on a take-out sauce cup. I get the take-out sauce cups at Gordon Food Service. They are pretty cheap, and handy to have around the classroom where I've used them for all sorts of things. Now these little guys are hanging out on the window counter to catch some rays. The little cups don't hold a lot of soil, but enough that if we give them a good watering before we leave for break, and place a little clear plastic wrap loosely over the top, I think they'll make it. You wanna Hairy Hedgehogs with your kiddos?? Well, just click on the hedgehogs and you can download a sheet of six. Happy Spring! And I have a second share, too, though some of you may remember this one from last year. This is my April Showers activity that includes a new twist on an old saying, a moveable craft, and a close read on that little critter known as a June Bug. It comes with all the stuff you need to make a shared reading for your pocket chart, a poem for the poetry folder, a bookmark, and the craft. We're going to do the activities in April, which is just around the corner. Click on the pic below to see it on my TPT page. Well, hope that was a breath of fresh spring air and you enjoy having a little fun with your kids. Remember to PIN! Now click on back to Forever in Fifth Grade Show and Tell Tuesday to find more teacher ideas. Thanks, Stephanie! Thanks for stopping by!
Super cute Vowel Puzzles are fun, printable Vowel Activities to help students sort long and short vowel sounds in words.
I have a Christmas Fun Food round up for you, today. This Christmas round up is full of healthy, but still super fun, non-candy snacks for your Christmas Party! A lot of schools are pushing out the sweet treats, so this is a great post for those room parents, and teachers looking for a healthy …
Short Pixie haircut for women is always trendy and will definitely place you among the line of celebrities in terms of fashion once you start wearing this sexy short haircut.
Tomorrow, after the program, there is still Singing Time. Impossible to imagine, but I have to be prepared for the singing time after the program. Generally the kids are restless, tired, worn out from singing the same songs over and over and they are ready for something new. I bought this disc game from Oriental Trading and a very clever friend of mine did some vinyl lettering to change it from "Halloween disc game" to "singing time plinko". So the numbers represent either the chance to pick a song, a style of singing or if they get number five the new song in a bag. The list of songs will all be fun songs and activity songs. They need a break. Hopefully they will really enjoy this, and the song in a bag, which I will post tomorrow.
As the end of the school year approaches, students can often start to wind up. Think “senioritis” when you were a high school senior, but bottle up that same excitement in smaller humans. Every spring, come May or June, even a superstar teacher with the most effective classroom management system in place can still suffer the wrath of (dun dun DUN) chatty class syndrome, or as I like to call it, “June Bug.” Even if something has worked all year long, you may feel the need to reach into your bag of tricks for a little extra reinforcement.
I couldn't wait to start doing winter-ish lessons with my Kindergartners and First Graders. There is such a level of excitement when you make snowmen, snowflakes, reindeer, and Santas. I found this project on Artsonia and added my own little twist on it, incorporating the use of felt and (what was I thinking?!) GLITTER! They've turned out so cute! You will need: 9x12 turquoise paper 2 6x6" square pieces of white paper cut felt in various colors small orange paper black markers silver glitter I also have some foam "stick on" snowflakes that would be fun to use for this project as well. Of course, adding your own little twist on everything makes it that much better! So, happy winter! Things are looking UP!
This FREEBIE contains an original poem and poetry analyzation sheet. Enjoy! This is a sample of my Figurative Language Poems! If you like this sample, the paid product includes an original poem and poetry analyzation sheet for each of the following types of figurative language: -simile (this sample) -metaphor -personification -idiom -hyperbole -alliteration -onomatopoeia *Please rate me :) *Remember to "follow" me for updates on my new items! Copyright© Kathleen Amari. All rights reserved by Kathleen Amari. This product is to be used by the purchaser only. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school system is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Rainbows are a beautiful symbol of hope and a timeless way to bring cheer to a classroom. This cheerful Boho Rainbow Classroom Decor will inspire and delight with a gorgeous color palette and rainbows. Your classroom will be both calming and cheerful with the Boho Rainbow Classroom Decor Collection from Heart of the Class.
Math with art takes two of my favorite things and combines them together into lovely math art projects! The math art activities we are doing today are
Are you looking for a fun way to celebrate the end of the school year with your child's class? This ice cream themed class project for end of school year is sure to be a big hit! So easy to make and a fun keepsake to take home and celebrate their friends at school.
Super Easy Science Activities that are perfect ideas for home or in preschool classroom. Kids will love learning through play with these activities.
Sometimes it is fabulous to have a trick or two up your sleeve for when you need a quick craft or activity to save the day. My ULTIMATE, Easy, No Cook Playdough Recipe is definitely one trick that needs to be up there friends. Five minutes to make, and lasts for 6 months! I am
Happy Tuesday! It was a WHRLWIND weekend here for my little family. Remember my precious *little* sister?!?! Well…she tied the knot on Sa...
Fall is here! I love October because it means pumpkins, bats, monsters and slightly cooler weather! Here are a couple things that we are do...
Well, lookie, lookie here. While I was away, I got my 100th follower! To celebrate and thank everyone who has taken the time to read my blog (which I haven't been able to dedicate nearly as much time as I had wanted to!) I want to offer this freebie aimed at K-2 kiddos. I so love my poetry binders! Click on cover to get it. I use them for my Poetry Binders, Shared and Buddy Reading, Word Work, etc. Enjoy!
Find the perfect diversity books for little learners to grow and learn about other cultures.
"Jesus Loves Me Beary Much" Valentine's Day Cutout Craft For Kids Use this for Sunday school or Children's Church. I also made a template with NO WORDS so the kids can write what they want on the heart. Have the color the bear first and then cut all the pieces out. Then assemble the bear together using tape. This is a really simple easy craft for kids to do!
November 20, 2013 We have been learning all about "tempo" (the speed--fast or slow--of the beat) and "rhythm" in ...
Do you have a Star Student or Student of the week? If you do, you can save some money with this free and fun little poster for your Star Student or Student of the Week. I pick a student each week to focus on. I give this poster to my star student to fill out at home and bring back to school so they can share it with their classmates. These are great posters for a "Get to Know You" activity. Students love the recognition! They fill out the poster that's all about them and share it with their classmates. Click the picture to download it for FREE! This is also uploaded into Google Slides to use with your Google Classrooms. Another way to recognize students is with awards. Click below to see how you can highlight a student in your classroom. Here are more ways to highlight a student for your Star Student or Student of the Week: All About Me posters Instant Personal Posters Star Student Wristbands Super Star Badge Star Student Award Star Student Crowns Star Student Pencils Star Student Bookmarks Thanks for stopping by today! Until next time,
Do you love Disney as much as we do? Then check out these Disney inspired classrooms created by real teachers! Students will love these creative classroom decorations and themes!
Today I have tips and tricks on how to throw an easy Halloween party on the cheap! Decorations, snacks, and even games!