Wrapping up unit 4 with some fun word work :)

Word work may just be one of my favorite things the students work on. I love how easy it is to make learning our sight words hands on and interactive. Last week we started wrapping up unit 4 in our reading series, Journeys. I've created a little packet of activities for the students to complete as centers. In this packet, students practice molding our sight words with play-doh, going on a sight word scavenger hunt around the room, and more.

We used letter stamps to stamp our sight words. This took them what felt like forever but they were so focused on what they were doing, you could hear a pin drop-- a teacher's dream :)

 We also love our Rainbow Write :)

 

We had more fun activities but I forgot to take pictures of them. You know how it goes, you plan to take pictures but then get so caught up in something else. I need to be better about that! This packet is available in my TPT store for those of you kindergarten teachers who use Journeys. Click the picture below to go to it.

Tomorrow is our 100th day of school and we are all dressing up like we are 100 years old. Our kindergarten cuteness level is about to go way off the charts!! Can't wait to show you all some pictures :)

Mardi Gras FREEBIE!

I am working on my Mardi Gras unit and wanted to share with all of you a little freebie :)

Using the colors purple, green, and yellow, the students should write the sight words listed next to the line. The first handout are words used from the Journeys reading series that we use at my school (which I LOVE by the way!). The other handout uses words from Fry's list of 100 Words.

This will be in my Mardi Gras unit as well as 30 more pages of other fun material. Be sure to check it out when I upload it in a few days :)

Have a great day!

Sight Word Magnets on Cookie Sheets

So today I finally got around to making one of those adorable things I saw on pinterest this summer. Ok fine, by "make" I mean print off from a website where someone else had already made it :) My grade partner had bought the cookie sheets from the Dollar Store this summer for sight word magnets and was nice enough to let us borrow them today to spell out our sight words. Here are our pictures below:

The handout I printed for this came from HERE and it is FREE.. woohoo!

Gotta love those centers that can be thrown together in a matter of minutes, right??

Happy Halloween everyone!!

P.S. Today was day 46... I can't wait for day 50 and all of our 50th day fun!!

Classroom Pics

Well I can't believe it but I am finally almost done getting my classroom put together!! There is still a little left to do, mostly just sorting through a bunch of stickers that were donated to me and organizing them. Anyway, here are the pictures!! 

Ok, you caught me! This first one is not actually of my classroom, it is a 4th grade classroom I saw while attending a workshop. I just love this bulletin board because I have had the song "Call Me Maybe" stuck in my head all summer and this board made me smile :)

This is a view of our carpet area where I hung up the pom poms I bought at Party City. I think I am overdue to update that super old chair. It looks like it has been there since our school opened in the 60s.

This is just a side view of my classroom. It is very unorganized right now but this is where we keep most of our games for centers and some math manipulatives in the red and brown bookshelves.

I am so proud of this! This is something I saw on Pinterest and actually made it! I am the worst about pinning things I think are adorable and then never going back to them. But this time I actually made it!! It is made of two of my file cabinets that I put back to back and then covered with paper and border, then put magnets on it. Later in the year, this can be one of our centers where they spell their sight words using the magnets.

This is our specials classes and special events schedule board. At my school, which is Catholic, we go to mass every other week. My kids are always asking "are we going to mass this week?" We also have some specials that are every other week and they ask about those. Hopefully by keeping this board updated it will keep them informed on what to expect that week. The days of the week are from Mrs. Lemons blog and the specials tags I found on TPT from Little Miss Glamour. Sorry for the blurry picture!

Last but not least, here is the view of my room from the door. Hope you enjoyed seeing the pictures!! 

What I've Been Pinning...

Since I have had more time over our summer break I have fallen back in love with my favorite time waster- PINTEREST! I can spend hours on pinterest easily and not get bored, it is dangerous! It is getting me SOOOO pumped up to go back to school!! I have seen other bloggers posting about their favorite recent pins and I thought I would share with you some of my favorite pins I have seen recently too (just in case ya'll weren't already as pumped up about going back to school as I am!)

I love this adorable idea for a new way to celebrate birthdays. Instead of giving out another pencil (our front office gives out pencils too) you can give out a crazy straw with a cute little birthday sign attached to it. They look so adorable and the kids will love just them!

This adorable center is a much better way for me to use my super cheap magnetic letters than what I had been doing. Last year I found some magnetic letters in the dollar section at Target and they were not very strong magnets. I had my students use them on the chalkboard (which is magnetic in case ya'll didn't know that, and yes.... I still have a CHALKBOARD in the back of the room!! Chalkboards still exist!) Anyway, the magnets were not very strong and kept falling off the board when my little ones were trying to spell their sight words. This way, on a cookie sheet that is laying down, we don't have to worry about them falling off!

This one I love because it will help me to make my hideous file cabinets less ugly AND functional! I am super excited about that!!

And this one may be my favorite just because of how adorable it is! What a cute way to make your pocket chart center fun! It is so simple, but adds so much! 

Now my only problem with pinterest is that there are too many cute classroom decorating ideas. Just when I think I have found the perfect theme for next year, another even cuter one comes along! My current love is the rainbow theme from below:

I love the double border around the cloud background paper and the beautiful tissue paper pom poms! I am just loving the tissue paper pom poms I am seeing all over pinterest lately. I saw tissue paper pom poms in this classroom below too and loved them:

Now with all of these super cute ideas I've found the only problem is going to be finding the time to make all of it!! I am leaving for a cruise to Alaska on Thursday and will be gone for two weeks (woohoo!) but when I come back it is right back to school! I may have to put my mom and sisters to work with helping me :)

Have a great day ya'll!