End of the Year Nautical Themed Party

Another year has come to an end!  I cannot believe I've finished my 12th year teaching.  One thing that has not changed is my excitement for the end of the year party.  I like to show my students some love by sending them away in style.  They worked so hard all year long, so the least I can do is celebrate their hard work and accomplishments.  This year's theme was: Sailing Away to First Grade.  Here are some pictures:

Learning about Motion

We have been learning in class about all the different ways things can move (zig zag, up and down, round and round, straight, etc).  We wrapped up our lesson on motion by designing roller coasters and marvel mazes.  We made sure our roller coasters showed different ways the marvels could move.  We had such a great time!

Our roller coasters:

Zig Zag Movement

Zig Zag and Straight

Spiral 

File Folder Maze

Apples, Apples, Apples

It is the beginning of my favorite time of year in school! I LOVE to celebrate the start of the fall season with our annual apple centers!

We started our week learning about Johnny Appleseed.  It was very cute seeing all my kindergarteners wearing their pan hats with pride. As you can see, even my wonderful student intern joined in the fun! We love Ms. Upham!

Ms. Upham and I made apple books to keep all our apple lessons in one place.  We talked about the parts of the apple, the apple life cycle, incorporated apples in our math and science lessons, and wrapped it all up by tasting a variety of apple products. It was a very fun and delicious learning experience for all of us! 

(this is a product I made for my students. If you like it, please go to  to my TPT store.

English:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Apple-Mini-lesson-and-Center-Ideas-2798766

Spanish:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Manzanas-2800328

At the end, we got to display our work of all the school to see! 

Student Intern

This week I met my newest student intern, and I couldn't be happier! She is a wonderful girl that will very soon become an outstanding educator.  Being a mentor and internship facilitator is very rewarding and gratifying.  It is also a huge responsibility because I am in charge of guiding, inspiring, and preparing our future colleagues. However, the best part is seeing the enthusiasm and passion of a new teacher!  That is wonderful and very contagious! It reminds me of the reason why I decided to become a teacher and how badly I wanted to have my own class and my name written all over!  I want my interns to always feel welcome into the profession, so I started a little gift ritual.

I make basket with little treats and each treat has a little messages:

Free Clip Art for Teachers!

I recently started a new website that provides FREE clip art for teachers to use with their TPT products!

http://owlstandinggraphics.com

It is a work in progress, but I am planning on adding new graphics often.  I hope you'll enjoy using the graphics! Please share with your teacher friends.

Best wishes,
Maria

A Party Here, A Party There, A Party Everywhere!

This year's theme for the end of the year party was Dr. Seuss! We had so much fun planning and executing the party. The kids loved it!

Here are some pictures:

We had game rotations - students rotated to different classrooms to play games. I had "Pin the Hat on the Cat"

This was the snack table.

This was the gift and dessert table.

Each kid got a Cat in the Hat water bottle, a beach ball for students to sign, and a beads necklace.

 This is how "Mrs. Okraska stole kindergarten!"

Some of the hallway decorations

Students' gifts: books, eraser, straw, pencil, kite, book marker, and bubbles.

In Search of Santa...A Holidays Around the World Activity

After teaching first grade for 9 years, I was asked to move to kindergarten.  I thought it was a wonderful opportunity because it was time for a change.  I was so excited and had imagined kindergarten being one of the best and easiest grade levels to teach.  Oh, how can it not be?!?...you are surrounded by oh-so-cute five year olds! On man, was I wrong! Kindergarten has been the hardest grade level I have taught thus far!

It took my until now to feel comfortable and adjusted.  That is why I have not been able to update my blog.  I have been in survival mode all this time! But now it is time for my first post of the 2015-2016 school year!

I am a kid at heart, and I believe on making everything magical for the students! If I could I would probably dress as a fairy and sprinkle glitter on everybody...that would probably get me into an asylum!

So, I decided to make the holidays as memorable and fun for my adorable kinders!  This year we went in Search of Santa! We packed our suitcases, passports, and traveling journals.  We got everything ready for our long journey around the world.  We visited many countries, but were unable to find Santa...that was until we got back to our classroom! Santa left us a note there inviting us to have milk and cookies with him! As you can probably imagine, that was the highlight of our trip.  It was so wonderful to see the excitement in my little ones' faces!

Here are some pictures:

English version: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/In-Search-of-Santa-A-Holidays-Around-the-World-Activity-2245879

Spanish version:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/En-busca-de-Papa-Noel-Celebraciones-alrededor-del-mundo-2255841

     

Now, we do have the coolest and sweetest principal! He does anything to make our students happy! I know this is not the nicest Santa suit, but next year we are going to purchase a better one. We are also going to decorate the stage and will have our office staff dress life elves! 

Happy Holidays! 

Butterflies

Today we started our unit about butterflies and it was a hit! I love how inquisitive my students are about nature and our environment. I am really enjoying teaching science this year.

These are some of the posters I used to launch the unit. I also used vocabulary flashcards to help students develop the academic vocabulary in both languages.

This year I am working on Element 6 of the Marzano Evaluation System, so I usually  have my kids record the most important information in their interactive notebooks.

This way they will have all that information to study for the EOC's (End of the Year Course Exams)

After entering the information in their interactive journals, the students worked on several projects like the life cycle wheel you see above (made with pasta and popcorn kernels). Pardon the tiny shell, they were out of the middle size. The shell represents the chrysalis. 

Tomorrow we will start working on our little books!

If you like the activities you saw, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Here is the direct link of that particular product: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mariposas-Butterflies-596204

A December to Remember

It is important for me to make the holidays as memorable as possible for my students. On my previous post I told you about Holidays around the World and now I will tell you about our Holiday Week. As a team we chose topics for each day. This year we decided on the following:

                                           Monday - Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Day

Each day we read the story, watched the movie while eating lunch together, and did some fun projects.

On Monday I painted the students' noses red using face paint. They looked so cute with their reindeer antlers and their red noses!

Tuesday - The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Wednesday - The Gingerbread Man Day

We started the day reading the story "The Gingerbread Man" and then at the end of the book, the gingerbread man left us a clue. He had us going around the whole school looking for him. We were not fast enough to catch him, but he did leave us a tray with gingerbread cookies for the whole class!!! After our scavenger hunt, we designed and built gingerbread houses. Each kid also had an activity book that went along with the topic and skills learned. 

Thursday - If You Take a Mouse to the Movies (also Party Day)

This day was extra especial. I read the story to the kids and then I set up 5 different centers for them to complete. I usually try to mimic the story (make popcorn strings, snowflakes, etc.), but this year our reading buddies were joining us and we decided to buy them cool ornaments and crafts to complete. These became their gifts for their families. 

 

These are some of the things we made that day. I always make the candy cane mouse to remind them of the story. Earlier in the week, we made decorated gift bags to put all the crafts we were going to make during the week. We also made cards for our family members. 

At the end of the day, I gave them their gifts.

Friday - The Polar Express Day a.k.a my favorite day!!!!!

During this day we wear our pajamas and we have a guest reader come and read the story to the kids.  The guest reader checks and punches a hole on their golden tickets. After the story, they all receive their First Gift of Christmas (bells). My principal requires us to make everything educational, so we make story maps and then wrote about "our adventures on the Polar Express." Once again we ate lunch together and watched the movie. I made them hot cocoa with whipped cream and marshmallows and gave them popcorn. 

Sinterklaas and Holidays around the World!

On Friday, December 5th Sinterklaas came all the way from the Netherlands to visit our students! It was such a cute activity and we used it to kick off our holidays around the world event. On the morning of December 5th, we asked the students to leave their shoes outside the classroom because Sinterklaas was coming over to leave special treats to the good boys and girls and a black stick to those that don't behave well.

The kids were very excited! We gathered on the floor and I shared with them a PowerPoint presentation about Sinterklaas. We sat very quietly waiting to hear Sinterklaas' horse coming down the hall, but unfortunately he was too quick and silent for us to catch him! He left treats for all of the kids! After we wrote about our adventure!

This was a great start to our Holidays around the World Unit! To get the kids excited about our travels, I made them suitcases, plane tickets, and passports. We also had a traveling diary to document all the things we learned about. It was a fun learning experience and the kids enjoyed it very much! 
Inside the passport we listed all the countries we were going to visit. Each teacher chose a country and the kids rotated between classrooms. During their visit, the kids got their passports stamped, heard a quick presentation about the country, and did a craft activity. They also located the places they visited on a world map that was attached to the inside of their suit case. They also had a Ziploc bag to collect all their projects.