Kindergarten is a Hoot!

I wanted to share my finished welcome bulletin board. I waited and waited for my Kurtz order to come so I could finish it. I bought the colored owls and boarder from The Bus Stops Here in Lock Haven.  The tree and big owl are from a set seen in many catalogs. Kelly Deppe kindly lent me the letters, since our die cut machine is currently MIA due to construction. Every time I look at the board it brings me to a happy place away from the chaos of construction.

Here are a few more owl things from my classroom. I found an owl and polka dot themed Alphabet in the teachers pay teacher set I bought. As well as the owl numbers. I really wanted to focus in on the ten frames this year. This seems to be a big push with switching to common core. Crystal Confer and I spent a lot of time  rewriting the Kindergarten curriculum in the Spring.

I think that is all for now. I am sure I will have more to share soon!

Hoot, Hoot Hooray!

I have been busy bringing owls into my classroom! This has been a long week with inservice, moving boxes for construction and waiting to set up my room until they wax the floors and clean the carpet. Thanks to the Teachers Pay Teachers gift certificate Crystal got me for my birthday I purchased and owl theme set that has really brightened up my classroom!

 This is my calendar wall. I have a weather frog, days of the week, 100s chart, place value pocket chart, schedule chart and calendar. Here are some close ups!

This is my schedule chart. The kids really thrive on routine. They love to know what is coming next and what are day looks like. There are tons of cards to switch out for changing schedule. I love the owls and polka dots theme!

I really wanted to post the days of the week this year. I had a few students who struggled with this concept last year. I think being able to see the words will help reinforce the concept. I plan to point when we sing the Days of the Week song. I will also move the owl each day.  

I have also posted the months of the year for the same reason. I think it is so cute that the owls are dressed up for all the different holidays!

Next I have my weather frog. I have had this set laminated and ready to go for 3 years. This is the first time I am finally using it. The first grade teachers are using it to show the kids if they need to wear a jacket for recess. This will alleviate the 5,000 questions about if they need to wear a coat. I loved Jessica Tirko's idea of whole punching the outfits to slide onto the push pins. This makes it easier to mount to the wall!
 

A Few of my Favorite Things

I feel like this blog really helps me feel like I am being productive. I spent a full day in my classroom yesterday and I am still not sure I got anything done. But when I stop and slow down, I realize I have really accomplished a lot.

I love using my bell in the classroom. One of my beginning of the year procedures is to teach the kids to stop and put their hands on their heads when I ring the bell. It is a great attention getter and they all know what to do. I decided this year that I needed to jazz my bell up. I bought the pink rhinestones on sale at AC Moore and voila! It's now super cute and fits my personality!

Another project I have been working on is getting my room ready with my owl theme. Outside the door I put up polka dot border and felt owls I found at Micheal's. This is the first year I thought to put boarder around the window but I think it gives it a nice touch. I also hung up my welcome owls. I had them above the door but I thought it was too much! (although can you really have too many owls?)

And my final favorite thing for the day is my caddies. I ordered these from really good stuff. Each student gets their own section and it all snaps together and apart. I spent about $100 dollars to have enough for 20 students. It is kind of a lot but I have a classroom budget and the other caddies drove me CRAZY! The students had a community section to share for crayons. Well, half way through the year we could never find green or red. Or they would lose their pencils. I am hoping that with having their own section the responsible kids won't have to deal with the messy ones. We shall see. I hope it won't be too big on the tables.I am so excited to try them out this year! I haven't decided if I am going to keep them different colors or make a red table, blue table, etc.

Goodie Bags

I decided I wanted to give out first day of school goodie bags to my students. I saw these super cute paper bag owls on pintrest ( trophyw.blogspot.com ). They were very simple to make and I think they turned out great. I used brown paper bags and trimmed the top to a point. I then raided my supply of scrapbook paper and found some cute prints for the belly. I then cut out the eyes and beak. It did take some trial and error to make it look cute and not mean. I think they turned out adorable. Of course to go with with my theme of not being able to finish a project I only had 12 of the 20 paper bags I needed. So I will have to finish them at a later date. I did cut out all the pieces so they will be easy to finish. 

Next I needed to decide what I would fill them with. I found this cute poem about the goodies in the bag ( ateacherstreasure.com ) I edited it to fit the treats that I am going to fill it with. I also called it Kindergarten is a Hoot to go with my owl theme! I am excited to finish them and get is all set and ready to go! I can't believe school is 3 weeks away!

Owl Decorations

I was away for the weekend in the mountains and now I am back and ready to get busy. On Tuesday, I met with the new Kindergarten teacher and it seems like she will be a great addition to our team! While I was at school I got busy with some things in the classroom. I forgot to take pictures though so I will post more later.

At home, I have been working on some owl decorations. I made these cute lanterns to hang from the ceiling. I saw it on pintrest (Dollarstorecrafts.com  )so I can't take credit for the idea. I bought the paper lantern from the dollar tree. I painted them to the colors I wanted. I used scrapbook paper for the wings, ears and feet. I then cut tissue paper to layer for the tummy. I think they turned out pretty cute! (Although part of me thinks they look a little bit like chicks, lol)

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I also wanted to dress up my Box Tops for education container. Again, thanks to pintrest (learninginwonderland.com) and the other bloggers out there I found a great idea. I printed and owl off from the internet and then taped her to the container. I used decorative packing tape to add the polka dot boarder. I then (feeling a little guilty) used some box tops to decorate the container. I think it will add a nice touch to my owl theme and hopefully encourage the kids to send in their box tops!