What a Week!

I have to apologize for my blog absence. I have been asked a few times when I'm going to post about how AWESOME my first week in my internship class has been. Well, I've been busy to say the least! Once I get used to this busy schedule I will post more frequently, I swear. I did, however, post a couple of new products on my TpT store, one of which is FREE, so check it out HERE.

So this week was a great one! I was so happy to see these babies again and they were excited, too! That made me even happier! To see that they missed me and that they were excited to have me back made me warm and fuzzy inside.

Found this on another blog and I have been keeping it in mind all week. This will be my mantra for the semester, for sure. :)

A lot of this week was observing and just getting my act together. I brought my awesome binder with my beautiful cover page that I'm in love with (check it out HERE) and jotted down tons of notes and ideas for my semester with these cuties. My supervising teacher and I figured out my plan of action as well which was tedious. For the program I am in I pick up teaching one subject and then gradually pick up more subjects until I am the teacher and my supervising teacher is the para. That's good for more than one reason: 1) I don't feel overwhelmed in the beginning; 2) The kids don't get confused and overwhelmed; 3) My supervising teacher can guide me one small piece at a time until I am as awesome as her. <3

We decided that I am picking up Math first. I found out, much to my surprise, that I really enjoy teaching Math! Granted, I am in Kindergarten, so the content area is much easier than say 4th grade... but I like teaching the kiddos about numbers, so Math is up first. Math is also later in the day than the other subjects, so this gives me time during their Specials and playground time to prepare myself and make any adjustments that my supervising teacher or myself deem necessary.

I have a plan and I am SO SO SO excited. This is a 3-day weekend so I am going to start my planning for my first week of teaching Kindergarten Math. We are working on the teen numbers this week and we will start working on 20 and beyond the following week. They also will be reviewing addition and subtraction. I will definitely have some things to post on my TpT store in the following couple of weeks so keep your eyes peeled! Follow me HERE so you will be notified when I post some new stuff!

FREE 2014 Monthly Calendar Download

Hey blog lovers! I am trying to get organized (ya know... since it is one of my resolutions for this year...) and I started by making my monthly calendar. I am always incredibly picky about calendars and planners, so this year I'm making my own. We'll see how it goes.

So far so good, though. I made a monthly calendar for my supervising teacher's schedule of MY stuff for her, so she doesn't have to overwhelm her already busy calendar with the stuff she has to worry about for me. I made a little folder for her with all the forms and schedules she needs to co-teach with me and I'm adding this little calendar to it tonight.

As I was making it, I was thinking... this is too cute not to put up on my blog. So, blog buddies... here's a download for you for FREE! I went all the way through the year for you, even though my supervising teacher only needs through April. :) Let's get organized together!

CLICK HERE FOR THE DOWNLOAD

Here are some shots of the pages. How cute are these?!

Let me know how these are working out for you! And once I get my planning sheets done, I'll post them too! Happy organizing!

Dr. Seuss Fun!

I just realized I never posted about my Dr. Seuss kiddos! This week I began teaching my Dr. Seuss themed theater class at the community theater in my town. It was definitely an experience...

The class is for ages 4-7 and typically the classes I get for that age range I usually have an abundance of 6 or 7 year old girls. This time around, over half the class are boys, and of those boys 8 of them are only 4 years old. Wow! Definitely a hand full, I'll tell ya! I may have to tweak some of my lessons to keep these boys engaged...

I was losing my mind so much the first day that I did not take any pictures of their hats! We made Cat in the Hat hats on Monday and they turned out so cute! I decided to use colored paper because 1) That was all I had handy and 2) They all turned out different and beautiful! I promise to take pictures ASAP.

Next week we will be playing an awesome game with hats which is always a hit with the little ones. I'll be reading the old Dr. Seuss classic The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. Of course, they'll be wearing their awesome hats they made! After that I will have a trunk of hats for them to choose from. Students are given a hat (usually I let them pick their hat, but with the abundance of 4 year olds I have, I have a feeling that may not go well...) and they walk out center stage with their hat and tell us their character's name. For older ages I typically ask them questions to get them to create a character spur of the moment to get them accustomed to improvisation. But again, with the little babies, we'll just stick with the basics: hat wearing and names. :)

The week following, we'll be playing a "human board game" with cards I created. I LOVED making this game. I made it specifically for my rowdy group, however I adapted it for a general classroom use as well and put it on my TpT store. It can be used like I'm using it (taped out large "board game" on the floor and the kids are their own pieces) or can be used as a small group board game. And don't worry, I provided a game board. ;)

Here are some of the cards. I'm seriously in love with them.

As you can see, there are categories and they are all Dr. Seuss-y!

Here's the link to the whole packet and there's a preview file you can download with images of the game board, too. Each category has 6 cards, making a total of 30 cards. I'll post pictures of the game in action in a couple of weeks when we play it out. I'm telling you, if the 4 year olds can do it... anyone can. And gosh, they are cute (the kids and the cards... ) :)

Enjoy!

Recognition All Around!

I am a big fan of student recognition that the whole class can participate in. What I mean by that is that I want a student to be congratulated by his/her peers or other faculty members for their accomplishments. I want them to feel special all day long and I want that feeling of success to motivate them to continue working hard and meeting their goals.

For this, I created these little labels. I created them for an Avery label template that can be stuck onto the student's shirt to wear all day long. This is also great because the sticker can then be taken home and parents can see that they were recognized all day for their behavior/work/achievement etc.

The "labels" can also be used on a lanyard if printing is an issue. The label template I chose is the size or close to the size for a standard plastic tag holder for a lanyard. These can be re-used all year round! That will definitely save on printing.

Here are some of them! There are 6 designs total. I LOVE how they turned out.

Right now the whole set is only $1 on my TpT store! Check them out HERE and leave some feedback for me, friends!

And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Pinterest!

Pencil Trees - "Kindergarten Quotes"

I have decided to have a little section of my blog called Kindergarten Quotes... because kids really do say the darndest things!

Today we were discussing plants and the different parts of the plants. The kiddos are in groups of three and are making labeled plant posters together. One group drew a HUGE tree with little tiny roots. My supervising teacher tried to explain that the roots need to be bigger because it holds the tree up. She grabbed a pencil and said that that was her tree. She tried to stand it up on its end and of course it fell down. She did this three or four times.

She asked, "Why does my tree keep falling?"

And a student in the group replied, "Because its a pencil?"




Oh, children. I love them.

No Snow... But Lots of Fun!

I'm back from Washington, D.C. and we had a wonderful time! I was incredibly disappointed, however, as you can probably tell from the title of this post... that there was no snow. In fact, it was the warmest it had been pretty much all winter and it rained for two of the three days we were there. Not much different from the Florida winter weather I am accustomed to. Oh well! The lack of freezing cold allowed me to enjoy walking outside to and from all the monuments and museums!

I'll keep this post to a minimum and let the pictures speak for themselves. :)

It rained so much. The only difference from Florida weather is the colder wind...

The "snow" I saw. I don't think this counts...

Wax museum fun!

Lincoln Memorial

My husband and his three sisters in front of the Lincoln Memorial building.

I'll Photoshop myself in later. I just didn't feel comfortable giving my phone to a stranger to take a picture of all of us...

And here we are! Fresh off the plane!

It really was a blast. I wish we could have stayed longer! But it is back to regular life now...

On to Kindergarten!

Last Day and a Weekend Away

Hello blog lovers! Today was my last day at my job in computer repair in preparation for my final internship. I just won't have time for both!

A couple of my co-workers got me a cake! And it was pink! Working in computer repair, I have pretty much always been the only girl, or one of two, at the work place, so I was impressed with the cake choice by my male co workers.

The guys cut into it (quite sloppily I might add...) before I remembered to take a picture... but at one point it said, "We'll miss you, Amanda!" Awwwwww.

This weekend I will be away visiting family in Washington DC and hopefully seeing snow for the first time! I will definitely be taking pictures, but I will be away from the blog for a couple of days. However, we will all have a great post to look forward to on Monday since it's the first day of my internship AND the first day of teaching my Dr. Seuss theater class. Can't wait!!!

Have a great weekend!