Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

It is so hard to believe that Thanksgiving is already here, and Christmas is right around the corner.  Time flies when you're having fun!   We are thankful that we are off the week of Thanksgiving because the days leading up to it have kept us super busy!  We have had a Veteran's Day Program, train safety presentation and visitors, a field trip, and our Thanksgiving feast!  

Our Veteran's Day program is always a big hit!  It is a Walls tradition to have this awesome program.  It takes a lot of preparation to make it happen from the staff, but it is so worth it!  We love that we have the opportunity to honor and celebrate all of our veterans.  

Obie, the little train, was brought to our school from CN Railway!  The students always have so much fun learning about train safety and riding the train around the school!  

Here we are at the Orpheum in Memphis, TN waiting on the Rhythmic Circus to begin!  The show was very entertaining and fun! 

We celebrated Thanksgiving by eating lunch in our best Thanksgiving attire with all of our kindergarten friends!  The students loved making their hats and vests!  They even got to eat lunch on their place mat that they made! 

This week has us like.... 

Hoot #2

We are so proud of how much progress our kids are showing!  We have been working really hard on writing and math.  We have began writing in our journals daily, and the students are loving it!  They are taking so much pride in their stories.  We also have been learning part-part-whole in math.  This is a very hard skill to understand at first.  We are beginning to see our students understand the concept because of their hard work and perseverance.  The best part about all of it is that we are seeing our students become more independent and grow into risk takers and problem solvers...and that makes our hearts SO happy!  

 

This Week's Holler...

This week we would like to holler at Herding Kats in Kindergarten.  We love her fall math activities to use with our dollar spot finds at Target!  We also love how she incorporates videos into her blog posts! It makes teaching a whole lot easier when teachers like her share all that they know!

 

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

 As many of you know, we went to the Ron Clark Academy in December. Since our trip, we have been implementing many of the things that we learned. Our tables are small and our supplies are stored in the middle of our table, so standing on tables would be a little difficult. Sooooo, we stand in chairs!!! That is right! At this point, during math, I introduce all new skills. Once I feel that the students have an understanding of the skill, I leave them to do the teaching! Yes, my students become teachers. I use large craft sticks to choose which student will be the teacher. That child goes to the front of the room to begin to walk students through skills such as counting on, addition, and subtraction. The student teacher will ask a question. If a student wants to respond, they must be the first one to stand in their chair. He/she is then called on by the student teacher.  If another child disagrees with the answer, that child then stands up and begins their statement with, " I disagree because..." Students can not move on to the next problem until all students are in agreement. Students show that they are in agreement by giving a "thumbs up"  hand gesture.  The same procedure happens when we are at the carpet for reading or writing.  The students simply stand where they are in order to respond.   The students love doing this! They love taking control of learning and contributing to their classroom. They have learned to support and disagree with each other calmly and with evidence.

I am so proud of them!

Below are pictures during our math time.

Hoot #2

We are busy gearing up for our Boosterthon Fun Run. This takes fundraising to whole new level! Students are sponsored by friends and family by how many laps they run! It is a great way to earn money for your school and get healthy all at the same time!  During the week of collecting money, students are given character traits that they learn about daily along with a sticker.The students are given prizes daily for the pledges that they collect.  For every $30 raised, a local family will receive 3 meals.  This is an awesome experience where everyone gets to participate whether you helped raise money or not, AND money raised helps the school and families in the community.  We recommend that you look into for your school! We have never seen our students so excited about a fundraiser before!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Kimberly Jordano at Kinder By Kim!  We have followed her for years through her website (kinderbykim.com).  We saw her at the I Teach K! conference about 10 years ago in San Diego, CA.  We have been in LOVE with her ever since!  She has some awesome books packed full of activities that are theme based.  We were ecstatic to learn that she has a blog and a TPT store!  Go check it all out, and you will see why we think she deserves this week's holler!

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1
This week we had a math and literacy night for our parents! It was a great success! Parents were able to come to our table to learn techniques that we use in math and reading to better help their children at home.

Here is a picture of Mrs. Jodi and Mrs. Brittany showing students how to use a ten frame and number bond for addition and subtraction. 

 Mrs. Nikki and Mrs. Brittany are showing parents what an "end of year" leveled reader looks like. They shared techniques with parents that will help student become more fluent with their reading and writing.

 I was in charge of our "Glow and Grow" tree. As parents finished at the tables, they were given a bag that contained all of the items on the table (leveled readers, reading wand, two different colored beans, ten frame, and number bond). I met them at the end of the table with a clipboard and paper.  We asked each parent to write something that they were proud of and one thing about how they have seen their child grow this year.  

This was a great experience. We were able to have conversations with parents with a relaxed atmosphere.  We had many laughs, and parents left with tons of teacher tools to use at home with their children.

Hoot #2

Last week, we celebrated the 100th day of school. One of our goals was to collect 100 cans of food for our local Sacred Heart Mission. I am excited to report that we collected more than 100 cans!! Monday was such a beautiful day that we walked with our students to the mission and delivered them ourselves!!

This Week's Holler...
This week we are hollering at Kindergarten Rocks!  They are two teachers in Wisconsin with some awesome ideas and a really cute blog!! Their most recent post is about getting your students and PARENTS excited to read!  They have a parent note to send home, and some great ideas on how to keep students excited to read and getting parents more involved in their child's reading progress!  Go check these girls out!