Dotty Data

Well I OFFICIALLY survived my first week back to school with the kids. We sent them home exhausted yesterday afternoon and I don't even remember getting in the bed last night I was so tired!!!

I have already shared my hallway decor, but since it was missing the letter "D" in the word "spotted" I took another picture to post..



The first week of school we generally do book units, introduction to cutting and glue sticks (no white glue), tracing, name writing, etc... I really really really like to start my alphabet curriculum on day 3, but the rest of Kindergarten was waiting until Monday. So to avoid being the only person that was 2 days ahead, I waited. I like an extremely structured routine and in Kindergarten, the quicker we can get into one- the better! Our P.E. time was changed this year too, which was hard for us. We only get 30 minutes. We normally have the 9:00 P.E. time and this year they changed everyone's P.E. times. Our's is now 12 noon. I will really like it when our reading program begins. I do not like it right now though. 7:45 until 12 with no break for 5-year-olds is a REALLY long time... for them AND for me!

I didn't take a lot of pictures this week. I was too frazzled. One activity that my children really seemed to like was "Miss Nelson is Missing." There really was not anything cute about it. I just read them the story (like I do every year!) The only thing I did different this year- we made a chart and students sorted characteristics between Miss Nelson and Viola Swamp. It was pretty much a group oral activity. I would have liked to have made a class book. Maybe- "What do you think happened to Miss Nelson?" (Most of them figured it out) We didn't have time for anything else though. They were really getting into the group activity.
Here is our board when we finished:




Some things were actual characteristics from the story and some were not from the story but were application questions. Such as, which teacher might bring cookies to school?

We also made Ladybug Glyphs this week. I love making glyphs. I had the pieces already cut, but the kids had to listen and use their glue sticks to make their lady bugs. We actually did these on the first day of school. That was pretty interesting!!! I thought they did a good job considering it was the first day of Kindergarten.




On Thursday, we did "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom". We graphed the letters in our name during math- wish I had a picture. :(
We also made these cute trees to go in the hallway:




They are not the cutest trees as far as the shape of them, but they are really easy to make. I print and cut out the strips of white paper. Students wrote their name on the first line and counted the letters. They wrote that number on the 2nd line. I had already cut out the green and brown strips and had them ready the kids to glue on. This time of year I always give them pieces one at a time. I had cut the letters out at home the night before from vinyl. I wish I hadn't picked red. I wasn't really thinking about the colors!! I made the kids bring the tree to my table one-by-one, count the letters for me, and tell me each letter in their name as they put them on. So it was also a great little informal assessment as well.

Well... like I mentioned before... I'm the "lucky" one that is grade level chair this year. I have a reading curriculum calendar that I need to make today AND I need some festive activities for letters A through E. I don't know about y'all- but after 4 years of Alphatales, enough is enough. I need something else! Any ideas?