Pinspiration!

While I was 'blog stalking' this summer I saw so many posts talking about bucket fillers.  I had never heard this term before and had never read any of the bucket filler books.  I figured it was a behavior plan and since my school already has one that we need to follow, I kind of skipped over the posts.  Well, I WAS MISSING OUT!!  This past Thursday our third grade book buddies were scheduled to come to our classroom and meet my kids for the first time.  They were so excited to meet them, but I wanted to find the perfect project to start off the year.  The third grade teacher suggested that we read:

 

I actually read the book to my kids before the third graders came down, because I wanted to make sure they were going to understand the book (I totally underestimated them!).  When our book buddies came we read the book again and did a project I found on pinterest (addicted):

The children all loved the book and really seemed to understand the concept.  Later that same day my kids were playing at free choice centers and I was sitting at the reading table.  I overheard one of the boys stand up and say "drip, drip, drip." Right away I looked up and asked him, "What's the matter?"  He said, "He is dripping from my bucket when he knocks the truck into my tower!" I couldn't believe that they were already using the bucket filler lingo!  At the very end of the day one of the kids came over and gave me a hug goodbye and another student said, "Oh, wow! He is really filling your bucket, isn't he?"

I am now in love with Bucket Fillers.  I have already shared the concept with the parents of my students in hopes that we can continue using this in school and at home! LOVE IT!!

While I am talking about my 'pinspiration' I will show you some other pictures of anchor charts that I have gotten from pinterest as well.  Seems like most of these ideas came from a WONDERFUL blog, The Inspired Apple

seen HERE

Enjoy!

Candy Corn Game

I have had so much fun finding new ideas on pinterest! I think I have spent the majority of my free time this week making new anchor charts and activities for my class. 

I saw a couple of activities for kindergartners where they were matching the lowercase/capital letter with a beginning sound picture.  Being that it is almost Halloween, I decided to create a candy corn version of this idea!

I can't always print in color (I have been using so much colored ink lately), but I figured I can print the black and white on card stock and quickly color them in  before laminating.  (In the pack I include a color version as well!)  Hopefully you can use these in your classroom!

Candy Corn Game 

Enjoy!

Columbus Day

I was planning on posting this weekend about all of our upcoming projects in October...spiders, bats, pumpkins and all...but, I forgot everything on my desk at school! Don't you love when that happens? So that post will just have to wait :)  Instead, I will share one of our Columbus Day activities with you.

 

It is sort of a take on a ship in a bottle.  I let the kids be creative and design their own flags. Then we add our poem onto the back.  The poem is below:

Columbus Poem 

Enjoy! 

Apples, Apples!

Next week we will start our apple unit.  There are so many great books, cute art activities, and yummy cooking projects to go with apples.  Here is a little taste of what we will be doing:

In science we will use different ingredients to see what keeps an apple from turning brown the best.

Recording Sheet

Some Art Activities they can do independently:

For the apple tree I cut sponges into circles and squares to make it easier for them to paint.  Then they use their fingers to make the apples.

Math: We read One Little, Two Little, Three Little Apples by Matt Ringler then the children put the apples in order 0-10.  After they are done they mix them up and put them in order counting down from 10-0.

 Our Apple Glyph:

...and a fun game to play at reading groups or at one of their literacy centers to practice their letters and sounds.  When you click on the link the directions will be at the bottom. (some of the graphics are courtesy of  Scrappin Doodles:

Apple Letter/Sound Game 

Enjoy!