Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday by having a day filled with Dr. Seuss inspired games and activities.  The students LOVED every single minute of this day!  We had Dr. Seuss soup, Ring the Gack, Red Fish Toss, Go Fishing, marble painting, foot measuring, and Green Eggs and Ham!  Check out our fun filled day below!

Students got to flip green eggs with a spatula to see if they could catch them! 

Go Fishing Game!  Found at Wal-Mart for under $10!! 

 It is a class favorite!

Marble painting the Earth to use with a writing activity we will do with The Lorax.  

Dr. Seuss Trail Mix for Snack!  YUMMY!!

We had Goldfish crackers for One Fish, Two Fish; Froot Loops for Truffala Seeds, Mini marshmallows for Horton's egg; Animal crackers for Put Me in the Zoo; Popcorn for Hop on Pop; M&Ms for My Many Colored Days; and Teddy Grahams for Barbaloot Bears.

 It made my teacher heart happy that this was one of the favorite activities!  They got to read and explore all different Dr. Seuss books.  They were excited to look at the books we haven't read yet. 

 

Ring the Gack (game found in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)  was a hit!  It was so funny to watch the students try to ring the Gack.  All I used were some pool noodles, an old hat, and diving rings.  

 Do you like Green Eggs and Ham??  Students LOVED trying it out for themselves!  They even made a connection to the book, and said I like them just like Sam I Am!  I only had 2 that didn't like them.  The rest begged for seconds!

Cup stacking was very popular at our 100 day celebration, that I decided to bring it back for this day.  Although it didn't go as planned, the kiddos still loved it.  I had originally wanted red and white cups to stack to make the Cat in the Hat's hat.  Well, it is a lot harder that I thought to find red and white cups that are the same size!!  So I had to just improvise and let them build!  

 Foot measuring was so much fun!  Students didn't even realize how much they were learning with this simple activity.  They were discussing who had a bigger foot and seeing how had the same number of objects when they measured!  Learning can be fun!

 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!

Our very own Sneetch and Cat In The Hat

Hoot #2
We had an awesome time at the Memphis Children's Museum! This is always one of my favorite field trips. Students get to role play and pretend...AS KINDERS SHOULD!

We love when parents can attend!

This Week's Holler...
This week's holler goes out to all teachers, all over the world. We are in the the home stretch. You are tired. You are worn out, but you come to school with a fresh smile to bring happiness and comfort in the lives of your students. Keep on keepin' on!!  You got this!! Thank you for being a part of our tribe!

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1
This year Dr. Seuss's birthday and our monthly house meeting fell on the same day!  We learned all about Dr. Seuss and read several of his books in class throughout the week.  On Friday, we got to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday with our house buddies!  Their 5th grade house buddy read a Dr. Seuss book to them, then we sang "Happy Birthday" to Dr. Seuss. Finally, we had a small birthday party in honor of Dr. Seuss.  After 300 cupcakes, 40 tubs of cotton candy, 250 drinks, and lots of Dr. Seuss books, we think these kiddos had a blast! 

Mr. Hickerson, a 5th grade teacher, really enjoyed reading to our kinders!  The kinders LOVED hearing him read and seeing him dance at the celebration.   

 Some kinders read to their 5th grade buddy!  Seeing our kinders reading to their buddy made our hearts so happy! 

Hoot #2

Well, we have been lucky enough to be able to expose our kindergartners to more technology than ever this year!  This week is "Report Card Testing" week. We don't know about you, but usually that also means it is a review week. It is a little more relaxed. In a world full of assessments and rigor that is not age appropriate, it is nice to sit back and show our students how much their brain has grown! ESGI allows us to do just that! Our students are so excited to see how much of their pie graph turns green.

This year, we have been blessed to get ipads in our classroom. We now have 7 in our room. The students love to get on them. If the students are doing individual work, they are doing Reading Eggs. This is a great tool that we recommend for your kinders. It helps with phonemic awareness and other reading skills. During free centers, they love to work together in pairs. We discovered these jewels, and we are loving these new headphones!

What makes these headphones different from others is that you can take any other head phone and plug it directly to the headphone and you immediately have a partner to work with. So now we have the ability to have 14 students working at one time on tablets!!! There is no more fighting over tablet time!

The additional headphone plugs in right under the ear!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Amber at A Smiling Teacher. She is an elementary teacher from Ohio. We are in love with her writing station. Super fun and super easy! She is selling it as a bundle on TPT, and it is on our wish list now!  Go check it out!!

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

At the beginning of the year we were so nervous to begin our new phonics program, SIPPS.  We were uncertain of how to do it, and if it was going to work with our kids.  We have been doing it since November, and let us just tell you...the amount of growth we have seen in our students is AMAZING!!  Of course we had to get creative and figure out a way to make the lessons interesting and exciting for the students.  So we put our own spin on our SIPPS lessons!  We knew we wanted to put our lessons into Power Point presentations, but we still needed something more.  Jodi has students sit in scoop rockers, exercise balls, tables, or where ever they are comfortable.  The students teach the lessons and lead the class in reading the stories.  They love being the "teacher"!  Jamie has a reading party with her SIPPS group, and she has those kids up and moving as they are reading and learning.  Every SIPPS lesson is a dance party in Ms. Jamie's room!  The students see her in the hallway or cafeteria and start showing off their dance moves!  In both classes the students are up teaching the lessons to their classmates.  The students LOVE when it is time for SIPPS, and they actually cheer when they are lining up to go!  

Hoot #2 

This week has been all about Dr. Seuss! We have had so much fun! I wanted to share with you one of the activities that we did. We read:
 

After  reading the book, the students were asked, "What makes you...you?? The students answered the question with the prompt, "I am I because..". When they finished writing they were asked to create themselves using precut pieces.  This craft was inspired by First Grade Fresh; after seeing her pictures of this on Pinterest, we knew we had to do it!  They turned out SUPER cute!  They now line the front hall of our school for everyone to see!

The day ended with a visit from a special cat!!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Hope King at Elementary Shenanigans.  Since our visit to the Ron Clark Academy, we are in LOVE with Hope King!  She uses a lot of different games in her classroom, with a special "learning" twist to them to help her students stay engaged and motivated.  If you have never seen her classroom, then go check out her video of her room.  You will be AMAZED!!!!  Check out her blog and TPT store for some AWESOME ideas and resources!