Splat Game and Freebie!

Hello everyone! Yesterday I made a trip to Wal-mart. While I was standing in line waiting to check out, I looked down and saw the cutest fly swats ever. I just had to buy them. They were a steal at $1.00 each.

While I was driving home the gears in my brain were turning. I decided to come home and make a game for them. Last year I would project sight words onto my whiteboard using my document projector. I would call out a sight word and my students would take turns swatting a word with a fly swatter. They loved this game and begged to play it all the time. I made a game last night using our Kindergarten sight word list. I plan on using my game "Splat!" as a large group activity to introduce and practice sight words. I am including a free copy of the game for you to use in your classroom. I am so excited to offer my first freebie! :)

Splat Game

Awesome Giveaway!

Hello everyone! Mrs. Stanford has reached 500 followers! Wowzers! She is having a fantastic giveaway to celebrate. Click on the link below to go to her blog and enter.

My First Award! :)

Kimberlee from Two Fulbright Hugs, presented me with an award!!! I am so excited!  - Wowzers! Thank you, thank you, thank you Kimberlee. Upon accepting this award, I must abide by the following rules.

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.  THANK YOU so very much Kimberlee! :)

2. Include a link to their site.  Check out Kimberlee's blog by clicking Two Fulbright Hugs

3. Include the award image in your post. See picture below :)

4. Give 7 random facts about yourself. See below.

5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.

6. When nominating, include a link to their site.

7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated.

 

Random facts:

* I love to read and I am a huge book worm.

* I am the director of a football cheerleading league. I also coach one of the squads.

* I am the coach of the Tracy City Eagles Cheerleading squad.

* I have a ton of best friends. 95% of them are childhood friends. I am one lucky girl.

* My favortie food is Mexican food.

* I am a pageant Mom. My daughter has competed in pageants since she was 4 years old. One   entire room in my house is for her throphies and crowns. Don't worry..... I am not like the Moms on Toddlers and Tiaras. Wowzers some of those ladies are silly.

* I am a huge hockey fan. I love to go to hockey games with my husband any chance we can get. My favorite team is the Nashville Predators.

* I taught preschool for 2 years and 1st grade for 3 years. This year will make 3 years that I have taught Kindergarten. I love Kindergarten! I hope that I get to teach it forever!

Great blogs I have nominated:

* Lovin Kindergarten

*  Kinder Doodles

* Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations

* Hugs for the Teacher

* Kinder Trips

* Kindergarten Seeds

* Kindergarten Kindergarten.com

* Mrs. Brown's Weekly Chatter

* Kindergarten Sparkles

* The Nature of Grace

* Amsti "Kindergarten" Style

* Primary Possibilities

* Krazy Kindergarten Teacher

* Smedley's Smorgasboard

* Kindergarten Fun

Please go and check these blogs out! Thanks again so much Kimberlee!



 

July Currently

I am linking up with Mrs. Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for July's currently. I have been wanting to do this and I "think" that I have finally figured it out, lol. So here it goes! :)

Here is Farley's cute button in case you want to link up too!

Here is my all time favorite book to read to my class.

Pete the Cat is an awesome book to read to Kindergarten kiddos. I bought this book last year and it became a favorite of my Kinders and mine. I plan on reading this book every single year. I also bought the Pete the Cat unit from Deanna Jump's TPT store. I love it and so do Kinders. Highly recommended!

My favorite "go-to" professional book that I refer to each year is.......

I came across this book in college and have found it to be very helpful. Harry Wong has a lot of wonderful strategies to use in classrooms for organization and management. I refer to this book often. I actually have acquired 2 copies of this book over the years. I am thinking about sharing one as a give-a-way if I can figure out how to do it, lol. Baby steps.....

Thank you for looking at my July currently. Please follow me.... I am in need of followers. Have a very Happy 4th of July everyone! It is time for me to get in the shower and enjoy the day! God bless America!

Old room goodbye...... pictures of my old classroom

Hello everyone! I have decided to start my daily blogging by adding a few pictures of my classroom from last year. I am moving across the hall to a larger classroom this year and I am really not that excited about it. It is going to be a lot of work. For a few weeks I have been dreading the move but I have decided to look at it as a positive. I get a larger Kindergarten classroom and get to decorate from scratch. It is going to be a lot of work but I am up to the challenge. I have searched many (and I mean many) Kindergarten blogs this Summer and have tons of ideas swimming in my head. I have decided to start next week and get my NEW classroom ready for the new year. So....... here are a few pictures from my old classroom.

This is a picture of my meeting group area. This is where the magic begins! My students begin the day with choosing classroom helpers, exploring the daily calendar, singing our favorite Dr. Jean songs, etc.... We visit this area several times a day. What in the world would I do without my carpet???? I wouldn't be the same without it.

This is an up close picture of my special helpers section of my meeting board. Each student in my class has their own apple with their picture and name. I move the apples in a clockwise pattern each morning so that we have new helpers each day. I have decided that I am going to try to use a "bee" theme this year that will match my carpet.

This is the only picture that I could find of my small group/guiding reading area. This picture was taken at the beginning of the school year and changed a lot toward the end of the school year. As you can see it is really small. I am going to have a larger small group area in my new classroom. So excited!

This is what my large group area looked like. The tables were handy....... yikes they look rough don't they? I think that these tables were used in Kindergarten when I attended Kindergarten at this school. I am 33 so........ anyway, they served their purpose. I am keeping my fingers crossed for new tables. They are on my wish list. :)

This picture shows my computer area and my play dough center. I also have a large cubby shelf that I store classroom items in.

This is what my double doors looked like in my classroom. My new room only has one door leading into the hall. I am thankful because I will have more space. :)

Thank you for looking at my old room. It did change toward the end of the year. I just remembered that I have more pictures on my old cell phone. I will upload some of them tomorrow. :) Happy blogging!!!

I am finally back!!!!

Hello fellow bloggers! My goal for this summer is to update my blog. I started this blog last year and got so busy during the school year that I didn't have time to update it on a regular basis. I have decided that I am going to do better at blogging. I borrow ideas from other blogs all of the time and I need to share my ideas with all of the wonderful teachers that blog.

Mrs. Janelle's Bee Binder

This year I decided to change my old homework folders to the Bee Binder. So far I am delighted with the results. I ran across the idea over the summer from another teacher. I loved the Bee idea since I am using the bee theme in my classroom this year. Here are pictures of my finished product. I think that they turned out great!

Here is the cover of the binder. Bee stands for Bring Everything Everyday.

Here is the inside pocket where I put the students behavior chart. I have used this chart for 4 years now and it works great! It cuts down on behavior problems in my classroom since the parents know what color smiley face their child has each day.

The first pouch is labeled money. Parents use this to send ice cream/lunch money to school each day. This will also be used to collect field trip, fundraiser and book order money.

The second pouch is for the students high frequency word cards. They the study word cards every night for homework.

Next is a clear sheet protector with the weekly lunch menu.

The second sheet protector is labeled homework assignments. I provide a schedule of the weekly homework assignments in this section. I also add a description of the weekly literacy centers and letter of the week.

The third sheet protector contains a list of the words that we will learn each six weeks.

Next is the homework pocket. I place the student's homework in this pocket each day.

The second pocket is for important notes from the teacher or school.

The last pocket of the binder is where I put the students graded work to take home.

In the back cover of the binder I inserted a description of the Bee Binder.