Five for Friday

Five for Friday & A Freebie

We had 1 day of school this week! After our winter break, we came in yesterday all excited to see each other and get back into routine. I of course was up super early, set the alarm on my husband's phone to make sure my own kids got to school, cleaned up the holiday mess fun, set up my new centers and attended a staff meeting before the kinders arrived. Here is a picture of the crafts we made for our reindeer party on the last day - reindeer hats, heart cards, candy canes. We made craft stick reindeer ornaments the day before with our buddies.

1  - After Media, we sat on the carpet and examined the covers. What parts make up a book cover? The kinders brought their books up to the document camera and found the parts. We made a brace map that we used as a checklist to make our own book covers (the topic - Where Are You?). The number one setting - the fire house. Guess I know one of our focuses in our Communities/Economics unit this 6 weeks (formative anyone?). They did an awesome job of designing their covers with detailed settings.

2 - We caught up on our Let's Find Out magazines. The kinders love the interactive feature. Whiteboard, pencil, favorite crayon and magazines go with them to the carpet squares. This one was Push and Pull with a winter theme. Great for the snowy predictions.

3 - Talking about SNOW. I was certain to print out  and copy the snowy writing and readers from my We Snow Love to Read and Write. Which we will work on next week as we had a SNOW day for our second school day of January.

 

4 - Our new unit is People and Places in the Community (maps, needs&wants, places, good & services, community helpers). Here is your freebie - A mini-reader on Needs and Wants. It is 16 pages because I wanted to make sure to hit food, water, clothes, shelter. The students can draw and write in the reader about a want and a need. I am linking the freebie up to TBA so check out Freebie Friday.

 

5 - I have been spending a lot of time with my family lately. My mom (who lives in our neighborhood) has been staying with my grandmother to be her caregiver. Since Thanksgiving, the kids and I have been taking little trips up to visit with the grandparents. Not in the cards for this weekend. Last time, I drove up in the snow...I got stuck...in the driveway. lol. Anyways, I decided I needed more balance. I didn't do any school (and thus blog/store work) for most of my break. I cooked and crafted with my kids a lot. My oldest daughter & nephew made a ton of these bags for the neighbors and family. I may have to make with my class - esp. with if its a snowy winter.

 We made playdoh out of oatmeal and covered it with snow "flour". It doesn't last long but being out of cream of tarter we improvised. My 2 year old drags a dinning room chair into the kitchen whenever I start getting things out to cook so we had tons of science lessons like jello and playdoh along with cookies.

6- It took a little while to get back into the swing of school this week. I kept creating for my Read, Write & Count Around Town pack as new ideas bumped other ideas. It is up on TPT on sale now for $3. I tried to sneak another freebie in the preview but I couldn't save small enough :(. So I put the preview with the freebie on my facebook fan page.

Hope you all are keeping warm!

Jenn

KinderMyles