Hump Day Highlight :: Good Friends Class Book

Hi there!

I'm liking this Hump Day Highlight linky with Mrs. Stanford's class!  It's nice to check in mid-week.  Click the image to hop over and see what other teachers are up to this week!

The book we are focusing on this week in our reading curriculum is Farfallina and Marcel.  I love this sweet story about friendship.  

You know I'll take any chance I can to create a class book. :) We had a great discussion about friendship and it led right into this prompted writing activity that will make a super sweet class book.

 Isn't this just about the sweetest thing you've ever seen???  

So much wisdom from this precious 5-year-old.  Totally made my heart pause and think YES!  Exactly!  Never forget this!

Sometimes I think Kindergarteners should rule the world.

OR....maybe not......

Ha!

Good friends SHARE THEIR WEAPONS.

Too much.  So funny.  I love my job.

And P.S. -- look out for this one some day. ;)

Just kidding.  He's sweet as can be.  It's a bow and arrow.  Just so funny that THAT is what he thought of.

The rest were just sweet...

 ...and touching...

 ...and funny too.  

This one is serious about his candy! Ha!

And the speech bubbles.  "Do you want gum?"  "Yes."  "Thank you."  Hee hee!

CLICK HERE to grab this page from Google Drive if you'd like to use it with your class.  It would be a great one to save and use close to Valentine's Day too when we're all feeling the love!!

Hope you're having an awesome week!!  Happy hump day!

We love class books!

I wrote a post last month about some of our back-to-school class books.  We LOVE class books!  We make at least one or two each month.  Over the past few weeks, we have made three class books and I wanted to share them with you!

In my last post, I asked for ideas about what class books you love to make with your class and Sara commented that she class makes a book based on the classic Ten Apples up on Top.  I LOVED this idea, and put it in my plans for the following week!

Next year, I'll plan to make it in September when we are talking more about apples, but this year October had to do! :)

I tweaked Sara's idea just a bit and gave each of my students 10 apples (I used my 1" circle punch to cut the circles out of construction paper) and they completed the sentence on the page and added an illustration.  They all turned out so cute!

 We also made this class book as an extension to our reading series book Life in an Ocean.  The class always loves making this book because of the ocean setting they get to draw.  My kids go crazy for ocean talk every year!  

 This page is available in this post from last year.

 One of my very favorites.  I said last year that I wanted to make a book like this for each season, but I totally forgot.  I'll say it again this year.  Hopefully I'll remember! :)

I really, really love how this book has turned out both times I've done it with my class.  Click back to this post to read more about this fun book!

Five for Friday {October 24}

Happy Saturday!  I'm a day late with my Five for Friday, but I actually thought to take pictures this week, so I wanted to be sure to link up!

 1. We began our second science unit this week.  We had been learning about our five senses since the start of the school year.  That's such a good place to start, because it's the foundation for exploring the world around us.  We had so much fun with our five senses unit, but were excited to move on to something new this week....Motion!  And we got to explore motion on the playground.  My students were sold immediately!!

2. We completed one of my very favorite class books this week.  Even though this sentence-builder book is a little tricky for some students to figure out, it always turns out soooo cute!  Their little illustrations make it super sweet.

We completed two other class books this week too!  I have a blog post in the works.  LOVE class books!

3. We used this cute cute cute pumpkin life cycle freebie from Erica Bohrer for our interactive notebooks this week.  So cute!

4. We began academic vocabulary with a bang this week!  We added four words to our binders - two literacy and two math.  

 These great pages are from Kim Adsit.

We are really working hard on "speaking like scholars" and focusing on academic vocabulary really helps with that.

5. We did this fun early addition activity yesterday to display for parent-teacher conferences next week.  I punched circles with my 1" circle punch, and each student rolled dice to figure out how many apples and pumpkins to add.

It was a great week in Kindergarten!  Hope yours was awesome too, and that you are enjoying some relaxation this weekend!!

Class book ideas

We LOVE class books in my Kindergarten room.  We make several every year.  I especially love making them at the start of the year and sending them home for my students to read with their parents.  I know how curious parents are at the beginning of each school year.  They are anxious to know the other children that their kiddos are spending their days with.  Because of this, I always make a couple books with student photos in them.  I get great feedback from parents about these!  And, of course, the kids LOVE anything with their photo on it!!

To send the books home, I just put them in a gallon-size ziploc bag.  Typically, I add a label to the front asking that the books are returned the next day.  When I went to print my labels last week, I realized that I was out of the size I needed.  Sharpie to the rescue!  Not quite as cute, but it does the job. :)

(Oh, and please don't mind the glare in every picture in this post.  Laminated pages = glare.  I tried to avoid it, but couldn't.  Sorry!)

 I got the idea for this class book from my awesome teaching partner.  My students LOVE this book, and as soon as it's been to every home and finds it's spot in our reading corner, it gets read every single day.

 It follows the repetitive pattern of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".

This is the first page.

 The middle pages look like this.

 And this is the last page.

I've made this next class book for years and years.  The kids complete their page during the first week of school.

They just draw themselves and write their names.  So simple, but so cute.

This last one requires some parent help.  This idea originally came from Doodle Bugs a couple years ago.

 I send this questionnaire home with each student sometime in the first week or so of school and ask parents to return it the next day.  Then, I have students cut them out with fancy scissors.  They think this is just about the coolest thing ever!

This questionnaire is available in Google Docs if you want to go grab it.  CLICK HERE!

Right now, all three of these books are going home with students daily.  They can't wait for their turn to come!  I love picturing my kidlets cozying up with dad or mom to share the book and discuss Kindergarten.

Do you have a favorite book that you make with your class?  I'd love to add more to our classroom library!

Five for Friday, on Saturday {May 17}

Well, hi!  My life has been c-r-a-z-y this week.  My to-do list at home is as long as my to-do list at school....'tis the season of living off little sleep as we prepare for the end of the school year!  BUT.... we're down to 14 more wake-ups.  Can't believe how close we're getting!

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday, even though I'm a day late...  

1. Wednesday was field trip day!  We spent the beginning of the week completing this Farm Animal Facts book as a class during our writing block.  

 We used non-fiction books to research each animal and worked together to decide which facts to add to our books.

2. The Critter Barn is such a great field trip.  It lasts all day and the kids have the best time getting up-close with the animals on the farm.  Goats, chicks, sheep, ducks, cows, chickens, bunnies, and more!  

 My teaching partner and I were EXHAUSTED at the end of the day.....but we made it!  And we love doing these fun things together!

3. We've had a sweet girl come from the high school all year to help in our classroom and Thursday was her last day.  We had a small good-bye party for her and we gave her a class book full of advice the students thought of for being a good teacher.  

First, we brainstormed some ideas.  I used different colors to make it easier for the students to transfer the idea they chose to their own paper.

 This little guy wrote that good teachers don't break the rules.  And, in his illustration box, he wrote The rule is don't touch spiders.  Ha!

4.   I spent all day on Friday with this guy.  I had a day for individual year-end assessments, and I was able to complete running records on each student.  This is my district's first year using Fountas and Pinnell and I really liked it.  I'm so proud of how far my kiddos have come this year!  Such a fun day to get to listen to each of them read to me!!

5. AND......My boys could not contain their excitement on Thursday afternoon when I was passing these out at the end of the day.  They have been asking and asking....it's FINALLY their turn!  Next Tuesday is Boys Only Lunch day!!  All 18 of them....and I invited parents!  We'll have a great time. :)