Five For Friday- Winter Fun

It's finally time for Five for Friday! 

I'm excited to link up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching. 

Check out the link up here: doodlebugsteaching

I gotta start by saying how grateful I am for the awesome teaching community that I have the privilege of being apart of.  Almost all of the activities/projects I've been working on lately were free downloads offered by teachers on TPT. I'm so thankful for all the generous educators who care about making learning meaningful for all students and are happy to share their ideas and products. It's inspiring me to create some more freebies! :)
So here's what has inspired me lately:

It's been all about the Snow people

We have been having too much fun (not like that's possible in K/1) with our snowmen activities.

I wanted to highlight this writing excerpt because I am SO PROUD of the progress this student has made! He was not writing at the beginning of the year and he just knocked this WHOLE paragraph out ON HIS OWN! 

YEP that's right independent writing right here! I am one Proud Teacher!! :)

Okay so I know they aren't all finished (some of my kindergarteners are still working on writing), but I wanted to give you an idea of how cute they look all up on the board together. 
This activity is a little writing/craftivity freebie I picked up on TPT created by Camping Teacher  Grab yours for free HERE

Snowmen Glyphs and Crafts

 

The snowman glyph was an awesome activity that helped my students practice collecting data and graph it. They really enjoyed this one.

Download your copy Here

This little project was a fun winter activity that turned out to be a fun bulletin board display. This freebie was an awesome find. A big thank you to Funky Fresh Firsties If you want to try it with your kiddos, grab your copy Here

Arctic Animals and Winter Writing We've been studying arctic animals and have used several different writing activities to reinforce what we've learned.

Labeling and Sorting Facts About Arctic Animals 

Arctic Animal Freebie

Polar Bears Close Reading This was such a helpful mini lesson focusing on identifying the main idea and finding supporting evidence in the text.  My first graders were really engaged and were excited when they successfully identified the main idea and were able to remember the supporting facts. *This was definitely a highlight during the week.

And we got a little carried away with measurement

This week I introduced measurement during math and we started with the basics- non-standard measurement using unifix cubes and rulers.

And I decided to join in on the fun, so I had the students measure me! :)

They got a kick out of that!

This was a pretty fantastic mini unit!  I'd highly recommend it for young learners.

And lastly, I recently made a new discovery. I happen to stumble across this website while perusing my Facebook feed and I think the idea is totally ingenious!
Ladies and Gentlemen- I'd like to introduce/share with you the coolest idea= Budsies.
I so want to buy one for all of my students but considering they are $70 bucks a pop, I think I'm gonna need to come up with a new plan. But seriously, isn't this the coolest thing?

Budsies And that's all for now folks.
Have a Happy Weekend!

Kindergarten Open House

This weekend my school had a kindergarten open house for incoming kindergarteners and their parents.  We offered an informational session for the parents while the kiddos were preoccupied reading, doing crafts and eating cupcakes. It was a great way for the kids to feel excited about starting school and the parents to learn a little more about our kindergarten program. 

Since this was the first time I was in charge of planning the event I thought I would hop on over to Teachers Pay Teachers for a little inspiration. I wanted to find a cute powerpoint template that I could use as well as something fun for the visitors to take with them when they left.

Here are some ideas I found that helped the event go off without a hitch!

If you like this powerpoint template, click HERE to download your own!

 I shared a little about our school and kindergarten program. Here are just a few of the talking points.

Some tasty treats and fun favors to help the visitors feel appreciated and excited about kindergarten next year.

If you like these tags, feel free to download them. I'd like to give a BIG THANK YOU to Peace Love and Learning! You can check out their blog and grab the free resource HERE

The popcorn tags were a free download courtesy of Crayons in the City. You can download their tags for free HERE

I also thought it would be helpful to give each family a folder which included a packet of handouts to help guide them through the enrollment process. The handouts also offered tips to help prepare their kids for kindergarten. 

I found these wonderful handouts from Simply Kinder Grab your packet HERE

The free packet includes: a list of tasks to work on before starting school, a list of what we learn of kindergarten, flashcards to help them learn their letters, numbers and shapes.

I also included a kindergarten readiness checklist and an article about

 the importance of play. 

Now the last thing I want to share with you is a picture of our cute bulletin board. I felt like we needed to spruce things up for winter and after pursuing TPT I found a wonderful idea.

Here it is:

My students had so much fun making their snow people and writing recommendations of books they loved. 

If you like this bulletin board idea, you can purchase it on TPT HERE

Thanks so much for stopping by. Oh and I wanted to wish you all a Happy Belated Groundhogs Day!