Flowers and More... Flowers GALORE!!

I think that you can tell by now that I am ALL about student generated work.  I give the framework, and they do the rest!!  Right now, our kindergarten hallway is filled with student work and we love it.  We had a visitor(s) come last week and they just could not get over the classrooms and hallways filled with children's creations.
Right now we are studying flowers.  With the week before spring break, we were just happy the children wanted to learn about anything!!  I hope that everyone has a bery blessed Easter and if you are on spring break this week, ENJOY!! for when we come back, you better eat your Wheaties.... there are NO. MORE. BREAKS. UNTIL. THE. END!!

 The children were put into groups to label the parts of a flower.

 Flowers have stems, Flowers need compost, Flowers are colorful

Describing words of a flower: Daffodil, Buttercup, bloom, grow

This is from one of my neighbor teachers, Mrs. Robinson

Laura Numeroff Palooza

We had an author study.(We are seriously veering away from our current reading series..... with administrative permission , of course!!) We found a few things on pinterest, dabbled with TPT, and added a few touches on of our own.  This is a conglomeration of three of our K teachers, Mrs. Bradley, Mrs. Barrnetine, and Mrs. Johnson.  I warn you now... they spent HOURS cutting out all of the patterns but Mrs. Barrentine said it was well worth the scissor blisters and it was the "funnest" thing that they have created all year.  The goal really is connective literature, isn't it??.  By the third day, the children were recognizing the author/books  before the teacher could even show them the title of the text.  Now that's what I call making learning fun!!  I am posting LOTS of pics.

Peter Rabbit

My friend/co-worker/tech gooru/organizer/ came up with this.  The basic idea came from pinterest but we tweaked it, to make it our own. I can really say the children ABSOLUTELY LOVED this!!  I am posting Mrs. Robinson's wondlerful creations along with mine.  (Her picture is the first one posted)

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 Then we brainstormed things that bunnies could do and things that bunnies could not do.  We placed the words under the appropriate category: realisim or fantasy. 

I love work that is completely student generated.  That is one thing that I adore about the end of kindergarten..... ta dah!!  We have writers!! 

Blogger Banter

OK.  So I have posted ALL things related to school and I thought it might be nice just to chat about my blog.  I am getting around 25 hits per day, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Of all of the blogs that I have followed, and there are many, I have never left a comment.  NEVER!  But there are SO many things that I used in my classroom that were very effective that I found from blogs.  The purpose of my blog is for teachers to see "Best Practices and Research Based Teaching" in action.  What does it look like and how can I tweak something I see to fit me and my teaching style??  I am thinking about starting a website.... it would be broken into monthly theme ideas along with a section for writing, small group ideas, and a few video posts.  With all of that said, I am wanting input.  You can leave comments or email me.  My address is :  cmcbride@brewtoncityschools.org.  I guess I am wanting to know if the things that you are seeing are helpful, useful, beneficial, etc.  This has been LOTS of fun for me and I hope that it is helping the "sisterhood" of early childhood teachers that we are!!  
Can anyone say "Spring Break, Please, oh please come quickly!!"  The natives are restless and in the midst of it all, we had a kindergarten play.  As always, it was ADORABLE, PRECIOUS, DELIGHTFUL, well, you get the idea.  But LOTS of hard work.  We write our own plays every year and I must say, we do a doggone good job.  This year it was a rhyming play about our day.  It ranged from manners to lunch to making friends.  If you are in need of a play, we have written 5.  Email me and I can hook you up.  We are actually thinking about putting them on TPT, but that has not lifted off the ground yet.  I am posting a few  pictures so you could what they looked like.  In the words of one of my middle son's second grade friends, "That was the funnest play I ever saw!!"  Cole, we certainly thought so too!! 

Did I mention that my son shot his first turkey of the season??  Yessir and it was mighty tastey!!  You have not had turkey until you have a fresh turk right from the woods to the deep fryer.  This is a picture of him and my middle son and my 6 year old niece.  Yes, she hunts too, as LOTS of southern women do!!

Easter Math and More

Keep watching because I plan to post more by the end of the week.  Just in time for Easter...  Scroll down.  I added some things at the bottom

 This idea came from my neighbor teacher, Mrs. Robinson.  Frogs on a Log.  How adorable!!  Great spring time math extension

 This is my MOST favorite GO map. (Graphic Organizer) We read The Enormous Carrot.  Then we answered the SWBS  questions.  S (Somebody) W(Wanted) B (But.....) S (So).  It is a great organizer to use if the books lends itself to a problem and solution.

 As we southerners say, "How stinkin cute is that??"  Again, my neighbor teacher(s) Mrs. Craft and Mrs. Robinson made these bunnies for an addition math extension. 
It says, "Little Bunny, looking for a treat.  How many carrots did he eat?"