NO David!!

No David is one of my favorite books to read to my class, especially at the beginning of the year. It is a great book to teach voice and classroom procedures.  I read this book over and over to help my kids also learn the story so that it can become one of our emergent storybooks at the beginning of the year.

If you are wondering what makes an emergent storybook?  Well, it is a book that you read over and over again to allow students to remember the story.  Then, students take the books and read them on their own using their own words, but making it as close to the story as possible.  It is a great way for students to begin to know the process of reading a story, they practice comprehension skills, and practice fluency/voice while reading.  

After we read the story, we make our very own David.  Students love being able to cut and glue.  The best part is that we make a huge mess and clean it up when we're all done.  This way we're not worried about throwing trash on the ground and can focus on making our David.

I always take the paper and cut it into the size that they will need, and then the student make it into the correct shape.  Giving them a large sheet of paper is too difficult for them. 

Go buy No David today and do this in your classroom.  Trust me the kids love and it is perfect for teaching behavior.  Outside I hear my kids say, "He's being a David." when a child doesn't line up immediately.  It is too cute!

First Day of School Plans

I can't believe it is back to school time already!  Summer flew by, but honestly I am so excited to be back in school!

Every year I feel like I forget what to cover in the beginning.  I thought I would share with you what I did on my first day with my new kinder babies.  I used this Jitter Juice packet by Mrs. Law's Kinders to add some fun to my day.

I started by having kids play with pattern blocks while I sorted through supplies and folders.  I wanted to make sure I had everything squared away.

I had students decorate hats for the first day of kindergarten, and color a self portrait.  

While they colored, I pulled them one at a time to take a picture of them on the first day of kindergarten.  They turned out so cute!

I forgot how long it takes my students to complete tasks, so our day wasn't filled with too many activities! 

We also reviewed our morning routine procedure, morning meeting, and began our calendar routine.  I learned that I must start these routines on the first day and it helps the students learn quickly what to do.  By the end of the week things are usually running pretty smoothly. :]

We read the book First Day Jitters.  It is my favorite!  We discussed what happened in the book, and then we made our own jitter juice!  I had students add "jitter-free sprinkles" to their juice to help them get rid of their jitters.

We wrote about how we felt on the first day of school, and each kid decorated their own jitter juice.  I used this activity for my hallway bulletin board display!

Our day flew by!  We had some tears, we had one get sick, we learned some lessons, and we had lots of fun.  That is a successful day in kindergarten, and trust me each day just gets better!

Indiana Dollar Sale

I am linking up with my favorite Indiana bloggers for a $1 sale!  You won't want to miss all these goodies.

These are my four items that are on sale for the next two days. 

These are great for working with a small group, to send home as flashcards, to use as exit tickets, or use as quick transitions!  

These are great for teaching math fluency.  Once your students have the basics, this is perfect for helping them be quicker with their math facts. 

This is a perfect way to teach summarizing and close reading to your students.  It is a superhero theme and provides students with fun activities and a costume to keep them focused on the topic of reading and summarizing. 

This is perfect to send home when featuring students of the week.  I use these in my classroom every year, and my kids love all the activities we do with it!

Here are the other sales you can check out.  You can also type in #indianaB2S in the search link on TpT and find all the dollar deals.  Have fun!

An InLinkz Link-up

Recycling to Help Save the World

Each year, my school has a service learning project where we work on doing something to help make our world a better place.  This year, my class decided to focus on recycling to help our world.  We read many books about recycling and then my students researched recycling even more so that they could become experts on the topic.   Here are some of the books we read.

Once we became experts, my students wrote a book about recycling.  You can find this book in my TpT store for free!   This book helped them better understand what recycling is and how to do it.  They also shared the importance of recycling.

After we became experts on the topic, my students then collected various recycling items from home to make recycled instruments.  Here is a list of items you will need to make a shaker, guitar, and maracas.

• aluminum cans
• plastic bottles
• beans
• rubber bands
• saran wrap or foil 
• cereal boxes or cracker boxes
• Easter eggs
• plastic spoons
• masking tape

Once you've collected all of these items, you can have your students decorate their instruments.  So you may want paint, construction paper, or markers to help them decorate. Here you can see my students decorating their shakers using construction paper and markers.

Then, we put tape on the cans and surrounded them with their decorated paper.

  Once they completed this, the students added beans to the cans so that they can shake!  Then, we covered them with saran wrap and used a rubber band to hold it on top the can.  Students could then shake them!

Check out my students teaching you how to make a shaker and showing you how to use it!

Once we made the shakers, we then made the maracas!

My students added the beans to the eggs.  Then, they placed them in between two spoons and taped the spoons together.

You can see my student teaching you how to make a maraca and then showing you how to use it!

Last, we made our guitars!  Students cut out a rectangle in the middle of the box and then slid rubber bands over it.  They were able to then strum the guitars.

You can see my students teaching you how to make them and showing you how to use them!

Thanks for checking out our service learning project.  I hope this helps you spread the word on recycling!  It is important to keep our Earth safe and clean.