A Week to Celebrate!

Whew! What a week we had in room 103 :) Even with a Monday off, we managed to accomplish a whole lot of learning and fun!!! One of the main reasons I can call this past week a success is because of the new planning that I have adopted from Kickin' it in Kindergarten's Elizabeth Hall! The concept of visual planning is amazing, but the result....EVEN MORE AMAZING! I was a bit nervous to try  it out but decided to take on the daunting task after my mentor (and amazing friend) tried it and loved it! As I sat down to plan my week, I picked a theme for ELA and a theme for math. After figuring out my ELA (presidents) and math (subtraction) I hopped onto Pinterest and found different lesson ideas and activities were adorable and perfect for my kinder babes! I screenshot all the pictures that went with the ideas I was going to be utilizing and with the format available in the link below, started to put everything in its place. The results: PHENOMENAL. And I mean it. I always have had pretty thorough lesson plans that outlined my day, but having each activity with a picture to help remind me each day what was in store was such a weight off of my shoulders. I could not be more pleased. It is EASY to say "oh, we will work on subtraction this week" and then google some games before the lesson. It is EFFECTIVE to write out daily plans and have engaging activities written out and prepared for each lesson. To be a quality teacher, i don't think it should be easy but I DO think it should be effective :)

I think my favorite part of using these plans was when one of my babes saw them on my desk and said, "Hey Miss K!! These look like what we got to do this week!!" And when I told her that I planned our work each week, she was shocked! "You mean, you have, like, homework?" What a little gem!! 

Below is the link to the template that I used along with my examples from last week! The mapping out of these lessons will forever change my way of thinking!!

http://kickinitinkindergarten.com/peek-first-week/

Our week began with our first President related assignment! We wrote about what we would do if we were President. Before I introduced the writing, we talked about what a President did. I was pleasantly surprised to hear some students respond with answers such as "Oh, I think President Washington is on money!!" "So is Mr. Lincoln, isn't he Miss K???" The connections my kids were making was so exciting! When I asked the students what they would do if they were the President, I received quite the array of answers. Some of my students decided that they would cancel school, some decided they would shop all the time. I had one boy proclaim that he would make people give him foot massages!! Oh, how I love my babes!!

An activity I found on http://mrsterhune.blogspot.com/2012/02/presidents-day.html had my students and I turning our picture into President Washington. My students loved this craft! I had their pictures printed and supplies set out on their desk before they arrived. They were so curious about what we could be doing. I had all of them come sit on the carpet while we watched a quick clip on President Washinton and then had them describe what he looked like. A lot of the babes said 'old', 'gray', 'smart'. When I asked them what his hair looked like I received a lot of 'FLUFFY!!!' 'so soft!' and even one 'it looked like marshmallows!' I then showed the students the model for our work: a picture of me with cotton ball hair and a blue army hat! The hoots and hollers my students bellowed out was worth it! They could not believe Miss K did that to her picture! I had them go back to their seats and we worked as a group to put ourselves into George Washington mode!!

We continued to do crafts centered around the Presidents (we made our own dollar bills and log cabins!!), watched many clips on BrainPop Jr about Lincoln and Washington, and even got to delve into some Kid President clips on Gaggle! My kids LOVE Kid President! We watched Kid President meet President Obama and we even got to watch a few clips of him that connected with Integrity and Kindness (two values we work REALLY hard to show). As all teachers know, being able to use one outlet to connect multiple lessons is truly helpful!! Our final President-related task was to create a president worthy treat of course :) What fun is a unit of learning without getting to create our own snack?!?! I found an adorable George Washington treat that I could not wait to make with three simple ingredients: vanilla wafer cookies, frosting, and marshmallows. I started to make the snacks and then realized, wait I teach Kindergarten!! Last time I checked, Kinder babes love creating and getting their hands sticky with frosting!! I made all of the faces on the cookies with a black edible gel. I demonstrated to my students how to get the marshmallow hair to stick to the cookie, and then we got cookin'!!!! Boy were they excited to make these treats! While they worked quietly (yes, I said quietly!! Give them some food to work on and they are SO quiet!!) I asked them questions that reviewed some of the things we learned about the Presidents throughout the week. Their little memories were hard at work as they compiled all their answers!! I was so happy that they were able to recall the videos and proud of their hard work!

It was such a successful and WORTHWHILE week in Kinder room 103!! This new lesson planning is helping my professional development and reflections in so many ways!!! I am scheduling my visual lesson plans for this coming week and SO excited to finish February STRONG!!!!!