W is for Words

If you haven't read this book to your class I recommend it! It is engaging and it has a lot going on in the pictures. My class loved it! I tied it to our new letter W and made this paper craft for our ABC book.

March of Dimes Walk

Today we had a school wide March of Dimes walk. Unless you are also in Florida.. the following photos are going to make you very jealous. It was a beautiful 80 degrees with a slight breeze....

Have a great weekend!

100 Day Project

I forgot to include our 100 day project. Families were instructed to make a collage or picture of 100 items and send it in. Here are the projects from my class and some projects from other classes. Lots of GREAT ideas!

We are 100 days smarter!

Today was a VERY busy day! This is how was started off the day.... practicing "duck and cover" in case of a tornado...

Then we kicked off our 100 days of school celebration!

We sorted and counted fruit loops to make a necklace
We made 10 thumb prints on 10 strips of paper

Wrote 100 words we can read from around the classroom
This is the 100 day pocket chart activity for centers this week

Inside the discovery box are 100 objects to sort, count, and arrange
The thumb prints turned into a hat!

Made a 100 day book


Predicted what we will look like in 100 years



I wrote numbers 1-100 on candy and hid them around the room. When the class came back from art they had to find them and put the candy on the number chart. We found all but one! (19 was found at dismissal)

The poor Groundhog didn't get much attention! We did complete the Weekly Reader and watched the announcement of an early spring on YouTube.

W is for Whales

At part of our Core Knowledge study of Antarctica we also learn about Whales.

The Power of the High Five

I am not a big "High Five" kind of gal. I give a lot of hugs, smiles, and pats. Once in a while I remember to offer my hand and my kindys always take me up on it.. but it just doesn't come naturally and I don't see a lot of it happening in my room - until last week that is....

I am always the first one in my grade level to offer to open up my class for students needing inclusion time. I was a special ed teacher for the first 5 years of my career. I LOVED it. I also became extremely burned out. I made the switch to kindergarten thinking that it would probably be temporary- but I fell in love with kidys too-- I will always be a special ed teacher in my heart. Anyway.. back to my story...

I am lucky to have 2 students that spend time with us from the special ed class. They are both boys and cute as can be. The first semester they came only for 1/2 hour and with an assistant. I wanted more time and I thought they'd be fine with just us (because really.. my kindys take excellent care of them! They are after all part of our class family) but as you know time flies and the teacher I share them with couldn't figure out a better schedule as they had a bunch of new students that needed to settle in. And so it goes...

I am taking part in a -new to my district- professional development online program called PD360- I love it and if you can take part DO IT! It is on demand online videos of hundreds of topics. I love getting in service credit in my jammies... Over the winter break I decided to to the Inclusion Module. Really - because I knew it would be "an easy A". I am a big advocate for inclusion and I think that the typical kids benefit MORE then the kids with special needs.

I didn't learn anything new about inclusion BUT it did light a fire under me to figure out HOW to get more time for one of my students who I thought could really benefit from spending more time in my classroom.

I simply asked at an IEP (well- I had to send an email because I couldn't be there) and we all managed to find another 1/2 hour that he can spend with us.

This last week he started to talk. I am ashamed to admit that I didn't think he could talk. I knew he signed and I would sign with him- but he never talked to the assistant when she came with him and he never answered questions when we asked. Then, last week he simply told us "bye" when he was leaving. My kids went wild all excitedly telling each other that he talked!

That day he got at least 18 high fives and for the next week my kindys would ask him to say bye or repeat a word and he would get another high five. His speech is not perfect but in one week every attempt at talking was met with a high five. My class talked about him when he wasn't with us and told each other what word they had him repeat.

So.. I guess the point of this very long story is that high five is the universal friendship language of kindergartners. --- and inclusion ROCKS.

Literacy Week

It was literacy week and each teacher was asked to do something to promote literacy in their classroom. Well, I was short on ideas and time this week! We got together with a 5th grade class and our older buddies read us two stories. The 5th graders AND the kindergartners were both super excited! I've heard my kindy exclaim, "That's the book my buddy read to me!" more then once this week.

A is for Antarctica

During the month of January we studied Antarctica. Here is a quick photo post of some of the activities we did-


The Family Homework was to make an Iceberg and observe the results. I got a few posters and many photos sent via email- I even got a video!

Penguin dice game during math centers

Color and penguin by rolling dice during math centers.

Penguin Addition

Read many, many, many, books about Antarctica, penguins and snow!

Penguin goldfish addition.

Emperor Penguin headbands

Antarctica Map
Feed the Penguin High Frequency words
Penguin fine motor push pin activity

Flat Stanley

My class is getting ready to learn about North America. This week we read Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. Today we colored our Flat Stanley and will send them to a friend or relative in North America. When Flat Stanley returns to us we will learn about different areas of North America by hearing about his adventures!


Flat Stanleyreturnclass -




Flat Stanleyparentletter -



Flat Stanleyfriendletter -



Flat Stanleycut out -



Flat Stanleyreturnletter -

Vista Print

I have a confession-- I am ADDICTED to Vista Print. How have I gone 12 years of teaching without knowing about this site!? I've seen the ads for free business cards but I never thought I needed business cards - then a parent gave me a personalized mouse pad and notebook and said they got them free from Vista Print. Then, I was reading blogs over the winter break and I stumbled across this post.
I decided to give it a look..... 4 hours later.. I came away with this... I also got 2 free tee shirts for the Grandparents, 2 free pens, a key chain, and postcards. I will warn you. IF you venture to this site you will get emails EVERYDAY offering you FREE stuff. I have more on the way, I'll post it when I get them. All of this was free plus very reasonable shipping.


I made cards for my students to stick in their pockets when we go on a field trip. I am pretty sure if they did get lost, they'd be crying or panicking and not able to give anyone information. (In the past I have just used a slip of paper- but these were FREE!)-- try to ignore all of the personal info there - thanks! :)

If you visit my room.. everything hanging on the wall is crooked. I can't help it. I have poor visual spacial skills (I park crooked too). This banner will be perfect for a bulletin board! FREE!

Car Magnet for my front classroom door! FREE!

25 magnets- I am giving these out with my February homework packet. FREE!

Bumper Sticker for inside of the bathroom door- even if they can't read it-- hopefully the whale will remind them to flush and wash.

These are my pride and joy! These are 3x3 post-its that I designed on word and uploaded (there was a 2.00 upload fee so these were not totally free) I am using these to remind my students what to do with their decodable readers.

I am not sure what I am going to use this for- but I thought we needed a thinking cap! FREE!

Three rubber stamps- one just says Name_______ (for papers that don't have a line- they seem to always forget), the second says, Thank you for doing your best job I am proud of you!, and the third says, Please practice this skill with your child at home.

Remember.... you have been WARNED!!!!

Long time no post!

So- Mr. Lewis was gone for a week, I had report card assessment, a reading assessment, report cards to write, I decided to clean out the house, AND I had to plan for this sweet girl's birthday party.. on top of it all my mom was in the hospital (she is fine- thank god!)

But today I am skipping a kindergarten post to wish my sweet daughter, Amelia a Happy 4th Birthday! I can't believe my baby is 4!

Singing at her party this weekend.

--- normal posting to resume tomorrow!----

S is for Snowman

All Floridians long for snow- well, their children do. They wish and dream about what they would do in the snow! We read a few books featuring snowmen. Our favorite was Snowmen at Night. Everyone enjoyed sharing their journal about what they think snowmen do at night.

We also made this cute book about a snowman melting.

I tried to recreate a snow experience with shaving cream and penguins. The class has fun at the the discovery center imagining...


I put this follow the directions Mitten in the pocket chart center this week. It was cold here and many of my kids did get to wear gloves to school! We made these adorable high frequency word snowmen! I assigned each child a word so we have 18 different words!