Two Hoots and A Holler: Making a Difference

Hoot #1

Last week, we were all about counting down one of our biggest events at our school.  It is the Father/Daughter Dance.  These fathers and daughters come dressed to impress for a perfect night! Our awesome PTA provides the decorations, food, and a DJ that allows our families to experience a night full of dancing and laughing! I know this was a night that these girls will never forget!
Here are some pictures of our gym transformed into a gorgeous Winter Wonderland....

 Above is one of our own Kinder Girls helping her husband DJ!  
You go girl!

Hoot #2

Throughout the school year, it is always important for us to instill in our students that even though they are small, they can make a difference! It is important that they know they have worth, and they have the ability to make this place even better than it is.  This week we learned that one of our students' grandmothers was dealing with cancer.  She had been having a tough week, so we decided to make cards to send her well wishes! 
Our class was so excited to receive a letter back!

These kiddos are ready do more things that will make a difference in this big world! Teachers... always remember, students will only meet the standard for which you set. So, set them HIGH!! They will reach it! They will meet it!! They will soar beyond those goals! 

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Katie Mense at Little Warriors. We are in love with her room design and decor! Since we are having our classrooms gutted and rebuilt this summer, we will definitely be referring back to her blog  for some ideas for the classroom.  Be sure to go check her out to see all the great things she is doing.  

Two Hoots and A Holler: Our Start to the New Year

Hoot#1
We are back!! Boy, we had a wonderful Christmas Break! We spent some time with family and friends,and we spent a lot of time laughing and making memories! 
We hope yours was just as enjoyable!
Last week, our letter of focus was the letter C. On Fun Friday, we read "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake." 
Then we followed our reading with this cute activity!

 The frosting is made of shaving cream, glue, and food coloring.  The students got to choose the topping that they wanted on their cupcake.

   

We also made caterpillar's from the letter C.  

The children had a blast make these crafts! 

Hoot #2 
It has been all about Winter here in the Delta! Believe it or not, we have had the weirdest weather this season! We actually wore flip flops over Christmas break! This was the first week that students needed to wear winter coats! So we set off to explore anything that had to do with snow!

Mrs. Jamie's class did a little writing with their tear art snowmen.

Ms. Jodi's class did these cute kids catching snowflakes on their tongues. Check out that hair!!!!

Mrs. Jodi's class did a directed drawing of this cute snowman.
They did a really good job on these drawings, and they were so proud to see them hanging in the hallway for all to see.  

 

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Ciera Harris at Adventures of Room 129. Ciera is a Reading Specialist who we got to meet at the Nashville Teacher Meetup this past summer. We love that she is a looping teacher.  We have looped in the past, and we thought that it was one of the best learning experiences as educators ever!  This really gave us an insight to all the needs of 1st grade.  It definitely made us stronger Kinder teachers.  We also love the her idea for her (almost) paperless reading circles.  
Check out her blog and read all about it!

It is Snowing Winter Activities!

Whew!  Sorry we haven't been posting blogs lately!  Since we have gotten back from Christmas Break, we feel like we have been running non-stop!  We have been working hard on getting this unit together for everyone!  I hope you will check it out on our TPT store!

 

Click Here to go to our TPT store! 

 In class, we have been working on winter activities and New Year's activities.  We have implemented a new way to do our centers, and we began our writing workshop.  Last year,  I experimented with starting it later in the year, and I learned that my student's writing was better if I waited to begin writing workshop.  Now that I think about it, it only makes sense!  If they cannot recognize letters or write letters, what in the world made me think writing was a good idea?  Yes, they could draw and dictate to me, but I felt like the focus needed to be put elsewhere.  I put a lot of focus on handwriting, phonics, and phonemic awareness the first semester; this really helps students prepare to become great writers.  Also, by waiting until 2nd semester to begin writing workshop, students are more mature and eager to write.  There is not any crying and whining, and I don't hear "I cant do it!"  Students want to try to write and actually ask for it!  Of course I am not saying that I didn't do writing at all the first semester.  We did shared writing activities, and I did a lot of modeling.  I do not expect them to be independent writers until after Christmas. Here are my students enjoying WOW time (Work On Writing). . .

Students LOVE working on the floor!  I even took out some of my tables and chairs! (Thanks to Greg Smedley of The Kindergarten Smorgasboard for sharing that idea and letting us visit his class in action!) 

They LOVE using their "Writer's Toolbox" to help them write!  You can hear a pin drop in my class during writing time.  IT IS SO QUIET!! 

Just one sample of MANY awesome stories!  I still write the correct word/spelling on the student's work.  Some say that is a BIG NO NO, but I want to be able to remember what they told me when I am looking back at it.  I have never seen any harm in doing that, as long as you are not changing their thoughts or words. 

OH!  Let's not forget all the testing that has to be done this time of year!!  Sometimes all the testing gets overwhelming!  Thanks so much to other bloggers sharing ESGI!  This assessment site has saved me a lot of time and stress!  I will NEVER teach another year without it!! It is awesome and worth every single penny!!

These students are hard at work during our center time.  I am loving our new center rotations!  Many thanks to Greg Smedley (AGAIN) for sharing and allowing us to visit!  Just one visit in his classroom, and my whole outlook on teaching kindergarten has changed, for the better! 

Needless to say, there is A LOT going on this time of year in kindergarten!  I am loving all the changes in my classroom that the new year has brought.  Don 't hesitate to ask any questions, I will be glad to share what works for me.  Hope ya'll are having a wonderful week....It is almost FRIDAY!! :)

It's All About the New Year

Christmas Break is flying by!  We have been busy with our families and enjoying the mornings we get to sleep in a little.  We both decided that we needed to work in our rooms or something.  I mean what kind of break would it be if we didn't involve school!  We love our jobs!  After much procrastination, we did it!  We took our second leap of faith and posted our first product on Teacher's Pay Teachers!  EEEKKKKKK!  We are very excited at how it all turned out, and we hope all the teachers who use it are excited too!  Please check it out and let us know if you have any questions!  Thanks for everyone's support, help, and encouraging words.  Enjoy the rest of your Christmas Break.  It won't be long until we are back into the swing of things!

Click on the picture above to go to our TPT store.

It's the Most Busiest Time of the Year!

 OK, OK, OK  I know "most busiest" is not grammatically correct, but I was trying to make the title sound like the song that goes..."It's the most wonderful time of the year." 

I survived my Disney trip, and after 21 hours of sleep (once I got home) it was back to reality....
I missed my Rockstars so much, and I think they missed me too; I got lots of hugs when they saw me Monday morning.  Mickey Mouse even sent them a special treat since they were so well behaved while I was gone! We have been busy finishing last minute projects before we got out for Christmas.  Sparkly Angel even was happy to see me.  She got a new skirt and boots with fur while I was gone!  She has been busy this week too! Take a look at what all has been going on this week!


 Here are all of the ornaments we made over the past few weeks.  We put them in bags with a poem for their parents.

We made our gingerbread houses this week too!  I love this project.  This is my third year to do them.  I was always too scared of the chaos and mess it would make, but I absolutely love watching my students create their houses.  If you have never made these with your class, then you should definitely try it next year! 

 I didn't get a picture, but Sparkly Angel rolled our Christmas tree and room!!  I guess she was all rested up from her nap she had the day before.  She built us a snowman with marshmallows and pencils, and she had our Santa letters delivered back from Santa.  We even had some North Pole Magic (glitter) in the bag with the letters!  And of course thanks to my fellow Glitter Girl (Jamie), my students (and floor) got glitter sprinkled all over them!   Today was her last day in our room, she has to go back to the North Pole to help Santa.  She brought us a letter from Santa.  Santa lifted her magic just for this morning so we could give her a goodbye hug.

 We partied like Rockstars on Thursday!  We had a Polar Express Party in our pajamas with hot chocolate, marshmallows, cookies, and candy canes.  We watched The Polar Express until lunch time.  We had pizza, chips, KoolAid, and cupcakes for lunch in the room, and it was FINALLY time for the gift exchange.  They were very anxious to get their gifts.  We played "hot potato" with the gifts, and we opened them all together on the count of 3.  My whole class was very grateful and happy with their gift. 

 That is our week in a nutshell!  I am sure I am forgetting something because we were so BUSY!!  We made it to Friday, and now its two weeks off to spend with family.  I wish everyone a Happy, Safe, and Blessed Holiday Season.

Oh!  I almost forgot one of the sweetest things one of my students said the day of our party....
She told me this was the best day ever because it was the day of the Christmas party.  She then said, "it's the best because you get to spend time with your friends, I mean that is what Christmas is all about anyway!"  She then told me all about Jesus and how it would be his Birthday.  She said, "Jesus is why we have Christmas, we celebrate Him."  I was just overwhelmed with joy that even a 6 year old gets it!  Makes my heart smile! As your rushing around trying to find that perfect gift, try to take a moment or two and remember the true reason for the season.