Kindergarten INSECT research! Come and get a template!

 I am SO proud of my kinder-crew!  Their writing is just amazing!  Not only can they write sentences that are grammatically correct, BUT they can add details from their own research.  WOW!

We used World Book Online to conduct our research.  It's called Early World of Learning and is an awesome resource to have.  Talk to your media or tech specialist to purchase a license for YOUR school!

The question we used to guide our research came from our MMH reading series.  The question is "What are some interesting insects?"  Our note-taking template was super-simple to create.  We just used some legal-sized paper and 3 post-its.  Once we gathered our information, we wrote sentences to tell about our interesting insects.  Our rule for sentences?  Write a 3 star sentence!

1.  Start with a capital letter.  2.  Use spaces between words.  3.  End with a period.  

Want a pre-made template?  

Click here to access a freebie from my TpT store

The following day, I read aloud the guided reader My Caterpillar Report.  Using this book as a model, we created a list to show what needs to be included in an insect report.

And finally, our final product!  My school has a wonderful die-cut machine so the booklets we made came out super cute...  take a look!

Click on the picture above to get your OWN copy of the
Insect Report template!

Go, Ibrahim, go!  

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week

Teachers, we celebrate you this week!  

Take a look at the offers below!  

25% off this week

Into social media?  Come to this site to pick up an icon for your profile pic!

Free sandwich on May 7th.  The problem is, you get a sandwich
you'll want some waffle fries, then you'll want a cookies-n-cream milk shake.  Yummm!

BOGO!  Tuesday only.

I already took advantage of this sale...  PLUS you get a free gift with purchase.
I love DJ Inkers!

And finally, I'm hosting a sale this week at TpT. 

Sale starts TUESDAY, MAY 7 and lasts until Friday.  Click on the picture to visit my store.




Know of any other offers?  Leave a comment and let me know!  I'd love to hear from you!

Fun with Happy Jack and a give-away!

This time of the year is the BEST!  The weather is beautiful, the flowers are blooming and so are my little learners!  Have you started seeing the amazing progress of you kindergarten readers???  I'm so proud of all they have accomplished!

This week we focused on the fairytale, Jack and the Beanstalk.  The kids had so much fun reading, writing, listening and responding to this old favorite!

Here are a few of my little darlings working on the little book Happy Jack.  I love to see them so engaged!

Happy Jack Little Book is available HERE at Tpt!

Here are some great videos to watch with your kindercrew if you are reading Jack and the Beanstalk.  The first one is my FAVORITE-  it's so interactive, the kids really "jam-out" to it!  

*Be careful when viewing YouTube videos in class, I usually let the commercial go on before letting it project full screen!*

This year, my deliberate practice has been finding similarities and differences.  In our district we have one deliberate practice item to focus on throughout our year for professional development.  I have seen such a difference in the way my kinders process, apply and extend new information and skills!  We have all been working on talking about similarities and differences for several months now.  I am so happy to see that they have turned their "talking about it" to "writing about it"!  YAY!  Look at them go!

Character Compare is available here at TpT!

I would LOVE to share one of my TpT products with a few of you!  I am giving away one download of the Happy Jack little book AND one download of the Comparing Characters activity.  Leave a comment below with your email, the download you'd like AND your FAVORITE fairytale to teach.  If your favorite fairytale matches mine, you'll get your choice of download.  Here's a hint, it's definitely been re-made by Disney.  I can't wait to hear from you!

Super Fun Freebie!

This game will change your life, seriously...  The Game of 6 is the best way to practice number writing to 100.

I can not take credit for this one.  I learned of it at a math training several years ago and have yet to remember the name of the presenter.  What was great about the training is that the teachers learned how to play the game by playing it.  Even grown-ups are engaged and focused while playing this game.  Take a look at  my little learners doing such a GREAT job playing this game!  The link for the freebie is below.

Click here to get a copy of the game!

Hello kindergarten families!  School starts back up tomorrow.  I am SO excited to get started on our new spring-themed learning activities.

Find our new calendar here.  We've got a BUSY week coming up!

Parents, please come take a look at our "Books with Bijou" page.  Click on the link to access our guided readers at home.  Bijou loves books and Bijou wants our kinder-crew reading everyday!

The real Bijou loves to hear about the
learning in our kindergarten classroom!  

Cookin' up some counting plus a freebie!

This week in math, we began working on the number 20.  To introduce the number, we got out the Play-doh and made up some chocolate chip cookies!  The children were given directions to make 4 cookies.  When it was time to add the chocolate chips I gave different directions to each group:

1.  Put five chocolate-chips in the first cookie.  Put the same number in the other cookies.

2.  Make 20 chocolate chips, split them evenly between each cookie.  The number in each cookie should be the same.

-or-

3.  Add chocolate chips to your cookies so the total number is 20, and each cookie has the same number of chocolate chips.

The children took many different approaches to their cookie-making!   I extended the lesson to include counting sets of 5 to 10 and to 20 and in some cases, 35.  Wow!  That's a lot of chocolate chips!

The children LOVED this activity, so I will be putting it in centers next week.  To summarize their learning, they will be completing a Show What You Know activity page.  Here it is for you!

Click here to download.

Map and Chat! Our first Social-Studies Share

Our little-learners had a blast sharing their maps today.  I was so impressed with the kiddos participation and enthusiasm.  Boy, can they talk!    Thank you so much kindergarten families for supporting your child's learning!  I know it was an extra assignment for you too!  I am happy everyone got to participate.

Teacher friends!  Click on the picture below for a sample parent letter and rubric for your own Social-Studies Share.  Come back soon...  I will be posting on different ways to group your little learners to get the most out of "class chat" time!