Hey Blogger Friends

Due to terrible storms in my area, I'm unable to check my mail.  Hopefully it will be back up and running soon.  We're going on day 5 without power.  Thankfully, my parents have a generator!  Please pray for my state, Alabama, and the many others who have been affected.  Many have lost their lives, loved ones, and homes.  Oh, and yesterday was day 3 of school missed so we will have lots to make-up.  Dinosaurs, Reptiles, and Insects coming up soon!  (when I'm able to return to school and begin teaching again)

Zoo-Part 2

Okay, so first I have to say that I've been trying to post all weekend and "blogger" wouldn't let me for some reason.  I hope everyone had a very Happy Easter.  I'm so glad that my Savior is Alive and Lives Forevermore!  I went to a Newsong and 33 Miles concert in my hometown and I must admit that I am pumped!  There is nothing like worshipping with believers all around!  It was awesome.  With that said, On to Zoo...this was our last week of zoo "stuff" and it was so much fun.  Let it roll!

We hopped out syllables to words on kangroos.  Check out that hopping...

My kids did so well on this....go K's.

And, our tallying has gotten so good too!  Our math coach was impressed.

I think was my favorite page I added...this or the kangaroo.  Look how huge a gorilla's hand is!

Did you know that a kangaroo can jump 30 feet in one hop?  That's the length of our classroom.  We measure out 30 feet, then we hopped just to see how far we could hop in one hop.  We also measured out our own 30 foot piece of yarn to go with our fact page.

We made bunnies like on kinderbykim, but my friend Vickie had a great idea to use eggs...so I let the boys do carrots and the girls do eggs.

Our hippos from Deanna Jump's zoo unit, but we added a fact to the back.

I found these cute little trash cans at Target.  We didn't have a chance to do our activity, but we will this week...I have facts about each of these animals that we will sort.

Early Childhood Conference

My school, Big Spring Lake Kindergarten is hosting our annual Northeast Alabama Early Childhood Conference this summer and 

Kim Jordano from kinderbykim is coming!!!!!  We are so very excited!  Mike Artell will be our keynote speaker with lots of other great sessions and presenters.

The conference is July 27th, 2011.

  For more information go to 

www.neaecc.org

You can print out a registration form from the website and send it in if you are interested in coming.

Zoo-Part 1

This week we began the first part of our zoo unit.  Below are some things we did during centers and while learning about animals that live in the grasslands of Africa.  Check back next week for Zoo-Part 2.

We did the fingerprint investigations from Deanna Jump's Zoo Unit...So much fun. My kids loved it!

 We also completed a tree map on each animal we studied this week.  These are also from Deanna's Zoo Unit.

I think clipboards at the rug are some of my favorite teaching moments.  

 We practiced counting by 2's.  For those that needed help they could count the colors on each sticker...that's what was so great about these stickers from ctp.

 I used the blends and digraph teaching tubs for this center.  I chose a few of the ch, th, and sh sounds and they had to draw an object out of the bag and write it on a spot.

 A pocket chart story by me.

Got this game from Jamie M.  She's my "partner in crime."

 This is just a rhyming puzzle I made.  They had to draw a matching color piece out of the bag "without looking" and then match it to it's rhyme.

We made the following grassland animals from Deanna's unit as well.  We added a fact to the back of each one.  I changed a few of the sizes to die-cuts to make it easier on me!!  

 We added an 18 inch tongue to our giraffes with a fact on the back.  

They look adorable hanging from the ceiling!

OOPS!  This picture is sideways.  It's our fact on the back of our elephant.  We did this during small groups and sounded out the words.  This was done the kid-writing way.

It says: "An elephant's trunk is 6 feet long."

 We added a 6 foot long strip for the elephant's trunk.  The kids had to measure out their own trunk to be 6 feet.  Then they colored their trunk gray and glued it on.  I got the trunk idea from Suzan and the elephant idea from Deanna.

The little girl that made this said, "Look, my lion is running!"

This monkey idea came from Kim Jordano.

We marble painted a tiger in art center and added a fact for our zoo fact book.

 This is our zebra fact book page.  Idea from Suzan.

Finally...My Babies!!