I Screen, You Screen...

...I finally have a projector screen!!!!



It took a big dream, 2 grants, 12 months, and the Sunday afternoon of 2 of my favorite men (i.e. my hubby and my daddy), and I am finally teaching with technology.

I know most of you are laughing because you proabably all have SmartBoards, and documents cameras, and IPads...

But I didn't have anything but one working teaching computer and two semi-working student desk-top computers, so I am more than thrilled to be the ONLY Kindergarten classroom with an LCD and laptop.

I used it today with our "Letter Kk" lesson. The kids were so excited about our "big screen".

We also used it with our science lesson. I found the powerpoint here I also found some great ideas for science journals and experiments.

After we did the PowerPoint, which talks about different types of "scientists", the students drew a picture of what they would like to study in their journal. Most of the girls wanted to study flowers, weather, or medicine. Most of the boys wanted to study bugs, volcanoes, or rocks. Ha! I printed off a little slip of paper and then wrote what they wanted to study. The other blog wrote the type of scientist- like "geologist"- or whatever. I also thought that was a great idea!

Here are a few of from my students journals:







I also do Math Journals. I generally try to do them 3 days a week in conjunction with my other math lesson. They take a lot longer this time of year, but in the next few weeks, they will have them down!

Our routine (after finding the next page, of course) is to...

First- Put the page number in the top right corner.
Second- Write the date in the white space at the top.
Third- Raise your hand when you are ready!

I check to make sure they have written the page number and date and hand them the slip of paper with the math journal assignment already typed on it.

This time of year we start simple. Here are a few examples...





Writing the date is very hard for them this time of year, but by mid-September, almost every child can do it. I found that since I added journals to the curriculum three years ago, it has really improved my students' number handwriting as well as overall number sense. I believe they really add a lot to the curriculum. We will eventually be adding and subtracting, etc... in these. We will do patterns and other things too once we get the routine down.

I love using journals. They give students a little independence and also allow you to have a portfolio of their work. I also use spelling journals that we will start around October and Story Writing journals that we will use beginning in January.

I bought all of these at the beginning of the year. I use the regular spiral kind for Spelling and Science ($0.15 or 0.20 at Walmart) and I use the composition kind for Math- ($0.40 at Walmart). The writing ones I use are kind of expensive- $32.95 for 10 from Lakeshore. They are the best though! I let my kids practice on regular handwriting paper first. They have to 'earn' their journal. I ended up getting my last set through a local grant, which was GREAT!

I have a journal station in my room for all my journals.


I color coded them so they would match the bucket. I would love to hear from anyone else that uses journals!!!!