Winter Wonderland

In Canada you have to make the most of the winter months.  Below are some classroom ideas I would like to share...

Insta Snow makes for lots of fun.  Add some water to it and some polar animals. 

Snow painting.  I love filling up water bottles or recycled shampoo bottles with some water downed paint and let the kids go wild. 

Ice Gems- The students love stacking these, or hiding them around the play yard.   Fill a water balloon with water and food colouring and freeze.

I sent out a newsletter at the beginning of winter for parents to send in milk or juice cartons. We fill them with water and food colouring mixes, then open up when frozen solid.  We made an entire ice castle so far. 

Kindergarten Helps me Lose Weight

10 Ways I  Lose Weight During the Day...

1. Carrying books, games, and toys back and forth from school each day. Estimated weight 5-15 lbs
2. 10 trips to the photocopier
3. Recess- not just for kids.  I tend to play with them- soccer is my favourite.
4. Dancing- man, kids can move
5. Being on my feet all day long running after little munchkins
6. Bending down 145 times a day to zip zipper, tie shoes, pick up toys, or check out their work.
7. Outdoor Supervison- walking and walking around the yard
8. Not having enough time to finish my lunch- or the coffee I have reheated 3 times.
9. Wearing a pedometer- the students love asking me how many steps I have taken.  They will encourage me to do 100 more in the next hour. 
10. I bring only healthy foods in my lunch to set an example.

I love being resourceful...

Valentines can be crazy if you let it.  Every year I become a better teacher with new tools in my pocket. 

Some Ideas that help me...

1. Have each parent have their child sign each valentine with their name but it is not necessary to address the valentines to each students.    This is easier to distribute, everyone still receives a valentine from each student but it doesn't take two hours of sorting. 

2.  Have a sign up sheet for the party for snacks. This eliminates the chances of 10 students bringing 20 cupcakes and a total sugar overload.

3.  Look around your classroom for items you can use for Valentines art.   Below are some items that didn't cost me a thing to make and turned out great.

Water Colour Hearts:  you know those markers that aren't working that great anymore, why not dip them in water and draw on watercolour paper.  Give them a little more life.

These heart crayons were made using a heart ice cube tray, a microwave and all those little itty bitty pieces of crayons that no one every uses.

These heart soaps will be given to parents as their gift. I found this heart tin, melted some small soap scraps and added some soap colouring and scents I already had.  The students are thrilled on how they turned out.  

These Stained Glass Hearts look great on the window.  Cut up some tissue paper, cut out a heart from some computer paper and use some mac tac to seal and stick it all.   

I had some left over felt so this was our little sewing project.

Finally,  the "I Dig You"  valentines gifts.  Cheap to do: A shovel, some candies and the bag.  Total cost each $1.10

100 Day Party

This is a fun event for the students and myself.  We start on day one and add a one to our number chart and 1 straw in our "Ones" Cup,  everytime we group ten straws we talk about how ten cannot fit into the ones cup anymore and therefore had to make a "Tens".  We have counted and counted and finally we reached 100 days of school.  (and then a hundreds cup of course).  All day long we did everything 100.  Sang 100 bottles of juice on the wall at circle, did 100 jumping jacks at recess, took 100 sips of our water at lunch, and danced for 100 seconds.  Check out all the fun activities we enjoyed  ...

These were so cute!

Yummy! Each student put 100 snack items into a ziploc and on our 100th day we choose ten things from 10 bags and made our own trail mix.  

 Each student made a prediction about what life would be like in 100 years

Pop 100 Bubbles

Playing with Words

Often during a rhyming lesson things get a little sticky when the students start playing with words.  I have had a group of children start a rhyme train;  one starts with hawk, the next child adds knock, the third one rock and of course just as the principal walks in the fourth one excitedly calls out "cock".  All the students stop and look at me and innocently ask me what cock is, as I have repeatedly told them its not a word unless you can use it in a sentence.  I quickly say its a male rooster and change the subject.



All About Me...

I love science experiments, and learning new things.  Just last week one of my students asked me how long trees can live and how long does it take to get to outer space, and thanks to google I was able to answer him right away.  One of my favourite Science topics is learning about Health and Bodies. 

We always start our lesson about Health by having the students each take a sprinkle of glitter into their hands.  I ask them to then shake hands with another student and they can see the transfer of "germs" to the other.  I will ask one student to go wash their hands, and they then can witness the transfer to the tap of the sink and that its difficult to wash the "germs" all off without really washing their hands. 

During this unit we discuss our bodies, taking a look at our digestive system muscular, and skeletal.  The students are fascinated at what we can do.   Below is one of the projects done by the students.