Emergency Contact Info and Linky!

As you know, I am the only K5 teacher at my school. Y'all I would be so lost if it weren't for my teacher mentor, role model, and BFF, who teaches K4! Momma C is always looking out for me. PRAISE THE LORD! Two years ago she came up with this awesome idea for us to store each student's photo alongside their emergency contact information. This is very helpful for subs who may not know the students names! You can't always rely on 4 year olds to speak up and say who is who at the beginning of the year! Of course, Momma C showed up at school having already secured this photo album for me. I think it came from Dollar Tree or Walmart.... either way its not an expensive buy!

The green floral pages slid right out and I replaced them with some cute pirate covers. 

I added pictures of my students along with the parent contact info. and now I am all set for another school year! You can download these pirate covers, parent contact forms, and a set of generic covers for FREE at my teacherspayteachers store! Check back tomorrow for a chance to Link Up!!!! ;) 

Pirate Classroom Management and Behavior Chart

      My first year teaching I modified my behavior management system several times.  When I started teaching, I had a one card system that I used with this "Don't Walk the Plank!" chart.

          After students had received a warning, they would turn their card into me and I would make a short note regarding what happened and date it. Example: "8/22/2011 - running." I sent the cards home at the end of the week for the parents to sign and each student received a fresh card on Monday. My aunt swears this worked in her K class. Let me just say - it was a NIGHTMARE for me! The kids I taught my first year were not the kind of kids who could come to the front and pull their cards, for one. They were throwing out all kinds of tantrums or taking forever and a day to retrieve it. I am also not the kind of teacher who can keep teaching, keep monitoring, and write behavior comments on students's cards throughout the day without getting a little bit distracted or confused. If you can do it all... then more power to ya! ;) 

     On to nightmare number 2.. I changed to a system I had observed in a K class when I was student teaching.  I gave students four linking cubes and students lost cubes throughout the day if they did not follow our classroom rules. I would go to the student's desk to retrieve the cubes, but they still had to physically remove the cube from their pencil boxes and put them in my hands. This may have been worse than the first option. Students were constantly playing with cubes during work time, stealing cubes from other students, and my favorite... throwing their cube trains at me when I asked them to hand me a cube. Don't get me started ya'll... my first class was just like that. Seriously. It wasn't just me. 

     Finally, with the help of the K4 and 1st grade teacher I came up with something that worked better for me! I attached these faces and names to my chalkboard and started moving the students' names myself. 

     This year I revamped my chart to match my pirate theme and also added a face for students who go above and beyond! I made these faces using my Cricut cutter and they are SO cute! Sorry about the glare.. I promise they look WAY better in real life! 

    I am usually standing near the chalkboard when I am teaching, so this chart allows for very minimal disruption to my day. I just quietly move names as needed while I am teaching. Unless a student does something major (hitting, biting, etc), I always give one warning before I move his name. I give my K5ers a visual reminder warning by writing their names on the board. This also helps me keep track of who has received a warning and who has not. At the beginning of the year, I make sure my students understand that its OK for your name to be written on the board. This is just between me and the students. If mom/dad ask if you got in trouble and all I did was write your name on the board, then the answer is,"No, I had a good day!"

     I know that many teachers are using  much more fluid behavior charts that allow students to move both up and down the chart all day long. What I have found works best for me is allowing every student one positive move, daily. (Of course, I adjust this rule as I see fit from time to time.) When I allowed for movement in both directions all day long I found that I had a group of students whose behavior became out of control until just before recess or just before dismissal. Some students were trying to see how much they could get away with and still be able to make it back to happy by the end of the day. I just wasn't a fan of that.
 
    One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in teaching is that what works for one teacher or class doesn't always work with another teacher or class. We have to keep adjusting until we find something that works for both us and our students.  In case you are interested in trying out my happy face chart I have created this resource that is available in my teachers pay teachers store.  It includes a set of pirate faces like the ones shown on the chalkboard below, some pirate whole brain teaching rules, and weekly and daily behavior forms. It is on sale for a limited time!

Kindergarten Writing: Labels

     Ya'll,  I am already achieving one of my goals for the school year! I am letting the students direct more of our learning and activities and it is working SO well.When I got to school today, I was planning  to follow some curriculum plans for my first labeling lesson. We were simply going to discuss labels in the classroom and do a fast write the room activity today. Then I realized I had the perfect opportunity to teach a truly meaningful lesson on labeling and it was staring me right in the face.

     I bought one of these awesome shelving units for my classroom two summers ago at Ikea. I loved using it so much that I went back to Atlanta this summer and got another. I had planned on making some cute labels with clip art and such to go on the containers before school started. Yep. That just never happened. So half way through the first week of school my students had noticed me rummaging to find what I needed during our calendar time, lessons, etc. One of my students even said, "Ms. Peden, you sure do need to figure out where you keep yo stuff, because you really don't know! You need to put something on there like you put on our literacy centers." When I turned the lights on in my classroom this morning, I glanced at our shelves and realized they set the perfect context for a meaningful labeling lesson! I grabbed post it notes and a pen and I was ready!

Best things about this lesson: 

1. My students LOVED it! They were INVOLVED and FOCUSED the ENTIRE time! I'm talking about my always-distracted  la-la-landers too! Yes, I just called my la-la-landers involved and focused! Everyone was anxiously awaiting a turn to stick a label on, check the bins for what was inside, or spell the word for our label.

2. This lesson taught my students how to use environmental print when they are writing. On our third bin I pointed out that we could use the label on our Mr. Sketch scented markers to help us with our label. I had a student take the marker and spell Mr. Sketch aloud for the class. "M-R-polkadot - Capital S-K-E-T-C-H!... Oh wait, no, Ms. Peden, I think I meant period, not polkadot!!!" Polkadot - how cute is that?!?! A few bins later we were trying to spell "Base 10 Blocks." The same student who had helped me with the marker pointed out that our blocks center had a label on it and we could use it to help us spell the word "blocks" for our label. She proudly got up and pointed the label out to the class. After that, other students used classroom labels to help us spell calendar, glue, and scissors.

3. My students got to practice using kindergarten writing. We don't have to spell everything correctly! I am so glad they are catching on to that early this year.  I have had some kids in the past that just would not participate in emerging kindergarten writing. These kids were trying their best and really working to get the sounds in the right order. We were writing "counters" on the blue bin shown above. If you look closely you can see that the "n" was originally an "r." A few students had suggested I write "r" after the "a" because they could hear the "r" at the end.  When I followed this students directions a few students looked closely at the words and suggested I change the "r" to an "n" then add "t" and "r" to the end. I love how they acted as a group on this!

4. This will be an ongoing project for my classroom. I know that we teachers are all about perfectly organized rooms with color coordinated, themed labels  everywhere. I'll be honest, I don't like the vibe or look of these yellow post its in my room. But I do LOVE the hard work my students put in, and I know I would get questions if I replaced them anytime soon! I am also excited to remake the labels with my students as we learn new phonics rules, like adding "s" to the end of words. 

Instead of just teaching students about labels, I was teaching my students some important skills that are vital in the early days of writer's workshop. We were working on stretching sounds and identifying beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words. It was a great afternoon. I snapped this pic when we were finished and one of my students  asked if I would post it on facebook! They wanted me to add a caption that said "K5ers did most of this work. K5ers rock!" Sharing our work with an audience that extends beyond the classroom! LOVE it!

I think this was an extremely successful because there was a true need for these labels and the students were already aware of the need.  I do not think it would have been as successful if I had just had my students making labels for things in the classroom (window, blocks, door, book shelf, etc.) A few of my  "K5ers," as they are calling themselves, were talking about things they were planning to label when they got home. Loved hearing that in the dismissal line today!

Kindergarten Classroom Schedule

Blog Hoppin' is hosting a week long linky party for Back to School and I decided to link up today! This is the schedule I have planned for our school year so far. What I am finding is that we almost never make it to Play Centers at the end of the day! Oh well.... such is life!  I feel like I can NEVER fit enough in!!!

Back to School Boost!

My entire TPT store will be discounted an additional 20% off during the Back to School Boost tomorrow! Take advantage of this time to get anything that you want to use in your classroom this year! Go ahead and grab those items that you know you are going to want later! Copy, cut, laminate... get it all ready ahead of time! Check out my new common core shape unit while you are at it!

Hands On Color Words

Last week was THE best first week of school EVER! Seriously yall... my kiddos are SWEET ONES! We have already begun learning to spell our color words so I whipped up some fun little mats for practice. We are learning one color word a week and last week our color word was red. I use the Frog Street Press sing and read big books to introduce one color word a week in addition to our high frequency words. To celebrate the start of a great year, here is a free sample! Just click on the first picture below to download. The full product, Hands On Color Words is available in my TPT store!

Tips: 

1. Taping the mats down to the table can be helpful to your students. It will also solve the problem of cheap laminate causing your papers to curl up! 

2. Make both dry erase markers and toy cars available for the road pages.

3. Give students a choice on what mat they use! 

4. Send your students on a classroom hunt for small objects that match their color word. 

5. I prefer using play foam to play dough. It is usually something new for my kids, it isn't messy, and it doesn't dry out! 

Getting Ready for Kindergarten

Why does the week before school starts in August always feel like the week of the tornado from my college days???

     Is it just me, or do you see similarities here too? Yes, I am ALWAYS thankful for freshly cleaned and waxed floors but I have enough to do to prepare my tiny classroom with out having to clean up the aftermath. Don't even get me started on all of the furniture that was moved out of place and then waxed down to the floors!

      I have just one more day before my pirates come running into the building for the first time this school year - and of course I'll be spending it in inservice meetings. Thankfully, I have achieved a great deal since I took this picture... but there is still work to be done. So here I am spending all of my weekend trying to finalize everything from lesson plans to emergency contact information cards. Of course, now that my classroom is almost tidy - my apartment looks a MESS - foam pirate hats and puzzles cover the kitchen table, laptops and planning books strewn across the floor, and you can't even see the sofa for all the laminate that needs to be cut. In the midst of it all I am trying to take time to rest and pray for my students. I keep reminding myself that it is OK to have a busy life, but not a busy heart. As Paul Miller says in A Praying Life, "Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life, it offers us as less busy heart in the midst of outer busyness." My hope as I enter this school year is to keep my heart from becoming too busy. 

      And just in case any of you other teachers are scrambling around out there too (and I already know you are ) here are some too simple forms that can help you get your attendance/grade book in order. Hope you find them helpful!