Upper and Lower Case Matching

We have been working really hard on letter matching this year!  We have plenty of letter puzzles and alphabet videos and songs, but since so many of my kinders were having issues matching their letters, I made a quick little set of matching cards.

My kinders LOVE them!  The pictures are cute and colorful, but they don't take away from the letters.  This is a great, simple activity to help little learners discover which letters go together.  I have put this activity on my TpT store for free.  You can grab it here!  Thanks for visiting!

Finally November!!

It's November!!  This year has started out awesome!  I have a great group of kids, a new TA,  new administration (which was a bit scary at first), a new house, and a super busy few months!  The year has started out very smooth.  I've decided that it's either because I'm becoming a better teacher as the years go by or I just have a smaller class this year....  maybe a bit of both?  I could also credit it to this AMAZING guided reading book that I purchased over the summer.  It has been my teacher bible!  It is called Guided Reading by Jan Richardson.

This book is SOOOO detailed!  It includes step by step directions on how to get your centers started.  My kinders have been working in centers since the second week of school!!  And they are really doing awesome!  This book not only explains how to start up centers for young age groups, but it gives you tons of different activities you can do with them, and it breaks down how to conduct leveled reading groups.  I LOVE the examples and I LOVE the detail!!  I wish I had a book like this my first couple of years teaching!  If you want to have a better look at the book, you can find it here on Amazon for about $18.  Great price too, right?  Have fun!

Doing the Science Thing with Landforms

My newest goal is to implement more hands on science in the classroom!  I always feel that we have too many paper and pencil assignments during our science block, so I am going to try my best to have one hands on science activity once a week.  I am very excited because I think the kinders will get SOOOO much out of these activities.  Plus I hope they will have some great memories to look back on in the future.

So I have been on a science experiment hunt.  I've been a pinning maniac and a total blog stalker.  (Which isn't that different from my normal self...)  I stumbled across a great blog at http://www.momto2poshlildivas.com/.  This blog has a TON of science activities, most which can be performed in the classroom.  I would def suggest a little stroll over there to browse for a bit!

Last week, we studied landforms using my Landforms Unit that I recently created for my classroom.  I also have this unit up in my TpT store.

I made this unit to help my younger elementary students learn the different physical characteristics of landforms. It includes a reader, venn diagrams, thinking maps, etc.  If you are interested in taking a closer look at this item, you can view it here.

So what better way to complete a landform unit then to make mini volcanos?!?!  Thanks to the blog momto2poshlildivas I was able to make sure each student in the classroom had their own volcano.

I bought some cheap pans from Walmart and shared them between two students.  This worked great because I could use the lids too.  Each student was given a small clear cup filled to about an inch from the top with vinegar.  Then we added a little bit of food coloring to each cup of vinegar.

Next, I prepared the baking soda.  I gave each student a heaping spoon full.  Since they didn't know what was going to happen, I made sure they all held on to their spoons with both hands until I counted to three.  That way they all dumped the baking soda in to the cups at the same time.

How excited they were when all those volcanos erupted!!  It was pure magic.  :)  I wish I could show you their little faces!

I would really like to continue these types of activities throughout the rest of the year.  I am off to discover more science!