A Kindergarten Smorgasboard GUEST POST!

Howdy!  I am glad this week is over.  My monsters are bonkers.  They.  WILL.  NOT.  STOP.  TALKING.  EVER.  I am at my wit's end.  Shew!  The week ends with a high note!  My friend Erica from The Eagle's Nest is guest blogging for me today!  She is such a great teacher with great ideas on her blog!  And she has freebies!  Go check her out!

Hi everyone!  I'm Erica from The Eagle's Nest.  Greg was gracious enough to invite me to share my classroom with you and I jumped at the chance!  I so love his blog--from all the glitter to those A-MAZ-ING hats!  Thanks, Greg, for sharing your Smorgasboard with me!


Next week is a biggie in our little corner of the world...Seuss Week!  I know many of you are very disappointed by Seuss Enterprise's lack of classroom friendliness; I know I am.  But I have to say that I learned this year to capitalize anything that motivates my students and right now, Seuss does the trick!  Here's my view at my desk the last two weeks while we've had indoor recess....

They have figured out they can actually READ and this book is perfect for them.  I love their excitement and attitude...now just to move them on to something else!

While we don't celebrate the Dr. per say, I do use a lot of his books during this week because our school is huge with NEA's Read Across America and there's no escaping it.  I'm blogging today to share with you some of the things we will be doing.  If you hang in there with me until the end, I PROMISE you it will be worth it!  There's a few goodies for you along the way.  :)

During our Writer's Workshop, I use a lot of children's literature as a springboard for our writing.  I am notorious for starting out reading a book with one idea, then having it morph into something completely different by the end.  Thank goodness our K Early Lit teacher pushes in at this time and is accustom to my craziness creative thinking!  After reading There's a Wocket in My Pocket, I have my students write about a crazy animal they found somewhere.  The results are just too cute!  Here's a sample from last year's group...

There is a wickle in my pickles.

They also loved the crazy antics of the Cat in the Hat.  After reading the book, we wrote about giving something new to the Cat.  This year, I will use that book to have my students make some text to self connections about what they do on a long rainy day.  But...I was digging through my books and found this little gem that I remember my Kindergarten teacher reading!

It would be a great companion book!  In it, the little mouse is trying to convince the cat that he needs a variety of different hats.  I'm thinking of asking my students to write an opinion piece (Common Core!!) as to which hat they think the cat should choose and why.

Of course, there is the obligatory (at least to me it is!) making of green eggs and ham!  We will definitely write about where we would eat the deliciousness ourselves, graph whether or not we liked them and then use a cute emergent reader that I have from Deanna Jump!

Seuss also shows up in our Math.  Here's a cute number ordering activity idea that I got from my BTFF (best teaching friend forever), Mrs. Wilson.

It goes hand in hand with the book Yertle the Turtle and can easily be differentiated to meet the needs of your students.  I have 3 that I will be using...from 1-10, 11-20 and by 10's to 100.  Because you've hung in with me this long, I'm sharing a copy of the turtle stack activity with you!  I left the circles on the turtles blank so you can use it in your classroom!  Click here to grab it!  We will also graph goldfish crackers with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and make these adorable Cat glyphs from Rachelle at Life is Sweet...In Kindergarten.

Like I said, there's no escaping the Seuss during this week.  We will count phonemes using hats and stripes-

match rhyming pairs with our tablemates-

and play a new game that I just finished!  It's called Feed the Fox and this version has us matching ending letter sounds and picture socks to feed to the hungry fox!  It's also yours if you want it!  Just click on the picture to grab it!

Thanks so much for reading this post and thanks again to Greg for letting me guest blog.  Stop by and see me anytime!