Confessions of a Kindergarten Teacher

I'll be honest. I never thought I would be teaching Kindergarten. I LOVED my student teaching placement in K, but that was pretty much plenty of Kindergarten for this future teacher! When I learned that the job opportunity at the school that I had fallen in love with was in Kindergarten, I was skeptical. I loved visiting with my best friend Courtney's Kindergarten class last year, but I just wasn't sure that I was up to having my own class of 5 year olds. I was up for the challenge and quickly got into the Kindergarten teacher mindset. I prepped all summer and was ready for my first day. I've worked with children for years and years. I babysat, volunteered with VBS, tutored kids, worked at the library for the summer program, and volunteered at a local elementary school in a first grade classroom for an entire semester. Sure, I was nervous going into my first day, but I'm Katie Vick! I was prepared for anything! I've always been great with kids! And then the big day arrived.

I won't go into details about my first day, but it was traumatic. I cried all morning, had a student throwing up in my bathroom (if you know me at all, you know that the one bodily fluid that I just canNOT handle is vomit), and tried to contain more than one student who was bound and determined to get OUT of the building. To make matters worse, my parents were in Scotland and I couldn't even talk to my mama after my first day! I was sick for a week and a half and dry heaved on my way to school every day. I ate nothing but saltines for at least the first week of school. I had honestly never considered that I might not be completely ready to handle my own classroom, but I felt so incompetent after those first few days that I just didn't know how I was going to make it through the year.

I am so blessed to work where I do! My mentor teacher was able to come to my room and model our morning procedures for me. Since I had never considered Kindergarten as an option before, I wasn't very confident in how to manage and teach my class. My coworkers were so supportive and I quickly got into a routine with my wonderful class. My principal has joked (more than once) about my first day of teaching. I'm just glad they let me come back! Haha!

Over the past 4 months, I have absolutely fallen in love with Kindergarten. My students are so eager to learn and excited about everything we do. I have the opportunity to teach my students more than just academics on a daily basis. My students have come so far since the first day of school, and I like to think that I have, too ;) We are doing really great things in Room 11. I love watching my students form relationships with each other. It absolutely melts my heart to watch them play at recess. They are protective of each other and have just built this incredible little community of learners and friends.

I am a literacy person through and through. That's totally the way my brain works. I love to read and my goal for the year has been to instill in my students a love for literacy. It melts me when my students run to me from our classroom library because they are so excited to share with me a book that they found. When I announce that it's time for writing, every single one of my students cheers. I send home a book order each month and it is my students' favorite day. They already know what the "red box" means and gather around me as I show them our new books. They thank me for ordering new books for our library and LOVE to be read to.

Kindergarten is a challenge on a lot of levels, but I can honestly say that I am so blessed to be in Kindergarten! I love my students SOOOOO much and it is so much fun to see them grow. Kindergarten was not my first choice and I was a little bit less than prepared at the beginning of the year, but I have fallen in love with the innocence and joy of my sweet students and I don't want to be anywhere BUT Kindergarten for a long, long time.

A Peek at our Listening and Pocket Chart Centers

You may remember that we recently got our listening center FUNDED through donorschoose.org. It is one of the favorite centers in our room! Scholastic offers a Listening Library for each grade through their book orders and I have ordered the November and December libraries so far. They come with four books and the cd to go along with each book. DeeDee Wills created a reading response unit to go along with each month's library and they have been the perfect addition to my listening center! The books are typically between 5 and 8 minutes long and then my students have 8-10 minutes to complete their responses. We are loving them so far!

Check it out on TPT

 November books include: Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson, Prairie Chicken Little by Jackie Mims Hopkins, Turkey Claus by Wendi Silvano, and Snowmen at Work by Carolyn Buehner.

Check it out on TPT

 December books include: Snowman Magic by Katherine Tegen, A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas by Philip Yates, The Gingerbread Bear by Robert Dennis, and Polar Opposites by Erik Brooks

Here are two of my sweet boys reading/listening to Bear Says Thanks!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of our pocket chart center in action. I've used several different units for this center but my favorite by FAR is Miss Kindergarten's Word Cards. I printed and cut all of the Fall cards and it was a huge hit! The vocab words each have a picture on the card, which helps my non-readers. There are also a bunch of sight words that allow my students to build sentences in the pocket chart. I love that they feel so successful when they can create and read sentences! I bought the winter cards last week and I can't wait to trade out the cards in our center box. My students are going to be beside themselves! 

Last month, I totally slacked off and didn't put any of the writing practice pages out, but I think most of my students are ready for that aspect of this center. I'll introduce it when we get back from break and I think they'll really enjoy that, as well! I'm pretty sure that I spend the majority of my income on Miss Kindergarten's products on TPT and it is totally worth it. I basically want to be her when I grow up...but in the meantime, I'll just use her amazing products with my kiddos!

Check it out on TPT

Check it out on TPT

I just love sharing all of our centers with you! I am not kidding when I say that centers are every single one of my students' favorite parts of Kindergarten. We follow the same schedule every day and they STILL start asking when we're doing centers as soon as the walk in the door! At least I know that they're learning and practicing skills while they're having fun. We may get the week off, but I'm still getting a lot of work done. It's a good thing I have the sweetest, most appreciative class ever ;) Enjoy your Tuesday, friends!

Busy Learning! Check Out Our Poetry Center

I am officially impressed with all of these Kindergarten bloggers. By the time I get home from work, I am exhausted! And the last thing I want to do is keep working! We're still here and still doing really great and exciting things in Kindergarten. It's so hard to find the time to get through everything that we need to do in a day, but we usually squeeze it all in. We even manage to have some fun sometimes (who am I kidding? Every minute is fun with 5 year olds!).

Our guided reading/center time is everyone's favorite time of the day! In my opinion, this is one of the most important times of our school day. I'm working with my students on their level in guided reading and they are practicing the skills that we've been working on independently in their centers.

My center rotation schedule looks SUPER complicated, but it makes perfect sense to me. My mentor teacher (who is super amazing, by the way) has been phenomenal at working with me on my center schedule. At this point, each student goes to 4 centers each day. One center is their guided reading with me, one center is seat work (which is easily differentiated), and the other two are instructional centers. I have a chart that looks like this for every day of the week. My excel spreadsheet for centers is sort of out of control ;)

Throughout the week, they rotate through 10 instructional centers. Our centers are poetry, word work, phonemic awareness, pocket chart, writing, math, Roll, Say, Keep, library, big books, and our listening center. Several of our centers (poetry, library, big books, writing, and Roll, Say, Keep) require zero prep time. We've already set up the procedures and expectations for each of these centers, so I don't have to get anything ready for them. They stay pretty much the same from week to week. Every few weeks, I make some new cards for Roll, Say, Keep, but that's it! I'll be back later this week to show you what we use for each of our centers, but today we're just going to take a peek at our poetry center. It's one of our newest centers to implement, but they are doing such a great job!

Poetry: I use Karen Jones' A to Z Poetry Notebooks. I am obsessed with it!

Check it out on TPT

I use the poem that goes along with our letter of the week for phonics. Last week, our focus letter was "S", so we used the S poem. I wrote out the poem on sentence strips and stuck it in the pocket chart to use as a warm up for shared reading each day.

My poetry center doesn't start until Wednesday so my students are familiar with the poem by the time they work in their notebooks. On Wednesday morning, we read the poem out of my poetry notebook and I walk them through all of the steps for the poetry center for that week. We've been doing this center for a few weeks, so they've pretty much gotten the hang of it. They work in groups of 2-3 for centers, so they know to ask each other if they need help and to not bother Miss Vick while I'm working with other groups!!

These are a few of their completed "M" pages from a few weeks ago. They blow me away with how quickly they catch on!

 This sweet one forgot to circle her sight words, but she did check the box! One step at a time ;)

We're still a little bit confused about how sometimes our sight words are part of another word, but that means it's NOT our sight word. Notice how this student circled "on" in the word "monkeys". It's hard!

So that's how our poetry center rolls these days. They are doing a great job with it and I love that it's independent and that it follows the same format each week. I'll be back later this week with another peek at more of our centers. I have a lot to do today...like take a nap and go to Target. I love having the whole week off for Thanksgiving! 

Happy Monday!

Donors Choose!

I've had a project on Donors Choose for about a month now. I'm hoping to get a listening center funded for my classroom. So far, I have had several very generous donations and I'm getting close to having my project completely funded! I'm only about $120 away.

Last week, I decided to go ahead and post another project that I'd been thinking about working towards. Once a project is posted, you have four months to get it funded. My reading table in my classroom is horseshoe shaped, which makes it hard to get group work done. The table is really skinny and my students can't have all of their materials out at once. I can only work with 4 kids at a time right now, and even then it's a stretch to have their materials and my materials on the table. I love having that space in my room, but I was hoping to get a kidney table for my room to maximize our space. I submitted the project and it was approved a few days later. I wasn't going to start sharing that project until I got my listening center funded............and this is the miracle story of how I got my table :)

First, I got an email saying that Quill.com, the website that I ordered the table from, was offering a match grant for a limited time. Immediately, half of the cost of my table was covered.

For the first 7 days that a project is posted on Donors Choose, a donor will match donations up to $100. As a result, I only needed to raise a little over $100 to get an almost $500 table for my classroom.

When I got the email saying that my project had been funded, I assumed that it was my listening center. Until I opened the email. And realized that it was my brand new table project that had been fully funded. I about lost my mind. My kids were so funny about it. They had literally no idea what I was even talking about, but they were so excited because I was so excited. They were jumping up and down! It was priceless! They've asked about our table every day and don't really understand why we don't have it yet, but it will make our lives so much easier! We'll be able to work in reading and writing groups every day and I won't have to worry about space!

Our table was fully funded by a man from Boston who is originally from the town where I teach. I am so thankful that he found my project and chose my classroom to support. My students are going to benefit so much from his donation!!!

Donors Choose is an incredible charity that makes it possible for teachers like me to raise funds for materials for our classrooms. I have donated to several projects on there myself and it's very true that every dollar counts. You can search for projects by location, type of project, etc. It's a great way to support teachers in a very tangible way.

Have you had a project funded on Donors Choose? Do you have a project posted now? I would love to check them out!

Working Smarter, Not Harder

I'm sure you panicked that I missed my center post last weekend...I promise I taught my kids this week! I had to fly to Michigan for a funeral a few weekends ago, so we did the same centers two weeks in a row and we've just had a crazy few weeks!

I've realized that I am running myself to the ground introducing and keeping up with completely new centers every week. Last week, I traded in my number puzzles center for a Roll, Say, Keep center that is easily differentiated and can stay in the center all year. I'll trade out the cards as needed, but our letter naming/sounds cards are perfect for my class right now! My board was a freebie and I'm still using cards from the same download. As the year continues, I'll substitute letters with color/number words, sight words, simple sentences, etc. My kids did a great job with it last week and it makes me so happy that I won't have to teach them how to do that center every Monday!

Check out this freebie on TPT

My writing center last week was a Write the Room center. My students loved it, so I'm thinking I'll just switch out the cards and recording sheets every week. This week, we're going to practice counting and recording numbers. I found a really cute Halloween counting Write the Room center that I've printed and cut. The students will count the spiders/bats/pumpkins/cats and write the number on the appropriate line. I still have several little ones who are really struggling with writing numerals. The practice will be good for them! My favorite way to practice numbers is in shaving cream while we listen to the Dr. Jean Numeral Song. They sing that song all the time! Basically, any way that I can get my students to practice writing numbers that isn't just pencil to paper is great. Plus, they get to use clipboards. What could be better than clipboards?! 

Check out this freebie on TPT

My math center this week will be more counting practice. We've worked on five frames for several weeks and are ready to move on to ten frames this week. I wanted to make sure that they really understood fives as a set before we moved onto tens and I think they're ready! They'll be counting candy corn and matching the numeral to the tens frame. I printed these double sided this week. Cardstock is getting expensive! I'm going to put velcro on the back of each of the numbers and on each of the lines so that they can match the numerals. Velcro makes everything fun for 5 year olds ;)

Check out this freebie on TPT

My word work center is going to be more magnetic letters. My class really likes magnetic letters. We're practicing isolating the beginning sound in words and matching sounds to the corresponding letter, so I printed some more pages from the awesome magnetic letter pack I downloaded several weeks ago. They'll match the letter to the picture. It's a lot harder to record the beginning sound than it is to isolate it, but I think they can handle it. We'll adjust as we go with this one.

Check out this freebie on TPT

My other centers this week came from Miss Kindergarten's Fall Centers pack. They'll velcro letters and numbers in order and record them on their recording sheets. I also downloaded her sight word packs, which I'll use for their seat work this week. My plan was to start their computer center this week, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. I will keep the poetry center going this week, though! I'm going to start to introduce their poetry notebooks from Karen Jones. The best thing about this center is that they'll be able to do this one independently from week to week because the procedures will be the same!

That pretty much wraps up my centers for this week. I'm going to get some pictures of my kids actually doing the centers this week...I promise! I am so blessed by my students. I seriously have the best class ever. I might be biased, but I'm mostly just pretty sure they're the best ;)

Centers on Saturday...Celebrating Fall!

We wrapped up Apple Week Part 2 last week with homemade applesauce! I forgot to take a picture, but it honestly did NOT look appetizing, so I'm really sparing you. Some of my students wouldn't touch it, but I had several that ate more than one serving! They helped me put all of the ingredients into the crockpot and we got to enjoy the smell all day long! We started peeling apples around 7:30 and decided that it was WAY too much work! After a quick google search to confirm that it was okay, we opted to give our students all of the fiber and nutrients that we could by leaving the skin on the apple! We learned about the parts of an apple (flesh, skin, seeds, stem). We learned about the life cycle of an apple and read a lot more apple books. We had applesauce in the cafeteria for lunch a few days and they were SO excited to be eating apple foods! It was really sweet.

Next week in Kindergarten, we'll be focusing on all things Fall! Pumpkins, leaves, Halloween, and whatever else we come up with. Haha! I've been working diligently all day on my centers for next week and I'm pretty excited about what I've come up with! I still have some work to do tomorrow. I'm going to try writing out directions for each center with pictures to go along with it. I'm really hoping to alleviate the "what do we do next, Miss Vick??" before I start pulling guided reading groups during that time. Along with library, writing, and big books, which don't change much from week to week, we'll have a center for poetry, math, word work, phonemic awareness, puzzles, and pocket chart. Some of them I made myself, but I got a lot for free off of Teachers Pay Teachers!

Poetry: Each student will have a copy of the poem that we used as a warm up for the past two weeks. They will read the poem with their partner and then illustrate it. When they've done that, they'll get to use highlighters to highlight the sight words that they know. I made an example to show them what I expect. I'm finding that this is a really effective and time saving tool! I'm hoping to start our A to Z poetry notebooks within the next few weeks, so this will be a great introduction.

Math: We're still working on 1 to 1 correspondence in counting. I found some cute monsters for a fun, Fall themed math center. Each monster has a number on it's tummy. The students will count googley eyes and put the correct number on each monster. We're really working on peer checking during center time. The partners check each other's work rather than come up to me while I'm working with students to ask me to check. When they've finished, they'll do a monster ten frames matching page as a recording sheet. Recording sheets are SO IMPORTANT for my students so that I can make sure that they really do understand the concepts. The entire Monster Mash math unit is FREE on TPT.

I printed my monsters on white cardstock and colored them in myself!

Check out this freebie on TPT

Word Work: I used my mad skills to create a candy corn word work center for my kids this week. They'll match the uppercase letter to the lowercase letter and the picture. 

Phonemic Awareness: I made this center, as well. We've been working on counting syllables this week, so I made some picture cards for my students. They'll clap the word and sort the pictures into the 1 or 2 syllables column. I made a recording sheet for this center, too!

Puzzles: The apple number puzzles were a HUGE hit last week! I found some Halloween number centers for my students to work on next week. These puzzles are differentiated to meet the needs of all of my students. Some go from 1-10, some from 11-20, some count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. They're really cute and I know my students are going to LOVE them!

Pocket Chart: Some of my students still need a lot of practice with numbers 1-20. I decided to make our pocket chart center an extension of our math center. They will be able to do a few different activities. They can put the pumpkins in number order, play "Find the Pie", and match the tens frames with the numeral. We haven't done much with tens frames yet, so this will sort of be an exploration for them. I think they'll really enjoy this center, too!

Check out this freebie

We're going to have a busy week with testing and all of our Fall fun! Our after school program is starting back up this week after a one week hiatus. I've enjoyed the break, but am looking forward to working with our kinders after school again! I sent home another book order at the beginning of last week and already have had THREE STUDENTS turn them in! I love book orders!!

I think my favorite thing about Kindergarten is watching them grow into these social, independent people. Some of my students have had limited experiences with kids their own age and it cracks me up to see them work through their awkward interactions and learn to interact with each other! Centers is probably one of my favorite times of day because they are learning cooperatively and it's so interesting to me to watch them learn to work together. My students have grown so much already. I can't wait to see how much they grow by the end of the year!

Our Class Promise

Our assembly this morning was about bullying and being a good friend. When we got back to the room, I pulled up Mr. Harry's Kindergarten's bullying video. We watched it and talked about how to show respect to our friends. I read the sweet book Cookies by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Then, we created our class promise. All of our promises are straight from the mouths of my students! When we were finished, we all signed it. Our promise is hanging in our classroom as a reminder to all of us to be respectful and good friends. It was a sweet morning in kindergarten.