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Vickie 3:38 PM 5 comments

I'm a little late with this post...things got busy at the end of the week! We had so much fun finishing up our apple unit and celebrating Friday with our apple treats!

We used beads and a fuzzy sticks to help us decompose 5 again using our 5 Red Apples song...the kids loved it!

Our recording page (we do lots of hands on and modeling and we always do these activities whole group, so the kids are decomposing numbers as soon as possible instead of waiting until later in the year...it has really made a difference in their number sense!)

We went a different route Friday and worked on a little beginning subtraction with the song (crossing an apple out each time it fell from the tree)

You can get both of the math sheets and the small trees for the sticks here (for free!!). :)

We read The Apple Pie Tree and learned about what apple trees look like in different seasons...definitely a hard concept when it's fall and 90 degrees outside!

The beginnings of our applesauce on Friday

Mashing and mixing our applesauce

Yummy apple treats {applesauce, apple juice, apple pie}

I don't know if this video will work, but it's my kiddos singing Happy Birthday to Johnny Appleseed...they insisted we do it before we ate our apple treats. I seriously have the funniest, cutest class ever!

Also, in case you haven't seen it, Herding Kats in Kindergarten is having an awesome giveaway...hurry over to enter!

Happy Saturday everyone!

Vickie

Vickie 4:23 PM 5 comments

We had more fun today celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday and learning all about him. We read a non-fiction story and discussed how it was different from a fiction story, then listed three facts we learned about Johnny Appleseed. I had mine big on the Promethean board to help the students since we're not *quite* ready to do a writing activity like this on our own. You can find the graphic organizer in my apple pack on TpT.

We made these cute Johnny Appleseed faces to hold our organizers (thanks to A Cupcake for the Teacher!).

We also did more with our 5 Red Apples song during math. We used apples (beans spray painted red) and a tree to decompose 5 and write equations. The kids are getting so good at this and they loved getting out the white boards! I really like to use the white boards so that all the kids are engaged and not just sitting while others do something

In case you need the song, here it is (I have no idea where it came from originally - I have been using it since I started teaching 9 years ago!):
5 red apples hanging on a tree
The juiciest apples that you ever did see.
The wind came by and gave an angry frown
And 1 little apple came tumbling down!

My kids love singing the song, so tomorrow we're going to do another activity with it in math. Hope all of you are having a great apple week!

Vickie

Vickie 3:40 PM 2 comments

We had so much fun today continuing our apple unit! I'm so excited that the kids are loving it just as much as I am!

Today, we learned all about the parts of an apple, as well as what a diagram is and what we use labels for. We made a group diagram, then each student made their own and labeled it. These were pinterest inspired (of course), but I'm not actually sure where the original idea came from...if you know, please tell me :).

We also had our apple taste test today. We tasted a red apple, green apple, and yellow apple. After, we made a comparison chart of all the apples and then graphed our favorite (my kids this year seem to love anything sour!). We also used a sentence frame for help and wrote about which apple we liked the best.

Can I just say how happy I am to have a Promethean board again? Makes life {for me and the kids} so much easier, especially since today was the first time we've done a graph with a data page!

For this to be our first time doing a data page, I was really impressed with how well the kids did!

The graphing and writing activities are in my apple pack that you can grab here.

Tomorrow is Johnny Appleseed's birthday, so we've got lots of fun planned. We can't wait!

Vickie

Vickie 6:25 PM 8 comments

Can I just say how much I love apple week and celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday? I have no idea why, but this is one of my favorite themes to teach. We got started today with lots of activities and I can't wait for the rest of the week (and especially Friday when we make applesauce!).

We read a non-fiction story and learned about how apples/apple trees grow (this can be found in my apple pack here).

Then, the kids did their own sequencing

We made torn paper apples (I love torn paper projects!)

We learned the song "5 Red Apples" and used our Promethean Board to help act out the song and do some beginning subtraction.

We used our apples to practice adding 1 more on a number line (You can get this activity here for free!) {Graphics are KPM Doodles and Font is DJ Inkers}

Tomorrow we're doing our apple taste test...we can't wait!

Vickie

Vickie 9:18 PM 3 comments

I'm sad to say that I left my camera cord at school, so I have no pictures for you. However, I wanted to quickly share an activity we did today that the kids loved {and so did !}. We used fuzzy sticks and 5 yellow beads to represent the 5 little ducks from the poem we've been doing all week. We manipulated the beads while we reenacted the poem and wrote our equations each time, while focusing on the decomposition of 5. It was so much fun! This activity as well as the one we did earlier in the week came from my friend Deeanna's common core pack that you can get here:

I'm off to Birmingham this weekend for our first baby shower and am soooo excited! I'm also super excited that we're starting out apple unit next week...it is always one of my favorites and I can't wait to make applesauce with my kiddos. If you're needing some centers and activities for your apple week, you can check out my apple pack here:

Happy Friday everyone!

Vickie

Vickie 2:49 PM 7 comments

We are off to a great start this week! We are finally settled into some good routines and guided reading groups and workshops are going so well! Here's what we've been up to:

Vickie

Vickie 2:12 PM No Comments

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share an AMAZING opportunity with you to do something good today while getting something great in return. Alisha, over at The Bubbly Blonde, has one of her good friends who is currently fighting Stage 3 cancer. She is not even 30 years old and has a sweet little girl, Emma

So, to help this sweet family out with the enormous medical expenses and other day to day life expenses, a group of bloggers has come together to offer you something from our stores (put it all together and it's worth over $200!!) and you only have to donate $20! To read more about it and help out, click here.

After going through my husband's wreck and long term hospital stay, I definitely know how much this sweet family could probably use any help at all. Thanks so much!

Vickie

Vickie 10:35 AM 12 comments

What a fun week!! Here's how we finished it:

Next week, we'll be doing a few more fairytales, then start our apple unit. Apples and Johnny Appleseed are just about my favorite themes - I LOVE them!! If you need some resources for your apple week, check out my apple pack below.

Also, congrats to Michele - the winner of the My Binding laminator :)!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Have a great weekend friends!

Vickie

Vickie 7:12 PM 8 comments

Oh.my.word!! I can not believe how much my kiddos LOVE Pete the Cat! I think they would sing his songs all day long if I let them! This week, we've been reading about Pete and his 4 groovy buttons, which is great to go along with learning about the number 4 and as a quick intro to subtraction. The kids are having a blast!

We gave our big Pete a shirt with buttons to manipulate while reading/singing the story

We used big buttons to practice adding 1 more and taking 1 away on our number line

Then, we practiced on our own number lines

My super sweet friend Bunnee cut all these Petes for her class, mine and Deeanna's! The kids had so much fun manipulating the buttons, retelling the story, and practicing adding and taking away 1.

We love Pete!

Of course, when all his buttons popped off, he still had a belly button!


We used buttons to put 4 on the ten frame

We also read The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs today and compared the wolf in this story with the wolf in the original story. This activity is in my new pack that you can see here. It worked so well to color code the strips and the kids did really well with comparing!

Happy Wednesday friends...only 2 more days until the weekend :)

Vickie

Vickie 11:04 PM 15 comments

We are having so much fun reading different versions of The Three Little Pigs this week! There are so many activities you can do in reading and math with these stories and times like these are when I'm soooo grateful we aren't tied down to a language arts or math curriculum! Here's a little of what we've been doing:

We sequenced the houses from the story as a group

Then, the kiddos sequenced the houses independently

We drew/wrote about what we would build a house out of and made a cute pig craft

Close up of our pig

We've been super busy getting into our first "real" week of workshops and guided reading groups and I have to say I am VERY impressed with this group. They have done so well with working quietly and learning that you only interrupt Mrs. Plant "If you are bleeding or throwing up!" :) Here are some workshops we're doing this week: