January 2015 – Patties Classroom

Valentine Cootie Catchers V

We were in the mood for some sweets at my house today. And we decided that maybe we’d take a trip in the car down to the new SWIG drive through in Draper. They have the most maaaaaavelous Swig Sugar Cookies there. They are soft and big and covered in pink, sour cream icing. But we were kind of lazy. Correction, I was kind of lazy. So I roped my daughter into making some. HERE they are on my cooking blog.

Valentines Cookies and Valentines Cootie Catchers…..which one sounds like more fun? Hmmmm……

Kids LOVE these fun little fortune tellers. Mine all did. So what luck to stumble across this cute one you could make for a Valentines Day craft or to make up at home and play.

Valentines Day Decor I have in my classroom and at home.

I like that this one at Design Mom has cute Valentines in all the 4 corners along with some sight words and numbers for the kids to choose. Number recognition is still hard for some kiddos even this late in the year. The more practice they get with numbers the better.

Make these up just for fun at home! It is kind of a fun mommy and me project.

The link to my cooking blog is here at Weekday Chef. Go make some cookies! They are creamy good! Bad me. I keep saying I’m going to give up sweets, but do I ever mind myself? NO!

Another fun writing activity I found on TPT for freebies! It is a Valentines Read the Room activity. It has Valentine monsters to match to the word, then write the word in the correct space. HERE it is on TPT. Thanks Camp Kindergarten! It’s super cute!

I’ve almost got all of my Valentines Decorations up around the house. I changed the classroom calendar and put up some hearts and fuzzy bears and I Love You wall hangings.

My students will all love the little light up LOVE light I bring into class each year. Isn’t it sweet? I keep it lit up during the day.

I bought all kinds of fun stuff at the dollar store for our Valentines Day Party. I have plates, napkins, heart counters for math, candy, pencils and a goodie bag, and some tic tac toe games we can play at a center. Cootie Catchers will be a hit too! I have lots of other fun things in mind too.

For our Halloween Party we’ll be making cookies like these darling Valentines heart cookies. I have a gazillion little jars of sprinkles we can have fun with. I might need some tiny candies too. Maybe I can get a few donations.

And we’ll be making bead bracelets for our craft. The kids always love that. And the tic tac toe will be fun. We should do some kind of relay race too. That always adds to the chaos of a kindergarten party!!

I have a few other fun ideas up my sleeve too. It will be a fun month. I always love February. And the kids always Love the fun Valentines Day par-tay.

Sight Word Games

I have been looking for lots of sight word games for center activities these next few weeks. A very cute one I found is a Snowball Sight Word Writing Game. It is HERE at Mrs. Lirettes Learning Detectives.

The kids could stamp the words into playdough, or write the words in flour. That is always fun. My recipe is HERE.

The girl and boy superheroes are HERE at Melonheads.

We also did these superheroes last year with “ing” words. I could have kids write sight words inside the “pow” shapes instead.

Another fun game was a fly swatter attached to a picture of a cat. Then fish with the sight words are spread all over the floor and the kids take turns “swatting” one of the fish with the fly. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me too, except that I know kids will find it engaging. And hopefully they will read the word on the fish as they play. You could also just use a magnet and a string on a stick and make a “fishpole”. That is what I will use to play the game with the fish laminated and with a paper clip on each one for the magnet to stick to. This game is HERE.

A game I made up a long time ago is a Spider match game for compound words. I may just use the webs for sight words too! I’ll have to come up with a sticky spider of some sort to “stick” to the webs.

Another cute one was a colorful gumball machine with gumball sight words to read and cover. And this site also had cute little fried eggs with sight words inside, that kids could pick up with a black, plastic spatula from the Dollar Store. I loved these HERE at TPT. They are free.

I also found a cute Princess and Dinosaur Bingo Gameboard pack at Walmart for only a $1.00. I cut out the calling card pictures and wrote a sight word on each one, then wrote the matching word on each board. It took me some time but I just plugged in a DVD and did it while I watched the movie.

Any Bingo game with words would be helpful for K-2 Kids during centers.

It was cheap and the kids have fun playing it. The last thing I used for this week is a sight word wall. It is really cute with little pictures along with the words. This would be great for kids to use with Magna Doodles of any kind. They can choose words and write them on chalkboards with colored chalk or even on paper or whiteboards. The link is HERE on TPT.

Martin Luther King Day Activities

I have kindergarteners this year. So I wanted to do a little bit of the activities I’ve done in the past but just make them a little simpler. My Martin Luther King posts from the last few years are HERE and HERE.

These little guys did such a good job. I told them some of the stories of the civil rights movement, and nobody thought anything sounded AT ALL FAIR. It is amazing the adults of the time thought things were when 5 and 6 year olds can tell they weren’t.

They did a great job writing some Dr. King quotes and phrases for Martin Luther King Day.

I will put their art and writing up on the bulletin board! It is awesome!

I can’t believe these kiddos are only 5 and 6 years old.

I told the kids all about how blacks had to ride in the back of the bus, drink out of their own drinking fountains, and be refused service in restaurants. Nobody thought it was fair at all!

I told them about the fire hoses that were sprayed on people who were marching peacefully with signs because they didn’t like the unfairness of it all. They didn’t think that was very nice either.

I told them about the marching people did in large groups holding signs. They wanted to change things for blacks. It wasn’t fair the way things were. The key was that the marches were peaceful. Dr. King helped people to dissent without violence. Boy do we need some of Dr. King’s influence these days!!!

So maybe Dr. King day comes at a good time in our country. America needs to feel more unified and peaceful after the recent events in Ferguson and other places in our world. There is so much violence!

Show that you care……what a great sentiment!

Dr. King would be proud of these students who really got his message.

This one kind of resembles Al Sharpton! How did that happen? lol

I thought this one turned out great too.

We had a good day learning about a Great American Hero. Dr. King lives on even though he was assassinated.

Treat people kindly. That is one of his messages and a great take away from today’s discussions.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

We will try to follow his example this week and this month and always!

Martin Luther King day is this coming Monday, January 19th.

I like this writing paper I found on TPT as a freebie. I like the dotted lines for my little kinders to help them form good habits and proper handwriting. It is HERE at TPT. There were some cute coloring pages also.

Martin Luther King, Jr. art and writing for K-2. We read the poem and wrote phrases from it in Kindergarten today.

I liked these activities for Dr. King Day too. Check them out HERE at TPT. Another cute one with an “I Have a Dream” header for a bulletin board or a shared writing is HERE from TPT. A cute wordsearch is HERE too. Some writing stationery is HERE. All are freebies.

Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream quote was a springboard for writing our dreams for the world.

DIRECTED DRAWING of Dr. King…….INSTRUCTIONS: I do it on the board then turn and walk around to see who needs help. Some kids will have to try the head a few times to get the right shape.

The directed drawing I did was easy. Tell the kids to use a brown, black, red and blue crayon only. Tell them to watch you do it first and listen carefully. Then they do what you did and WAIT for you to go on to the next instruction. Tell them to color in light even strokes using the side of the crayon.

1. First draw a large oval with the brown crayon. Find the middle of the oval and Add a nose that is like 2 small mountains or a capital M with a C on the left and a backwards C on the right. NO top on the nose.
2. Then in between the top of the head and the nose draw in 2 black eyes dark and round, but leave a little circle of white in the very middle. Then draw a half-circle arch above each eye in black.
3. Then above the eyes draw 2 bushy black eyebrows kind of like a caterpillar.
4. Then under the nose draw bushy black mustache like a caterpillar.
5. Then in between the nose and chin we will do a mouth kind of shaped like a rounded-at-the-bottom heart. Color it in light brown with a hint of light red.
6. Then put 2 ears on each side of the head even with the nose and color them in with brown.
7. Then use black and make circular swirls of black hair all around the head like a short afro cut.
8. Then draw a suit coat with a V neck in black but then color it in with blue, in an even direction. Be sure it is BLUE and not aqua.
9. Inside the v neck draw a red tie kind of diamond shaped. Then draw a small black W right under the chin, so it will look like a white shirt collar.
10. Then add some fireworks shaped like a plus sign and an X in blue and then go over it also in red. 11. Then put the name on top Dr. King.
12. Older kids can also draw an American flag on a pole.

Martin Luther King was a great American leader. We have so few that really stand out these days don’t we. I hope all the kids catch a glimpse of him on T.V. this weekend. Happy Martin Luther King Day!

The Amazon ECHO is My New Favorite Toy!

We’ve been having a lot of fun with this VERY NEW and VERY COOL musical toy my hubs got me for Christmas, and I just had to share! It just came in the mail on Friday. It is called the Amazon Echo. We can talk to it just like the iphone’s Siri. It answers your questions in a fun way. It can save your grocery list and help your kids spell their spelling words. But the best part is that it will play you your favorite music. It can be left on your kitchen or desk. It will play anything you feel like listening to. It will start and stop when you tell it to. It is amazing! Check it out!

Dylan in his Little Superman Jogger with a cape. Superman is pretty awesome too, as is James Blunt. At least we think so in this house.

Superman taking off as he is rather camera shy…..snicker….

I am in wonder of modern technology. I am living the life of the Jetsons (a childhood cartoon…lots of robots and spaceships). Marty McFly was right in Back to the Future. It is not out yet in general distribution. We won an invitation lottery and were invited to purchase it for half off the $199 price. What a great gift. I love my new Amazon Echo. It’s the bomb.