Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

Our first hoot all about the letter P. We had an awesome party to celebrate the letter Pp!  Thanks to our wonderful parents, we were able to eat pizza, pickles, popcorn, pretzels, Pringles, pixie sticks, pop tarts, purple juice and so much more. We got to even wear our pajamas to school!!  We also had popsicles at recess and made pirate hats.  We topped off the afternoon with a real princess coming to read to our classes! We just love days like these!
Jitterbugs & Rockstars love princesses!

Hoot #2

Our second hoot is something that has helped us show a lot of growth already! If you have not heard about the "Blue Book," we highly recommend that you look into it. Over the past few years, it seemed that our students really struggled in the area of phonemic awareness. We have also struggled with trying to find the right combination that would work with our littles. We do believe that we may have found it!  It is perfect because it is quick and covers all of the areas of phonemic awareness. It takes about 15 minutes (max) to do it. It We do it daily, every morning during large group time. We do hand motions to help the students retain the information. We love it, and the students do too!!  We would love to answer any questions that you may have about this. 

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to a beloved coworker who has began a new chapter in her life.  She has worked at our school for 15 years, so we have had lots of laughs with this special lady!  Bonnie, we are so very blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know you and call you a friend!  Good luck on your new adventure!  
We love you!  It is not "goodbye"... it is "see ya later!"

Two Hoots and A Holler:

Hoot #1

Yesterday officially ended our first 9 weeks of school!  We cannot believe 9 weeks has passed by already!  It has been a very busy kickoff to our year.  While we are busy testing report cards, sight words, and reading levels, we can't help but to think back on that first week that we met our sweet class.  It is absolutely AMAZING how much they have grown!  There is not one student in our classes that hasn't grown academically and socially!  This is the time of the year when we reflect back on what has happened so far in our classes, and we think about what has worked and what hasn't...ya'll know as well as we do, every class/student is different and we must change our teaching to meet their needs.  Incorporating more hands-on, sensory type of activities has benefited our students in many ways!  Our students LOVE school!  We have had several texts, letters, and emails from parents about how much their child loves school.  This makes our hearts smile to hear this!  Students who love school are going to be more motivated to learn. The only thing we have done different this year is added more developmentally appropriate activities in our classrooms!  In just 9 short weeks, it has had a HUGE impact on our students....so much in fact, their parents even see the impact school is having on their child! 

That is what teaching is all about, guys!  It is having that rewarding feeling that you are doing something positive for each student in your class, it's that feeling of success when you know you have motivated children to want to learn, it's standing up for what you know is right for your class (and doing it), it's giving children opportunities that they may have never had, and most importantly it's allowing students to blossom in his/her own time by meeting THEIR needs (notice it says THEIR, not my needs, not what the curriculum needs, not what the test needs you to teach, not what someone needs to dictate for you to teach, it is THEIR as in the students).  Here is a recap of some of the things we have done so far this year...

Making shape pizzas and eating real pizza in our pajamas for the letter P!

Learning all about Hawaii for the letter H!

Hh is for handprints!

Making leis to wear while we learn about Hawaii. 

Chewing gumballs to see if we can blow a bubble for the letter G!

Lemonade and ladybug hats for the letter L. 

Hoot #2

While the end of our 9 weeks was drawing near, we had a great visit from our local EMT's and fire fighters! It is fire safety month, so our local fire fighters and EMT's reached out to all of our kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders to teach them about fire safety.  Our kindergarteners loved seeing the fire truck and the fire fighter getting all geared up to go fight a fire!  The most interesting fact that our students learned, was there are girl fire fighters!  They thought that was the coolest thing ever! And of course, no fire fighter visit would be complete without each student getting a goody bag and their very own fireman helmet to take home!  

Striking a pose in front of the fire truck! 

One of our kindergarten students and fire fighters showing others how to stop, drop, cover, and roll. 

This Week's Holler. . .
This week's holler goes out to Claire Lynn Designs!  We snagged her business card at the blogger meet up in French Lick, IN.  Click the picture below to go to the website.  Our favorite is the state teacher shirt!  That will definitely be on our Christmas list this year!  There are definitely LOTS of cute, customized shirts to meet every teacher's style!  These would make great teacher gifts for your child's teacher or principal gifts!  
Go check it out, you will be glad you did! 

 

Two Hoots and A Holler: Gg is for. . .

Hoot #1
Last week we learning all about the letter G.  Since our school mascot is the "Gator." We asked all of our kinders to show their Gator Pride by wearing green.

Check out this Jitterbug showing her Gator Pride!

The students also got to chew gum in class!! That's right! We decided to see how many kiddos could blow a bubble. Later we graphed the results.  I would call it a successful day! No one blew their gum across the room when they tried to blow their bubble!!

Are those not the cutest kids trying to blow a bubble?!?!

Hoot #2
Do you know what else starts with Gg?  GO NOODLE! GoNoodle is used all the time in our rooms!  We start our year off introducing our classes to GoNoodle.  We love it, our kids love it...I mean what is there not to love about GoNoodle?!?! It gives our students a fun brain break when they become restless or need to reboost.  It is also great for those rainy or cold days that we can't go outside for recess.  The students are always asking for more GoNoodle!  We just can't get enough!  Our students LOVE the Koo Koo Kanga Roo videos.  They literally beg us to do Pop Se Ko or Wiggle it!  Those seem to be their favorites this year.  We absolutely cannot wait to introduce more and more videos from GoNoodle to our kids to keep them movin' and learnin'! We have seen first hand at how supportive GoNoodle is of teachers across the nation.  They have helped sponsor both of the blogger meet ups we have been to.  And let us just say, they went above and beyond our expectations to make our meet ups the best!  GoNoodle deserves a BIG HOOT from Kinder Glitter Girls!  Thanks GoNoodle for ALL that you do to help support teachers and our classrooms!  

Dancing to Pop Se Ko.  Our hands are high! 

This is how we Pop Se Ko!!

 Wiggle it, wiggle it!  Come on! Come on! 

Students are wiggling it really high!

This Week's Holler...

 This weeks holler goes out to Brittany Brune at Nifty in First Grade. Brittany is a first grade teacher in Indiana.  We were given the privilege to meet Brittany at the French Lick Spring Blogger Meet-up.  She is a ball of energy! She helped set up this wonderful event!  And can we say, she has the cutest baby ever!!

We love Brittany's Back To School Survey for her parents!  It is too cute and FREE! Check her out! 
 

Two Hoots and A Holler: We're Lovin It!

Hoot #1

We have been working hard to make letter units to use in our classroom.  We just felt that our students needed more hands on types of activities to help them learn and remember letters and sounds.  This past week was the first time that we actually got to use them with our class!  Our kids absolutely LOVED getting to do all of the activities at our Ll Celebration.  Each child got to make his/her own glass of lemonade to drink.  They got to taste their lemon before squeezing it; that was one of the funniest things, I regret I didn't have my camera ready to snap a picture of some of those faces!  We graphed about our lemonade, we made a glyph about our lemonade, and we wore our ladybug hats home.  The hats were a HUGE hit!  They loved putting them on and "flying" around the room!  They are already asking what is in store for the letter Oo tomorrow on Fun Friday! We think that these letter units are definitely kid approved.  That means so much to us to know that our students are benefiting from the activities happening in our rooms! 

Hoot #2

So lately, I have become sort of obsessed with ordering teacher t-shirts! There are so many that I see on Facebook that are just TOO cute, and I think that I MUST have them!  Today, I got my last order of shirts, and I AM IN LOVE WITH THEM!   I had a friend make them, and she did a wonderful job.  

Made by Just 4 You.  Look her up on my Facebook Page.  She does EXCELLENT work!

 We have been to two blogger meet ups so far since we started our journey as Kinder Glitter Girls back in November.  Both of the meetups ended by having one last breakfast before saying good bye to our new friends.  Both times, we have worn matching shirts to the breakfast that we feel represent us.  We found the PERFECT shirt to wear to our next meet up.  We can't wait to go to another meet up to be surrounded by such wonderful and talented teachers!  So in the meantime, we will keep our shirts hung up in our closets and wait as patiently as possible until the next blogger teacher meet up.  Hope it isn't too much longer...

HEY Y'ALL! Here we are at the Nashville Teacher Blogger Meet Up on our last day.  We saw these shirts, and we just couldn't resist!  Can't wait to wear the new shirts!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Heidi at Flipping For First! This sweet lady is a ball of energy!  Our backs are still hurting from seeing her do that back flip on the trampoline! You can see it too when you check out her blog!  We loved her editable Open House Handbook that she created! Since we started school on the 5th, we are definitely putting that on the list for next year!  No matter what grade you teach, this girl has covered the topic! We are so thankful for Heidi!