A Kindergarten Smorgasboard of Flyswatters and Dinosaurs!

Today is my Friday!!!!  Yippee!  I am road tripping to Indiana tomorrow to see my niece in her dance recital!  I'm pretty stoked to see 4 year olds dance!  It should be quite amusing!

Have you ever noticed that as a kindergarten teacher (or any teacher...I love all teachers!) you hear things that you think, "Wow, really, did I hear that?"  or better yet, "Did I really have to say that?!"  Here's today's example:   "Hey, Jar, you have to keep your shirt on at recess!"  True story.  Kindergarten recess is fun like that.  No shoes.  No shirt.  No recess.  Um, that's why I am sporting my lovely "recess tan!"  No farmer's tan here, it's a recess tan!  Recess=shirts required.

So today I want to share two art projects we've done this week!    The first one is awesome because it's MESSY MESSY MESSY and it uses a very different art tool!

Flyswatter Painting!  That's right, painting with flyswatters.  Those things just aren't just for splatting bugs anymore!  

I found these flyswatters at Dealz last year for $1.  It's even a cheap art project!  

Check out this MEGA flyswatter!  Oh yeah, that's a giant splat of paint!

The kids LOVED smacking the paper!  The monsters were all sitting close enough to the paper to get splattered which they loved.  They were also chanting, "You better run!" (to the paper!) and then they would scream, "SMACK IT!"  

We had a blast!  And we were a mess.  I had paint on my feet...my arms...and yes, in my ears!   Obviously, you should do this outside and you should give parents a heads up so no one ruins good clothes!

To paint with flyswatters, I put out some paint (4 colors) and some construction paper.  The monster's choose their paper.  They dip the flyswatter in the paint and SMACK!  I let them smack their paper 4 times!  We didn't worry about colors mixing or getting messed up.  The effect is even better as the colors mix!  

Seriously, messy but a great end of the year fun project!  

And you know my motto:  messy=success!

The second project came about because today was D day so we had doughnuts.  No, doughnuts is not our art project...although it could be...hmmm doughnuts.  Anyways, back to the art.  So we had a few minutes at the end of the day so I decided to see if we could whip up a quick dinosaur project!  D for doughnut eating dinosaurs!

I Googled Dinosaur craft for kids and found a cute paper plate dinosaur!  All you need is a paper plate, green paint, a googly eye and some triangle shapes!  

How cute are these for an impromptu art project?!  

Start with a paper plate.  Cut the plate in half.

One half will be the body.  Cut the ring off of the second half.

Cut the ring in half.  This is the had and the tail.

Use the leftover piece to make 4 legs.  

Attach together (I stapled them together to save time!) 

We painted our dinosaurs green.

We attached 3 or 4 triangles on the dinosaurs back to add spikes and add a googly eye!  DINOSAURS!

A Kindergarten Smorgasboard of Mustache YAHTZEE!

Happy Hump Day!  1 more Wednesday for me!  WOOHOO!

So today was a big day for The Kindergarten Smorgasboard!  I finally got to meet my new kindergarten team.  People, I was NERVOUS!  I'm a bit sensitive and paranoid and well, let's be honest...high maintenance.  What if they didn't like me!?  What if they think I'm a crazy person?!  

Well, I think it went great!  I loved my team. We were very productive and worked well together.  We laughed and had a good time.  I am excited to be working with them (but still very sad to be leaving my two amazing teammates at my school!).  This is a very bittersweet move for me.  AND...here's the biggest change.  My classroom is going from HUGE to TINY!  The room was so small that I actually covered my face when I walked in!  YIKES!  I have lots of stuff clutter necessary academic materials!  I guess I will be storing a ton of stuff at the Kindergarten Smorgasboard world headquarters!

So today I want to show you two fun ideas we've been doing this week!  We have 7 days left so we're struggling to stay in control and keep meeting those common core standards...but we haven't given up yet!

This is my favorite!  Can you guess why?!?!  HMMMM

"I Mustache You To Read My Sight Words" is the name of this little activity we've been enjoying this week!

Simply print the mustaches and cut them out.  Glue them on sentence strips to make mustache hats!  Give each student a recording sheet and turn them loose!

Students walk around the classroom and find a partner   They read the sight word on the mustache and write the word on their paper.  

 This is a great activity for the end of the year!  The students are up moving, they're talking and guess what?!  LEARNING!  YEAH!  My monsters loved this so we've been doing it a lot!

And yes, Mr. Greg had to participate and wear a mustache hat!

You can click the picture to get your free mustache sight word activity!

The second activity we've been doing this week comes from Sherri Sloane from kidscount1234.com!  Who doesn't love the game of Yahtzee?!!!  Now, even kindergarteners can play!

Students get a partner, 2 dice, a basket (these baskets are amazing...no dice sounds!) and a recording sheet.  Mr. Greg is so awesome, he even let the monsters use his smelly markers!

Students take turns rolling the dice.  They count the dots and color the number.  Play continues until someone colors all of their boxes!  My monsters even got into yelling out YAHTZEE!  when they finished.  And yes, I did have one who yelled BINGO while he was playing!

This is a fun game to help kids with counting, addition and number recognition!  Be sure to hop over to kidscount1234.com to get the free recording sheet!

A Kindergarten Smorgasboard Field Day and GLITTER BOMBS!

Today was my final field day at my current school.  It was a great day.  The weather was perfect!  The monsters had a BLAST!  We laughed and cheered and played!  It was also a bittersweet day.  It's another "final" thing I will do at my school.

I LOVE field day!  I love that we get to spend a day just playing together.  

Today was also the letter G in our alphabet countdown.  G for GLITTER!  So Mr. Greg decided it was high time for a kindergarten glitter bomb.  Now, I know some teachers hate glitter, but Mr. Greg LOVES IT!!!!!  I know some of you are going to be totally freaked out by what your about to see.  I know some of you are thinking I am six shades of CRAY CRAY and that the custodians will HATE me.  But, that's OK!  I am six shades of cray cray and we did clean up our mess.  And we all know my motto:  messy=success.  The success here were the squeals of delight from the monsters.

To make your own glitter bombs, simply fill balloons with glitter and sequins. Use a funnel to make less of a mess (it's a good thing that The Kindergarten Smorgasboard world headquarters has it's own space...the mister is not a fan of the glitter...the sequins did migrate throughout the house....).  Carefully blow up the balloons and tie them.  Be careful not to inhale glitter!    I hung the balloons from the ceiling and the monsters popped them with push pins.  People, the pure joy that came from our home was amazing.  They screamed...they laughed...they squealed...the scooped up the glitter...the threw glitter on me...it was a perfect end to our day! 

I HIGHLY recommend GLITTER BOMBS!

And here is my newest common core creation!  I hope to have this done by Thursday for Doughnut Day!

A Kindergarten Smorgasboard Schedulin' Sunday!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies of the world!  And a very special thank you to my mommy for being the best mommy EVER!  Seriously, best. mom. ever.

And now here is the next to last Schedulin Sunday for this school year!

This week Schedulin Sunday looks different!  There are no lesson plans...I know, right?!  I am not completely winging it.  I do have plans but I'm not writing them down formally!  Yeah, I know.  But here's why:  field day, field trip, day off with a substitute, assessments and whatever other things pop up this week!

So here's what we're going to be working on this week!

Monday-field day

Wednesday-field trip to see Go Dog Go

Friday-Mr. Greg takes the day off

The rest of the kindergarten smorgasboard week is common core fun and assessment and honestly, keeping the monsters in line!  Control the chaos people!

We're doing tons of art projects this week!  I love art and so do the monsters and it's such a fun way to end the year!

This is a super cool art project!  You need:  markers, coffee filters, Styrofoam or paper bowls, rubber bands and spray starch.

Two years ago we had the opportunity to see an exhibit of glass sculptures created by Chihuly.  If you ever get the chance to see these in person, DO IT!  It was stunning!  

I show my students some pictures of the Chihuly sculptures and we talk about the colors and designs.  

Directions:

1.  Students color coffee filters using markers.

2.  Place the colored coffee filters over the bowls so they are sticking up.  Hold in place with rubber bands.

3.  Spray the entire thing with spray starch.  Coat the entire coffee filter.  It will get wet and the colors will bleed.

Allow them to dry.  Spray again!  Allow them to dry.  Spray again.  continue until they are stiff to your liking.  Use 4 drops of glue to glue the coffee filters to a piece of construction paper.  

TIP:  Protect the surface where the sculptures sit because they marker will bleed as you spray them and it does stain!

Hand Print Monsters!

I found this super cute art project on Pinterest and just had to do it with my monsters!  I mean, we are Mr. Greg's Little Monsters, so we need some monsters!  This idea was inspired by the blog Meet The Dubiens!

This is another one of my favorite projects!  We first did this in my class in May of 2010 during the 500 year flood that hit Nashville.  After a week off from school I wanted a way to help the kids talk and process what was happening around us with the flooding.  We cut out skyscrapers that matched our city skyline and we created a bulletin board entitled "We Are Nashville" that had become the slogan for our city! 

This idea comes from the website Deep Space Sparkle which is AMAZING for art ideas!!  Check it out!

This week we are also going to do some fly swatter painting for our letter countdown!  F for flyswatter!

I put a bunch of paint on plates and give the monsters white construction paper.  They dip their fly swatters in the paint and SWAT the paper!  It's MESSY MESSY MESSY but so much fun!

Our alphabet countdown will continue with G for a glittery surprise!  F for flyswatter painting!  E for exercise   D for doughnuts and C for cookies!

We will also be doing a writing prompt for what we want to do this summer.  Stay tuned for a cute craftivity to go with the writing!  We will also be doing more addition and subtraction!  And we're going to work HARD on some handwriting this week!  I want to strengthen their handwriting skills so hand writing boot camp it is!

We will be playing this super cute game called Addition Yahtzee!  This idea came from Sherri Sloane at Kidscount1234.com !  The monsters are going to love it!

We will also be working on sight words!  I made this super cute activity for us to use this week.  

Students wear mustache headbands and read and write sight words!!!  I MUSTACHE you to pin this and share it!  AND IT'S FREE!  Oh, how I love free!  

And that's our week...chaos shall ensue!  

OK, I need you to all comment and tell me what I should do for my next video?!?!  Share your ideas so I have lots of inspiration!!!!  

A Kindergarten Smorgasboard Saturday Kindergarten Post!

Happy Saturday!  People, my week was CRAZY!  Was yours??  My monsters have completely lost all sense of school and rules.  May 24th at 11:15 where are you?!?!

It was another busy week in the kindergarten smorgasboard...but aren't they all...assessments...data...no subs so we have extra kids...cancelled events...new events...oh yeah and teaching!  How do you spell exhaustion:  KINDERGARTEN TEACHER  That's how!

So, here is our week...

Our alphabet countdown rolls on!  We did the letters L, K, J, I and H this week!  We made lions and kites and ice cream sundaes, oh my!  We wore hats and jumped rope!    We're loving this countdown!  

We are ending the year with addition and subtraction.  I am constatnly trying to expose the monsters to new ways of adding and subtracting to keep them on their toes...and so they don't say, "we did this already..." so this week we did some sorting.  We sorted robots for subtraction and we made circle maps for addition.  These went so great!  They loved doing it and I loved seeing them thinking about the equation and deciding where to sort their equations!  

We're also loving practicing addition with our new favorite game!  Quiz Quiz Trade!  We have done addition and ten frames and the monsters keep asking for this!  I love that we can do it during morning meeting or whip it out when we have a few minutes.  They get to move and laugh and learn.  Yeah...we do that.  We move and laugh while learning.  That's kindergarten!  Fun and chaos guaranteed!  And all while meeting common core standards!

This week we read one of my favorite books, Cow and Chicken!  If you haven't read this, you must!  It's hilarious.  It's about a cow who doesn't feel special (teachable moment!!!) and the chickens who do something special to make the cow feel good (hello, friendship lesson!).  In the end of the story there is a surprise that always incites a calm and orderly heated debate.  This book is great for persuasive writing, debate, supporting details.  And it's so much fun.  We read the book and had a huge debate on the cow or chicken question.  We voted and we wrote why we thought cow or chicken.  Sadly, Mr. Greg is LAME-O and kept forgetting his camera so there are no pictures of the writing....yet!  I will share them next week!  

This week we also worked on the -ar sound!  You know, a pirate says AAAARRRR!  We had a blast learning the ar sound with Pirate Mark!  We made a pirate, we painted pirates, we even went on a treasure hunt for ar words!    I think my favorite by far is the hand print pirate!  How cute are those?!

The Pirate Mark unit came from Babbling Abby and can be found here!

Of course, we honored our mommy this week.  We made diamond rings for our mom and we share why are mom sparkles!  The monsters were very upset that mom couldn't actually wear the diamond rings!  This was my favorite sparkle!  It says:  My mom sparkles because she forgives me and gives me kisses!"   Powerful stuff from the hearts of 5 year olds.  Forgiveness.

Of course, we rocked some alphabet countdown fun!

Build your own ice cream sundae?  Yep.  We did that.  And the entire classroom was sticky.  Even Mr. Greg!

Jump rope?  Yeah.  We ATTEMPTED that.  We weren't good jumpers but we had a BLAST trying and learning.  People, jump rope is the prime opportunity for you to increase your celebrity factor with you class.  Let them see you skip frontwards, backwards, fast and you're beyond amazing.  But if you really want to be the cooolest teacher EVER...criss cross while jumping.  BAM!  Instant teaching LEGEND!  

K for kings!  We are the kings of kindergarten!

AND I AM THE KING OF KINDERGARTEN!!!!!!!!

K for kites!

Here is my ROCKIN hat day outfit!  

Green pants:  Old Navy

V-Neck Tee-Target

Rockin bright fedora;  Key West!

This week was my final evaluation and let's just be political and say I didn't have enough paper so I wasn't happy.  Some amazing teacher friends (People, amazing is an understatement.  They are funny, inspiring, generous, creative, caring, supportive, brilliant ladies)...or crap, let's just be honest, they are my heroes...sent me this awesome surprise!  GLITTERY MUSTACHE COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can't.  Get.  Better.  This made me squeal and laugh and smile so big!  

TEACHERS ROCK!

So, a less than OK eval...amazing glitter mustache cookies.....and then I get this.  

Look at that growth.  I am so proud of my monsters and all that they have accomplished   Now, here is my proudest teacher moment of the year.  See that pink arrow?!  That is my from my monster who came with an IEP and has a lot of obstacles in his way.   LOOK AT THAT GROWTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  To top it off, I did his reading assessment this week and while he didn't make it to grade level he moved from a level zero to a LEVEL 1!!!!!  People, HUGE gain for him.  HUGE!  And much deserved!  

So, with all that being said, Justin has something to say!