Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

It is getting close to the end of the year, and we have spent well over 100 days together.  As with any family, we sometimes forget how important it is to always be kind and love one another...no matter what!  You teachers know what I am talking about...this time of year stress levels are high, emotions are all over the place, everyone is tired...and by everyone I mean teachers and students!  Well, that has been my class lately.  I have had to begin teaching kindness and character education lessons to help them remember the importance of being kind.  I have used a lot of videos and songs from YouTube to help my students with this.  I began a kindness chart in class.  I give students a check by their name when they are caught being kind.  Once they receive 6 checks (on check for each letter in "Be Kind"), they will choose a reward.  We have learned multiple ways to be kind, and they understand that they have to be "caught" being kind (they just can't tell me).  Some days are really hard, and there is a lot of whining, arguing, tattling, and disobeying in class.  On those days, I take a washable marker and draw a heart on each kid's hand.  This heart is to help remind them to always be kind.  The students love having the hearts on the hands!  They don't even want to wash their hands...so be prepared to redraw hearts! (Because we definitely want them to wash their hands...you fellow kinder teachers out there know what I mean!)  One of the most important goals for my students is to be a successful citizen in society.  Understanding kindness and showing kindness, even when we think someone doesn't deserve it, will help them achieve this goal.  I challenge each of you to try a little kindness challenge in your classroom!  It feels good to make someone smile!  A little kindness goes a LONG way!!!  

BE KIND AND PAY IT FORWARD! 

Hoot #2

We are 5 days away from meeting our chicks. We have studied all of the things that the chicks are currently doing inside the shell as we wait for their arrival. We have also been learning everything that it will take to care for them. One of the things that we learned was the body parts of a chick. We did a fun activity of tear art to reinforce labeling. The kids had a blast!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Elizabeth at Kickin' It In Kindergarten. I don't know about you, but right now, our class is all about word problems! We are loving Elizabeth's Wednesday Words Problems. She has them for the whole year. Hop over and check it out!

Two Hoots and A Holler

We hope everyone had a blast during their summer break! 
We did a lot of relaxing and a little traveling.

We have started our year with 20 new Jitterbugs and Rockstars! We can't wait to see how these students grow. 
We are definitely raising the bar this year!!

Hoot #1

As many of you know, Jodi and I went to the Ron Clark Academy last school year. We took sooooo many things away from that. One of the things that you couldn't help but notice was that teachers did not have any of their student's work hanging in the hall. RCA had pictures of their students hanging instead. We fell in love with this idea! We started this, on a small scale, last year. This year we decided to go all out! We did not have the money for actual frames, so we made our own! I think that they turned out great! Throughout the year we will add more and more pictures of our students until it is full!

 

We also decorated our doors, and it will last ALL YEAR! No more wasting time throughout the day trying to design a door, just to pull it down in a few weeks! These doors were created with vinyl. It is hard to tell in the picture, but every single letter, polka dot, and star is made of GLITTER vinyl. We absolutely love how they turned out. A big Thanks goes out to Shauna Gardner for lending us her time and machine to create our doors!!

Hoot #2

We wanted to create something special when the students arrived for open house. We wanted our parents to feel welcomed and loved in their child's new elementary family. We created two areas in the hallway that they would walk under as they found their classroom.

 We are the Walls Elementary Gators, so it was only fitting that a Gator was there to greet them.

 This one is our favorite and probably the easiest!

We are so excited to start this school year. There are so many new things that we are going to try.

Here we go...........

Welcome class of 2030!!!!!!

This Week's Holler... 
This week's holler goes out to Leslie at Kindergarten Works.  She has some wonderful ideas on her blog about the first week of kindergarten.  We love her idea of her lesson plan bracelet to help keep her on track and remind her of things that must be done.  We are so busy this time of year, and this bracelet would definitely work for us!  She has TONS of helpful information (like activities for kids, bootcamp, free printables, etc.) to help teachers survive that busy, hectic first week of kindergarten.  Go check her out! 

 

Two Hoots and A Holler: Welcome Back!!

Hoot #1

Well our summer has seemed to have come and gone in a blink of an eye!  We had some great times on the beach over the summer, and now it is time to get back in the groove of things! 

We could NOT get into our groove without to ESGI!!!  If you have never heard of ESGI or used it, then you are truly missing out!  This assessment tool has saved us HOURS of assessing in our classrooms, and hours of gathering data for parents and RTI.  

Why do we think so highly of ESGI? There are so many reason, but here are just a few reasons why we will never teach another year without it! 

•  It is user friendly!  It is so easy to enter your class, pick from hundreds of assessments, and begin!
• Tests that we create can be shared with other teachers in our district!  
• There are SO many assessments to choose from, there is sure to be one that fits your needs!
• Paper and pencil one on one assessments can take days, even weeks to do.  Then you have to analyze the data, which takes even longer!  We can test skills in just a matter of days, not weeks...AND it analyzes all of your data for you!  
• It provides individualized parent letters and flash cards to send home with each child.  It keeps parents in the KNOW!
• It has a Spanish version of letters to send home to parents.  
• It tracks student growth as a class and individually throughout the year.  

So what are you waiting for??  Those are reasons enough to want to try it out for free!  Sign up for your free trial today, and get started!
The first 60 days are free for first time subscribers!
Once you see that you cannot live without it, you can purchase the yearly subscription is $159 (regularly $199) by using the code B6125 at check out.  

 

Once you try it out, you will be asking yourself..."how did I ever manage without it?!?!?"

Hoot #2

This is our first full week of school, and we have had our new kiddos in our classrooms for a little over a week.  It was so great to start our first day off with smiling faces of teachers, parents, and students.  At the beginning of every year, we tend to forget how hectic these first few weeks can be.  We forget how much we really have to teach these babies, including the all the little things we take for granted. Our new group of kids have amazed us in every way!  They have adjusted so fast to their new learning environment.  After 3 days of school, we were able to start our new curriculum in full effect!  These kids are listening, joining in discussions, sharing work, and loving every minute of it!  Students are already telling us each day how much they love school!  They are cheering when they see a new book appear, getting to draw a story, getting to use their new school supplies.  They are so eager and motivated to learn, and it makes our hearts so happy!  It is going to be a great year.  We cannot wait to see how much our students are going to grow this year! 

This activity allowed students to practice coloring, cutting, and gluing.  It can be found in our TPT store in our Back to School Activities download.  Click here to go to our store!

I think it is safe to say that these kiddos LOVE kindergarten!  

This Week's Holler...

 We have a lot of changes going on this year, but we have a strong kindergarten team of teachers to help us get through it all.  We know it will be a great year because we work so closely together.  We are excited to take on all of the challenges and celebrate all of our success with this wonderful team of teachers.  We definitely could not do it without each and everyone of them.  So glad to have these ladies in our teacher tribe!  

Here's to another awesome year of kindergarten! 

Keep Calm!  WE GOT THIS!

GO GATORS!!!  

Two Hoots and A Holler: Happy Kindergarten Day!

 Hoot #1 
Today is National Kindergarten Day!  We want to say thank you to all of the wonderful kindergarten teachers out there who inspire us every day!  Thank you for being so dedicated to making a difference!  We also want to thank all of our kindergarten students, past and present, who continue to make us smile and laugh each and every day!  They are the reason why we do what we do!  Our students continue to amaze us and make us proud every day...our cups runneth over!

Too cute not to share, although we all know kindergarten is more than snacks, crafts, and naps!  

Hoot #2

Now that our worms have cultivated our soil, we are ready to plant! We learned that each part of a plant is important. We defined the function of each part and finally labeled the parts.

 Next we were ready to use our cultivated soil to plant our real seeds! Each day the students will find some time to write about the progress that their plant is making.

As you can see, they took this job very seriously! They were all so intrigued! They absolutely loved learning about the whole process! 

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Kelsey at Aloha to Second! Kelsey currently lives in Chicago! That is such a different life from our surrounding farm land! Isn't that the greatest thing about teaching?!?! You can connect with people from all over the world and you still have so much in common simply because you are a teacher. Recently, Kelsey did a cute recycling project with her class.  They made instruments out of recycled items that they brought from home to class. I know that Earth Day is tomorrow, and I know that many of you cover Earth Day in your lessons.  You need to go on over to Aloha to Second and check out her neat activity! Thanks for sharing Kelsey!