Thanksgiving Fun

So we are just one week away from Thanksgiving, and we have been busy all month talking about the meaning of this holiday. I realized at the beginning of this month that my kids didn't have an actual concept of this holiday. I asked them at the beginning of the month what special holiday happened during the month of November. Christmas, all of my kids yelled. I had to explain to them, no, it's Thanksgiving. When I asked them what happened on thanksgiving, of course the answer was, Get Presents. I was mortified, because I personally LOVE Thanksgiving. I than began to explain to them the story of the first Thanksgiving. They loved it, so all month I have been reading them real and nonfiction stories about Thanksgiving. We have also watched little movies about the meaning of thanksgiving, and why we have it. I am proud to say that we are now fully aware of the pilgrims, the mayflower, Indians, Squanto, and the reason for thanksgiving. We have talked about the history, and how we should all give thanks. While we talked about this, f course we made QUITE A FEW crafts. I love making things with the kid-os. We practiced our writing skills when we made our thankful turkeys, and our pilgrim boys. We also learned about the difference between children now and children back then. The kids loved hearing the different language the pilgrims used compared to ours. They loved the word poppet. They were also shocked to find out that pilgrim children didn't go to school, they had to stay home and work. They didn't like that at all. We discussed the chores that the pilgrims did, and compared them to the chores that we do. We are in the middle of a class book talking about chores. Here are a few things that we have made this month.

Deanna Jump

So, I have been introduced to the activities of Deanna Jump, and let me just tell you, I LOVE THEM!!!!  Last Friday, I decided that we would do our scarecrow that came in her packet.  It turned out so cute.  The kids LOVED it!!  We talked about different types of graphs, and charts.  We also discussed how we used them to organize our thoughts.  We than filled out our charts, and learned all about scarecrows.  The kid-os loved them.  After we filled everything out, we worked on writing in our books.  We have been talking about s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out our letters, so that we know how to spell them.  That is what we did on the rest of the book.  For example the sentence was, "you scared a ______ but you didn't scare me!"  There was a picture of a cat, so they had to stretch the word cat, and spell it.  They loved it.  When we finished making our books we attatched them to our scarecrows that we made.  The scarecrows turned out SO cute, and the kids are already begging me to let them take them home.  So, if you have not checked out Deanna Jump at teachers pay teachers, she has some AWESOME stuff!!!! here is an example of the book. I don't have pics of the scarecrows on my iPad, but I will post those SOON!!

My Classroom

This post will be a tour of my classroom.  I have worked really hard on my classroom, and I am still working on it to make it perfect. 

First off, this is one of our bulletin board displays.  We will keep this up all year, and display our different types of writing. 

This is a close up of the work holders.  It has their name, and a boy or girl holding a pencil.

This is my morning meeting corner.

A different angle.

These are the class rules I made to hang up.  They are: Be Kind, Listen to Ms. Britney, and Use Whisper Voices.  We have a hard time with whispering. 

This next picture shows the right side of my calendar board.  It displays our sight words, amazing words, and math words.  It also has our rules, and our voice-o-meter.  We go over our months of the year every day, and than we use the ones, tens, hundreds chart to count how many days we have been in school.  We mark off the number on the 100's chart, and than we add a tally.  I have recently started having them write the number at the bottom of the tally chart as well. 

This is the left side of our calendar.  We practice our days of the week, months of the year, our date, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  We also talk about the different seasons, and the weather.  When we mark our calendar, we practice counting, and we always have a different pattern going each month. 

This is one of our center signs.  These are the rules that we created together as a class.  There is a sign for each of our centers.  We have morning and afternoon centers.  This way, we center time is independent, and I am able to work with small groups.  They do really well with this!!

This is our discovery table.  At the moment we are talking about pumpkin Jack.  We carved a pumpkin, and now we are watching him decompose.  At this center we also use play dough, and other sensory type things.  This is where we get fine motor practice, and I can pull in different subjects each week. 

This is another shot of our discovery center. 

This is our creation station.  We do lots of crafts in my classroom.  We always do some type of craft that goes along with either our reading selection, or our letter of the week, at this center.

This is the Share Chair that I have painted.  They get to sit in this chair every Friday, for show and tell.  They LOVE IT!!

Our computer center.  I am very blessed to have 7 computers, and an IPad in my classroom.  I love it, and they kids do also!!  We use 2 of the computers strictly for the Waterford Learning Program that our pre-k and k use.  We also use the other computers for IXL Math, and Reading Eggs.  Reading Eggs is a WONDERFUL program, and my kids LOVE it!!  If you haven't heard of it, check it out!! 

This year I use a number of behavior "incentives"  These are our behavior bucks.  When I catch them doing something good, I will give them a dollar.  This usually makes all of the other children see what they are doing and copy it.  These come in VERY HANDY!!!!  At the end of each month I bring in a toy cash register, and something for them to buy.  They get to count their money, and cash it in.  While they are at P.E. I usually set up a little shop with different priced items.  They can use their money to buy these items.  They love it!!  This month I am going to be letting them cash in their money for a food prize.  They get to buy each ingredient to make a turkey. 

This is our behavior cup.  As a class, they can earn a jewel.  When they fill up the cup, they get a special snack.  We aren't allowed to have parties, so I will do a special snack with them.

This is Michelangelo, aka, Mikey.  He is our class pet turtle.  He is a red eared slider, and I got him for my birthday.  Big shout out to my little bro and my two best friends!!!!

This is one of my many Pinterest crafts.  I am such an ADDICT!!

Our behavior chart.  Everyday we start out on green.  They can move up or down throughout the day.  If they are good, they get to move up to blue, and they get a sticker.  If they are EXTRAORDINARY, they get to move to purple and get a pencil or other little trinket.  If they are not so good they move to yellow, this is just a warning.  Nothing happens on yellow.  Next, they move down to red.  When they do that, they have to lose a privilege, and a note is sent home.  The last thing is black.  If they get on black, they are instantly sent to the office, and a phone call is made home. 

This is a view from my desk.

This is our library center.  This is a morning center.  The children have different choices at this center.  They can read to a puppet, read to a partner, or get a whisper phone and read to themselves.  After they finish a book, they write about it in our reading journal. 

WE LOVE TO FILL BUCKETS!!!!  If you haven't heard about the bucket filling system I really encourage you to jump on the band wagon!!  It is great!!  We haven't started writing our bucket fillers yet, we just verbally say them.  After Christmas, each child will have a bucket to get filled. 

This is my writing center.  I have worked and worked on this center.  I can't get it exactly how I want it.  I like what they are doing right now, and it is something that changes out weekly, and can carry on all year.  I just want to make sure they have enough things to do, and that this center is effective.

This is our direction board.  They have to do each thing that is numbered, in order.  First they have to look at the seasonal words, and write about them in their seasonal word folder.  Second, they have to fill up an entire sheet of paper front and back with the letter of the week.  Third, they rainbow write their sight words.  Fourth, they spell their sight words with magnet letters or letter chips.  Finally when they finish all of that they get to write the room.  That is their favorite thing to do!!

Big thank you to the BESTIE Aly Matthews for this owl lamp.  We LOVE LOVE IT!!

View from my smart board.

These are some of the curtain my mom and I sewed this summer.  That was a HUGE TASK, but so worth it!!  I love them!!  If you can't tell, I love owls!!

My desk, before school started (obviously haha).

This is where we keep our behavior bucks.  Everyone has a pocket. 

Our outside display.  This is where we hang up all of our fun crafts.

The door sign that I painted for my classroom.

Well, that is basicly my classroom.  As the classroom evolves, and I add more to it, I will add keep you guys updated.  Well, for now guys, I am out!!  Happy Thursday!!!!