Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary School

My Poor Substitute and Copyright Law Blog

Happy Saturday!!  I think I have just completed the longest week of the year yet!  It also didn't help that I got terribly sick during the middle of the week and had to call in a sub at the last minute.  My poor sub!  I had nothing prepared, and my lesson plans and emergency sub pack were at home - with me!  No good.  But than my amazingn TA and some of the wonderful teachers in my pod pulled together and helped her out for the day.  Lesson learned?  Oh yeah.  Leave the sub packet at school every night because you NEVER know what is going to happen....  Yikes.  I def wouldn't want to put another sub through that.

I also wanted to share a great blog post I just read!  It's all about copyright and trademark laws - teacher style!  It has some very good information, and I would recommend that all teachers read it, whether to just remind your brain, or possibly learn something you weren't aware of previously.  Here is the link:  http://effectiveteachingarticles.blogspot.com/# While you are there, check out the rest of the blog!  It's full of fantastic resources!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Wants and Needs

This past week in my Kindergarten class, we learned all about Wants and Needs.  Boy, did they catch on fast!!   I thought it was going to take a hot minute for the difference between the two to hit home, but I must have misjudged my kinderbabies.  They are such a smart group!  They even came up with some really good questions!  For instance, would chocolate milk be a want or a need?  This question divided up the class, and I really wanted them to determine the outcome by themselves.  One half of the class decided that since chocolate milk was made out of actual milk and was served in the cafeteria, then it MUST be a 'need'.  The other side of the class decided that anything with chocolate could only be a 'want'.  We finally came to the conclusion that milk, by itself, is probably the 'need', but when we stick something sweet and sugary in it like chocolate, we make the milk a 'want'.  Wow!  What a great discussion in a Kindergarten class!!

To close our week, each of the students were to bring home pictures cut out of magazines to create a Wants and Needs bulletin board.  We all sat on the mat in the front of the room and shared our pictures.  There were so many!  (I think the parents had fun with this one too!)  While sharing the pictures, the kindergarteners were soooo quiet!  haha 

Here is our bulletin board.  I saw this idea on another blog while I was blog hopping for ideas last year.  I can't remember which one is was now.  But if I find it again, I will have to post it!  When making the board, I was hoping for more pictures.  But some of the students glued their pictures to paper.  I will have to remember next year to include a note about leaving the pictures loose.  However, the glued pictures look good too!  Here are a couple of them below.

For more Wants and Needs activities and ideas, please check out my store at the link below.

Wants and Neeeds Mini Unit

All in all, it was a successful week!  We have many more activities that we will be doing in class for the next three weeks before Christmas Break.  We will be decoration ginger bread houses, having a pajama party/Polar Express movie day, and 'traveling' to several different countries to learn about their holiday celebrations!  These next weeks are going to FLY by!  Enojy!