Classroom activities and procedures

During open house I gave each parent a package of information, classroom welcome letter, behavior contract, school lunch menu and student handbook.  The behavior contract discussed classroom expectations and consequences...this year for the first time we are using a behavior chart....the children can clip up or down....

During staggered entry and the first day of school I discussed the chart again with the children and discussed my expectations of each an everyone of them.  I allowed the children to tell me some of the things they wanted to so this year and what they expected of me as well we then did our classroom pinky promises

The children made a promise these are things they will attempt to do daily if they broke these promises they would need to clip down...we did our pinky shake, pinky print and signed our name!

Classroom jobs and responsibilities are really important in building leadership within children so we have our iHelp pad 

There is a job for each child and they will keep their child for one week.  I'm excitied about the leadership skills this will promote.

Morning calendar is a BIGGIE so here is something I'm trying with calendar meeting...

The children will discuss the calendar, they will become familiar with writing the number, drawing the number, tallying the number and ten frames.  

This week we are focusing on letters and letter sounds so we also have a letter of the day that I write on the board.

Stay tuned in for more fun and exciting activities!

The change of The Busy Bees...

Things have changed in the life of the Busy Bees one of the major changes is I'm now teaching at a year round school....so far I'm loving it. 

The classroom setup for this year has completely changed less centers....

When setting up I really wanted to make sure none of the children ever had to sit with their back to the white board so I have four tables set up with five to six children per table.  Each table has a number and a basket of supplies that have the same number..

I introduced the children to their numbers and I call each table during transitions and this helps with lining the children up, getting them to the carpet and lining up.

We are off to a great start for this 2014-2015 school year.....BEWARE THE BEES ARE OUT!

The Leprechaun vs. The Busy Bees

Oooo no the leprechaun is loose in The Busy Bee's classroom and what fun he's having while we are away. 

The mess he makes while The Busy Bees are away....

Feet don't belong on the table :(

Look at that path of little feet.... We will catch him yet.

Look at those Bees grow!

Learning is still taking place in The Busy Bee Hive....check us out!

Here the children is proving that Teamwork makes the Dreamworm.  The students are working together to match upper and lower case letters.  The conversations, self correction and motivation that took place with the groups was a little short if spectacular, 

Letter and Word Investigators....using our daily newspaper the children went on a letter and word hunt.....awesome job!

LeapPads, the children worked on lower and uppercase letter recognition beginning letter sound and then the practice of writing these letters on the tablets was Great!

Addition Time....paper was laminated, students chose two numbers then work on number recognition, we then state the addition problem...count one to one then worked on writing the correct answer....needless to say this activity and my Busy Bees BLEW me away with this activity. 

The Busy Bees are Reading!

Well the weather outside has been frightful but after a wonderful workshop with Ms. Heidi Butkus on "Guided Reading for Non Readers," I'm super proud to announce The Busy Bees are READING!

Day one of Guided reading.....I introduced our first book ((The Heart)) and our new words, we sounded out our words we wrote our word then we grabbed our crayons and colored the new words that we know from our book.

After coloring in our words I read our story to the group.  What an amazing first day!

Day two we looked at our books again and review our new words reviewing letters and those beginning letter sounds.  Then what fun I asked the Busy Bees to read the words that they knew...as I approached their word I paused...

Day three we had photos of our picture words, pocket charts and sentence strips.  I read the book pointing to each word on the pocket chart then asked them to read the story to me....I pointed to each word and WOW they read as if they have been waiting for this moment their entire life.  

By the end of day four and five my busy bees were reading the pocket chart and their book alone.  They took the books home on Thursday and shared their progress with their families...I'm such a proud Teacher!

For the Busy Bees who are not ready for the leap into reading....meeting each child where he or she currently is I was ready....upper and lower case letter recognition took place as well as beginning letter sounds.  Each group worked on five letters and the pride they took on knowing and accomplishment truly made me proud.

Upper lower case letter recognition!

Beginning letter sounds!

The Things we do in the Classroom!



 

 The Busy Bee's still working on one to one counting.  This is a simple activity of writing numbers on a laminated sheet of paper and giving them what ever item you want them to count.  This is an awesome small group activity or activity for independent work.  Way to go Bees!

Writing the classroom.  There are words all around the classroom.  The children grab a clipboard, pencil and paper and the writing and learning is endless.  I'm so proud of this independent teamwork that is taking place in this photo...

Appreciation of books and beginning reading.  Another proud teacher moment.  Anytime you see a student willingly grab a book and spend independent time reading you can't help but SMILE!!

 

Who doesn't like taking things apart?  The Busy Bee's worked hard to take apart this old radio discussing what they have discovered.  Awesome activity and I can't wait to find the next item for the Busy Bee's to take apart....

 

Another one to one counting activity.  The cupcake pan has a number in each slot.  After recognizing the number the Busy Bee's have to put that many pom poms in the slot....Did I mention we are working fine motor as well as the place th pom poms using tweezers.

Upper / Lower Cas match.  This activity is fun and can be used as an assessment tool as well.  The Busy Bee's is giving the notebook with upper case letters.  They are encouraged to put the lower case letter into the sleeve with the upper case letter.  (Baseball collectors sleeves work amazing for this activity.)

I got this activity from PreKinders.com  The snowmen have a letter and pictures.  Working with beginning letter sounds the Busy Bees cross out the photos of the pictures that have that beginning letter sound.  Way To Go!!

 

There's still some learning in the Hive!!

The buzz in in celebration to the New Year and all the new things that are taking place within the Hive.  The Busy Bee's have been busy learning about a great variety of events within the hive.  We started our studies with the silly Gingerbread man, who believe it or not got loose in our school.  We went on a hunt and to our luck he left a note telling us where he was hiding and gave us permission to eat him up (YUMMY!!)  We read awesome books doing a comparison unit about "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Boy," "The Gingerbread Girl," and for fun we discovered what made "The Gingerbread Girl go Animal Crackers."

 

As the Gingerbread Girl was going Animal Crackers the Busy Bee's begin talking about the cold weather and the two hour delays that were taking place due to inclement weather.  We then started our lesson on Winter. 

The children were digging through the snow to find their lost mittens.

(the snow is popcorn packing)

One to One counting snowmen activity.  The number is on the snowmen hat and the children had to add that many buttons to their snowman.  Great activity!!  Put the snowmen in a row and it becomes a great small group activity!

Putting mittens into numerical sequence.  Each mitten has a number and dot to match the number.  The groups worked on recognizing the number and putting it into the correct place.  Each group work on a different amount of numbers but the learning was truly endless.

ABC penguins.  The Busy Bees worked hard to put the daddy penguins in ABC order then helped them find their babies.  The babies (not pictured) were the penguin eggs with the lower case letter.  This group is rocking this activity....look carefully the letters are in order just a little backwards.

and of course you can't have a winter theme without discovering ICE...the Busy Bee's even got involved with the ice by adding it to water and talking about how they feel, what happens and how the ice feels.