School's Out

School's Out, School's Out, 
The Monkeys Let the Teachers Out! 
I know that Robynn has been showing everything she had finished over the past two weeks and marking them off of her TO DO list.  Well,  today was our last day of school and as of last night I was finally able to mark all end of the year projects off of my list.  (I know, nothing like pushing it as far as possible!)  We had field day this afternoon and ended the day with all students and staff on the front lawn of the school singing Beauty in the World.  It was a nice way to end the year.

Superdad Freebie Book On TPT...Great For Father's Day

Our last post we posted a fun booklet called Superdad.  We have placed this booklet for free for you to download on our TPT booklet.  Graphics are from MelonHeadzillustrating...cute, cute graphics on her website!!  My kids loved doing this booklet and they definitely turned out cute.  They especially loved coloring the "underpants" of Superdad.  Head on over to our TPT store and snatch up this fun Superdad booklet.  Click here to go to the direct link TPT FREE SUPERDAD BOOKLET.  Leave us a comment if you pick up this freebie...

Happy Memorial Day!!

Kindergarten Graduation Done and 2 Days Left

Friday was our Kindergarten graduation.  Our last day of school is this coming Tuesday, but we have a schoolwide family picnic and then field day in the afternoon.  So, we decided to do our graduation on Friday.  We did it first thing in the morning and the kids did wonderful.  Then they went home to go out to eat and Celebrate this special year.  I think about every kid in my class was going out to eat. 
During graduation, one of my volunteers snuck in a put their All About The Kindergarten Graduate writing on their desk.  This was an art project of a graduate that we did along with an independent writing.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture, so maybe I can twist a mom's arm to bring her child's back for me to take a picture of...I guess I will blame the end of the year on that one!?!?  She also stuck our Superdad booklets which we made for Father's Day, but many of the kids said they could not wait until then.  Their Kindergarten Certificate was on their desk along with a summer treat from me which consisted of their Chicka Chicka Boom Boom cups and a cheese/pretzel snack.
Lots of fun ocean things planned for these last 2 days.  Can't wait to share our fun ideas. 

Finished project that I blogged about earlier.

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day tomorrow!!

Second Grade Necklaces Off Of The To Do List

My kids helped my daughter wrap up their 2nd grade "friendship" necklaces.  SueBeth's second graders came down to our room 2 times a week to help with listening to our books in a bag, practicing Dibels components, practicing popcorn words, and helping with writing.  These kids developed such a great friendship, too.  Here are a sneak peak of what the final product looks like:
BTW there was one boy out of the whole group and we decided he would like a big bag of M&M's!!  Can't wait to see the girls' faces tomorrow when they get these!!

Next up...graduation decorations/projects

These are for the 6 girls that helped out in our room.

Here is a close up of what one looks like.  This student helped one child, so that child made a charm for the student and signed her name.

Bags are ready to go with the necklaces wrapped up.

Jordan thinks these bags need the initials on them...would look cuter!!

Each necklace has the girl's name, some kind of charm, and then the student/students charms that were handmade.

Second Grade Helpers Pictures Up Tonight

Only 5 more days left..well 4 if I am at school.  We have been wrapping up things and getting ready for our Kindergarten Graduation which is this Friday.

 I am ALMOST there with finishing up volunteer gifts and graduation items.  Yesterday my son and daughter came in for about an hour to hep out.  They are going to come back in today so that I can finish up my volunteer items!!  So, I PROMISE I will share pictures tonight of what I did for those cute second grade helpers that came down to my room twice a week to help out some of my students. 
I have finished up all of my "graduation" prep.  We still have school on Tuesday and Wednesday, so lots more pictures to come your way.  I need to force myself to write grade card comments the next couple of days!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!  Be back tonight with pictures!!

Volunteer Gifts Done...Check...Off The To Do List

I will have to say thanks to my daughter, Jordan, my parent volunteer gifts are done.  She had some spare time yesterday and wanted to do something while sitting out on our deck, so I told her that she could design something to give to my parent volunteers this year.  I had a couple of dads that helped this year, so I will need to get them a little something other than a necklace.  
Jordan loves making necklaces and loves to "accessorize".  I guess I am pretty lucky.  She made all of this for under $20 including the boxes and tissue paper.  Tomorrow I will have to have the kids make our cards for our parent volunteers so that these can go home tomorrow or Tuesday.
 

One more thing off of the to do list!! 

Next up, SueBeth's 2nd grade students came down to our classroom 2 days a week to help some of my students with reading.  They listened to them read their books in a bag, helped them with popcorn words, and helped them with Dibels items.  One of the biggest things I saw was that there were some true friendships developed during this time.  When my kids would go to lunch, those 2nd graders would seek out my kids and give them a big hug, a huge smile, and a big old wave.  My kids would get really excited when they saw them anywhere in the building.  Gotta brainstorm something good for them tonight so that I can have my kids produce it tomorrow!!  

She monogrammed each volunteer's name on "their" necklace.

Was going to use our Cricut, but thought these letters from Hobby Lobby would be so much easier.

Added a little tissue paper and tulle for the ribbon.

She had them all done and then I told her that I wanted to post it on my blog!  She gave me that look of mom...you are kidding me.

 

Pictures of Data Binders Ready To Go Home Monday...Yippeee!!

Another thing off of the to do list.  My data binders are ready to go home for the parents and students to enjoy.  Sending those home on Monday.  I did a pirate theme this school year.  I stored these data binder items in a 3 ring notebook for each student since the first day of school.  This makes it real easy for the last thing that I want to put in for the year.  Then I just took out the pages, used a large ring and taped it shut so that things can't fall out.  Here are my pictures of my data binders for this school year.  It is such a great collection of "growth" for everyone to enjoy!!

Next up, volunteer gifts and 2nd grade reading helpers/zero the hero friends. 

Front cover of the data binders.

Tracking of capital and lowercase letters each month until they are mastered.

Students and teachers together color in the graph for the letter identification.

Charting of sight words better known as popcorn words to our kiddos!

Graphing of popcorn words.

Monthly writing rubric that we use each month to grade a particular writing sample.

Each month the students track their daily behavior.  These are collected at the end of each month and place into their data binders.

We write in our journals every day...even the first day of school.  For the first 3 months we do a class guided writing sample. 

Our first "guided writing" sample from the first day of school.

This is this students independent writing sample from one day last week.  Here is the front....

Here is the back, second page, of his independent writing sample from last week.

Side view of our data binders.

All of our data binder items are found as a free download from our August/September postings from 2011.  This summer I plan on tweaking some of my data binder things and sharing those with you.   Going to work hard on lots of monthly writing ideas for the 2012-2013 school year to share with you!!

What different things do you put in your data binders?!?  Leave us a comment, we would love to hear!