Valentine's Day Mailboxes

Today, we prepared for tomorrow's card exchange by making mailboxes. We read _Hello Kitty:_Happy_Valentine's_Day_. In the story, valentines get mixed up, so I emphasized the importance of matching the names to the correct mailbox! First, we painted and let them dry while we went to Computers.


Then we decorated with lace, paper, and stickers.


I used puffy paint to write each child's name on their mailbox. Now, we are ready!


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Something Good by Robert Munsch

We read Something Good, again, by Robert Munsch. My kinders LOVE Robert Munsch. Our assisitant principal introduced them to his books! We made price tags after we read the book.

We have a fun activity for The Paper Bag Princess coming up, too! Thanks to Whole Foods for donating 300 paper bags. :)
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Rainstick

I pulled out my rainstick Thursday since I knew it was going to rain. We talked about the history of the rainstick and how it's made. I let each child hold it. To the kids' surprise, it rained that night. Yesterday, we read a story about rain and they wrote in their journals about whether they thought it was magical or not. They impressed me with the adjectives they used: magical, powerful, and unbelievable!


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One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

In reading group (Mrs. Payne's Round Table), we read _One Two Buckle My Shoe_. Then, I had my kids think of a new rhyme. Here's what one group came up with...

"One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, my dog snores."

"One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, I will ignore. Five, six, I like tricks. Seven, eight, I don't hate."

"One, two, I do. Three, four, did you say more? Five, six, let's do more. Seven, eight, look at the gate. Nine, ten, why did you say men?" (Almost!)

So cute! Plus, one of our spelling words this week is "one".

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The Votes are In!

Next week is Reading Week, so we voted for our top ten favorite books. Each student received two Post-Its and they stuck them above their favorite books.

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Reading Week 2010

My students LOVE Reading Week. We participate in numerous literacy-centered school-wide activities. Here are some of the activities.

I read the book above and then right after I turn the pages as "What a Wonderful World," plays on my iPod. The children sat so still as they listened to the music. I got a little teary-eyed. :)

We designed shirts that were from our favorite books, like "The Great Fuzz Frenzy" and "Thomas the Train".

(My examples.)

We also listed our favorite books like last year, chalked our favorite story characters, had Clifford the Bug Red Dog read to us, another kinder and some first grade teachers read to us, guessed mystery readers, read with 4th graders, had an amazing storyteller, Antonio Sacre, come to our school, and we dropped everything and read (D.E.A.R.)...

Our Top 10 Favorite Books

During Reading Week, each class made a list of their favorite books in our school. Here are our favs!

5 Little Ducks

The children wrote about our favorite song/book, "Five Little Ducks."

Student Work

For art projects, I print out a quick sheet of labels, so parents can save their child's work and know exactly when they made it. Also, it reminds kids to WRITE THEIR NAME!

During Reading Week, we read "Hooway for Wodney Wat" and they chalked their favorite characters. As you can see, they liked Wodney and Camilla.