Today was our Awards Day and we had such a good time! Our families came to see us get our awards and to watch our end of the year video. The end of the school year is always bittersweet for me, so of course, I was crying by the end (along with some family members!).

Here are our awards ready to be passed out. Each child got a candy award (you can get them here) and a "regular" award (I made these). They were so excited and talked about which candy they got for the rest of the day! The parents also loved the awards.
So much fun!!

These were our "regular" awards

Raegan's pack also comes with color versions of each award...we were saving ink :)


I also gave each kiddo a beach bucket with their summer packs and books to read this summer. In another packet, I gave them their end of the year poem (posted yesterday), memory book (you can get here), parent letter, and copy of our class DVD. After our awards, we had some treats (excuse the mismatched paper goods...we were trying to us all of our extra stuff!)


The kids and adults loved these. They are Lemon Blossoms (Paula Deen) and you can get the recipe here.
Tomorrow is our last day with kids and I'm sure I'll cry again. Hope your last days are going well and that you're enjoying your kiddos!
Another quick post today to share a poem with you that I give to my kiddos every year with their summer gifts. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Godfrey, gave me this poem when I was in her class and I still have my handwritten copy from her. If you would like a copy, click below (there are 2 different versions - one for a boy and one for a girl). Hope you're able to use them. :)
Frame is from Fancy Dog Studio and Clipart is Scrappin Doodles.
Just a quick post tonight to give you a little freebie in case your district is moving to using the common core standards next year. Beginning in 1st grade, students will now be asked to use a 120 chart instead of the standard 100 chart. Although I teach kindergarten and we do not use this chart, I am working with a group of teachers this summer on math lessons for our state website (CPALMS if you're in Florida) and went ahead and made one for us to use. Click the picture to download your own copy. There are a variety of fonts included and you can choose the one you like best.
Frame is from Fancy Dog Studio


Our school implemented common core in kindergarten this past year and I LOVED it! I truly think it has made such a difference in the way my students think about their learning. They are really able to explain their thinking and reasoning, both in language arts and math. I also love that the standards focus on really getting deep into a few key areas rather than trying to cover so many things that the kids never really have a chance to do any deep thinking. For example, in kindergarten the focus is on number sense in math (no more money, time, etc. that were only covered a *little* bit). Next year, our first grade will begin implementing the standards. Have you taught the common core standards yet? How do you feel about them? I would love to hear your comments!
Happy Friday and happy long weekend!! I don't think I've ever needed an extra day more. We had our AR Reward water party yesterday and our end of the year park party today (pics to come...left them at school!) and being in the sun for 2 straight days has wiped me out!
In honor of Memorial Day and all our military does for us, I'm having a sale. Click here to go to my TpT store and get 20% off now through Monday. :)

For those of you already out of school, hope your summer is off to a great summer and to those of you who have to go back next week, have a great 3 day break!
Yesterday I posted some pretty embarrassing pictures of my highly disorganized classroom. Although I will have to wait until the summer to really dig in, purge, and organize, I did manage one small success today. Remember this?
Well, I am happy to show you what it looks like today:
I was so happy this afternoon to have this accomplished! I went through all the loose papers, put them where they should be, "tested" all my pens, markers, sharpies to see which ones were dried out, and organized all my small supplies. My organizer isn't as cute as the one I wanted to make, but I am VERY impatient, and once I decided to make it, I had to do it immediately. Therefore, I had to work with what I had.
The inspiration came from this blog  and the oraganizer came from Lowe's. I printed labels on colored cardstock and used double sided tape to make them stick. Maybe I can find some cute scrapbook stickers to add to it this summer.

One thing off the list, many more to go. I can't wait to show you more!
Today we started working on our personal memory books. I always love to see what the kids remember about the year and what their favorite things are. We will do a couple of pages each day before we finish them next week. We only have 7 more days of school! It's hard to believe this year is almost over.



You can get the pages for this memory book here in my TpT store. I have included a pre-k, kindergarten, and 1st grade version as well as a version that has this font and one that has a printed font.

Now, for my confession. I have been HIGHLY disorganized this year when it comes to storing things. I have so much "stuff" and since I started with this group in the middle of the year (and don't have much storage in my room), I've been shoving things into any space they can fit. I've also let clutter take over these past few crazy weeks. Getting organized for next year is my summer project and I am so ready to get started. I really want to make one of these:
Pinned Image
Source: http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/
Any words of wisdom for me? I really need some tips/motivation :).
A plastic storage unit/closet that is overflowing! I am ashamed to show this!!

My side table beside my desk...once again, everything's crammed into different spots!

My small group table after small groups...covered in summer gifts

The last little closet. This one isn't as bad, but still has stuff everywhere!
I also really want to purge all of my files and get rid of things I don't use anymore (I have so many things I've collected over the years and my file cabinet is busting at the seams). Hopefully, I'll be able to show some progress pictures soon! How many more days of school do you have?



Today we learned all about the parts of a flower. We started by labeling this big class flower as a group

Then, we each made our own diagram. These turned out so cute! The flower part is actually a cupcake liner that came from Wal-Mart, then we used a pipe cleaner for the stem, construction paper for the leaves, sunflower seeds for the seeds, and raffia for the roots. We also added a border because my kids love to make everything look like mine. At least once a day I hear, "Can I add a border," or "Can I make my letters cute?" Love it!! You can get a copy of the labels for the big and small flower here.
And, just for fun I thought I'd share this picture. This is how my kids were doing their workshop when I looked up from sight word testing this morning. I guess we're all ready for the lazy days of summer!
Yay for tomorrow being Friday...we have a walking field trip, so hopefully that will make the day pass by quickly :).

We have been busy the past few days taking our county math assessment and learning more about plants and flowers! This is a little bit of what we’ve done.

You can get the Plants Tree Map here. Hope you're having a great week!

I'm linking up with Erica to let you see some of the great things I've purchased during the TpT teacher appreciation sale.

Kindergarten Summer Homework Calendars
I have had making a summer pack on my to do list all month. When I saw this one from Katie Mense {at such a great deal with the sale}, I decided to save myself some time and grab it. This is great if you want to give your kids something to take over the summer so they don't forget all those important skills!

Puppy Love Word Family Games
I have been needing some more word family centers for a while and I love this pack of games from Deedee Wills! They are perfect for reviewing word families and I think the kids will love them!
Back to School Math and Literacy Fun
Love this pack from Deanna Jump....great ideas for the beginning of the year.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities
A while back I blogged about some of the girls on my team and I making these cute retelling activities to go along with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. My friend Deeanna made this pack that includes the puppet activity and many more.
The sale ends tonight, so don't forget to take advantage of all the savings!! You can click on the pictures above to get the products I bought and you can see my products here.

You can get the writing prompt here and the seed journal here (I included a page with a seed and without a seed in case you want your kids to draw it or if you planted seeds in cups. I only included 1 journaling page...you can make as many copies as you need for each child). The cute graphics are from KPM Doodles.{Please forgive me for typing "below" twice in the slide...definitely a Monday!


You can get just the math centers in my Spring Fever pack here, or you can get them bundled with my literacy centers here (for a cheaper price than buying both separate). They'll both be on sale until tomorrow :).

Don't forget about the big TpT sale that lasts until tomorrow. My store is 20% off and you can get an extra 10% off by using the coupon code TAD12.




These aren't anything great, but I had someone ask me for my shell descriptive writing paper that I posted about here and my organizer I used for our starfish and shark writing that you can see here. If you would like either of these, you can click below.

Happy Wednesday!!
This week already feels soooo long! I can't tell you how much I dislike giving a group standardized test to kindergarteners...especially when it seems like the questions are just trying to trick my poor babies who know a lot more than what they can show on this test.
Moving on...since we're testing in the mornings, I'm trying to take it easy the rest of the day. We've been reading stories about ocean animals who don't fit in and then we compared them:

We're still doing workshops (while I give the individual portions of the test), so this is what we're doing.
Unscrambling words to make a sentence that makes sense

Working on word families and stretching words

Practicing beginning digraphs {ch, sh, th, wh}

Working on beginning blends

Stretching words {there are also word cards that one group uses to match for extra support}

 If you are interested in any of the workshops, you can get them in my ocean pack here.
I also started working on a few things for next year and uploaded a free uppercase/lowercase letter sorting pack that you can get here if you're getting ready for next year. :)

I will be in bed early tonight...testing has worn me out and we have more tomorrow! Hope everyone's week is going well :).
Back to Top