Relax and Enjoy!!!

To all my fellow Kindergarten Teachers have an amazing holiday season and a wonderful, happiness filled 2014! Take time to relax and enjoy. I will be taking a "Blogging Break" to spend time concentrating on my family for the holiday season.Hope to chat with all of you and share new ideas come January!

Winter Arrives!

Winter begins today and in Northeast PA, my home, where it is always cold and snowy now ,we are expecting record breaking high temperatures for the weekend!

Christmas worksheets!

Here is sample of two fun Christmas worksheets:

Puppet Show!

My husband, Gary, presenting his "Elmer the Elf" Christmas puppet show! I love this time of the year, especially in Kindergarten!

Holidays are magical in Kindergarten!

Fellow Kindergarten teachers, I know you all feel the holiday spirit! It is impossible not to be happy in Kindergarten at Christmastime!

Kindergarten Lights Up The Holidays!

A decoration the children love to make is our glitter candles. They color the candle picture and they choose their glitter and glue and glitter the flame. It is a fun project!

Christmas Countdown!

We count our way to the holiday by using cotton balls to fill up Santa'a numbered beard!

Christmas In Kindergarten!

Some scenes from my Kindergarten Classroom:

Getting ready...

My classroom looks great!! It is so inviting for my kiddos! I will try to post classroom pictures soon. I am in the mood for fun holidays. How about you?

Taking Fall down...

Thanksgiving is over for yet another year. All my children are back at their own places. House seems so quiet!Inservice training at school, all about math. Lots of new ideas, can't wait to try them out!
     Tomorrow I will fully decorate my room for Christmas. I know the kiddos will be so excited, as they should be at this time of the year! Found this treat, I thought would be fun.

Layer mini marshmallow, strawberry,banana slice and a grape on a small stick and you get 

Grinch kabobs!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

                             So grateful to share ideas with my fellow Kindergarten teachers!

                                        Wishing everyone a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving!

Pow Wow in Kindergarten!

Fun time in Kindergarten! Made sweet, creamy butter and popcorn. Learned about Native American customs. Played instruments and our rainstick! Lots of fun!

Thanksgiving, Yeah!!!

So looking forward to this holiday! I have so very much to be thankful for! Thanksgiving PowWow will be in my Kindergarten tomorrow. So much fun!!! Just to give you an idea how different my world is from my children's: I am doing ABC flashcards and here are my daughter's!!!

Thanksgiving---Getting Ready!

Cute and yummy cookie/candy turkeys!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Hats off to all those who have or are serving our country!!!

Thanksgiving on my mind!

I am so in the fall spirit and thinking Thanksgiving thoughts! Check out these cute "turkey treats"!

Turkey Treats-- Dip Oreos in melted chocolate- Add eyes and candy corn for the nose with frosting. Place on chocolate frosted pretzels.

November activities begin!

Putting Halloween away in Kindergarten is always a calming time. Thanksgiving is full of  relaxing fall colors and thankful lesson themes. A quiet period after a hectic October and before the exciting December Holidays!

Fall Back!

O.K., fellow Kindergarten teachers, is there anything much nicer than getting an extra hour of sleep? Sounds so good to me!

Enjoy Halloween!

Halloween time in Kindergarten!

My husband, Gary Cangemi, doing his annual "Hagatha The Wacky Witch" puppet show! The children love it!!!

More Wolf Pack Way Awards!

We are really trying to adhere to our School Wide Positive Behavior Support Program. We are following the Wolf Pack Way! Check out another Kindergarten award!

Cafeteria Award!

School Wide Positive Behavior Support Program--It's the Wolf Pack Way!

Straight line award!! This is another fun award the class can earn as a group. Who has the straightest line ? So happy the Kindergarten has won!

More School Wide Behavior Support Awards!

Kindergarten is really feeling got about themselves. We won the weekly school wide award for Music Class!!!

School Wide Behavior Support

We are up and running with our school wide behavior support program. At our school we are the Grey Wolves and It is the Wolf Pack Way. This stands for: Work Hard; Own Your Behavior; Listen and Learn; Focus On Respect! My Kindergarten won some awards. We have been working very hard! This is our Library Award. All the children get to sign the special journal and it hangs outside our door for a week!

Check-in

I have a fun way for the children to "sign in " for the day. I have an apple chart  filled with index cards. They have the children's names printed on them. When they come in the room, they take their name card to their table. We count and review cards left in the apple chart. Cards left should be absent children.  We do some quick problem solving before the cards go back in. An example would be: We have 26 children in our class. There are 2 cards left. How many children are here today?  The children then replace their cards into the chart.We always count the cards again when the chart is all filled up. I try to switch that up a little  bit, too. We don't always count from 1 to 26. Some days we count up from 8 or 11... and some days we count down. It's a quick, easy way to interject some more math into our day!

Stop and Think

As part of our school wide behavior program we tell the children to Stop, Walk, Talk. If someone is bothering them they tell them to Stop. They Walk away and Talk to an adult. It's good to teach them when they are young and just imagine how nice it would be if everyone would stop and think before they spoke.

Change of Season!

Time to put the Welcome signs and all those apple decorations away. Let's get out the leaves, all the beautiful colors that make up the season of Fall!

Can't Believe It, Already A Cold!

Second week of school under our belts and, like so many other teachers, I have a cold! Did not expect this so soon. Everything is progressing nicely(except, of course, for the cold). We are following research based 3=33 weeks. For the first 3 weeks of school, we teach, review and reinforce our rules, routines and procedures.This is taught as a lesson every single day. This helps the next 33 weeks to move along much more smoothly. Children always react better when they know our expectations. This is our beginning of school poem.

On Our Way!

Kindergarten is in full swing now. As I predicted, I did not get back to post until the weekend. The children are wonderful! They are settling into our class routines. We started out with our "magic  clay balls". This is always fun!. Put a little bit of colored play dough in a bigger amount of white play dough. Form it into a ball. Do this carefully so as not to squeeze any of the color. Tell the children if they can make their white ball colored it will be a magical year. Watch the fun!

Still Getting Ready...

Just about time. Tomorrow my new batch of Kindergarten kiddos arrive! Got to say, I can't wait. I love this time of the year. But, seriously, my fellow Kindergarten teachers, won't we be so very tired the whole first week? I would love to sign on and see what everyone else has to share but realistically that probably won't happen till closer to the weekend. Hope it's a wonderful school year, full of lots of learning, lots of smiles and of course lots of teddy bears!

Almost There!

Two Inservices down. Get to meet my new kiddos Tuesday!

Getting ready, getting ready, getting ready...

I love this book. It's a great story. The kids love to hear it. But, seriously, fellow Kindergarten teachers, don't you feel this way right about now? Don't you feel that you're in the same frenzy as "Miss Bindergarten"?

Close and Careful Reading--Kindergarten Style

When coming up with center ideas, I try to make it as varied as possible. I collected flyers and pamphlets from my vacation this year. I plan to use them in a center. I will start it out simply, example: find all the "m" words, copy them in your word journal. It cost no money, I just collected them along my way and added them to my magazine collection. I think it will keep the children's interest. Always looking for something new.

"The Crayon Box That Talked"

"The Crayon Box That Talked" is a great book about differences and diversity. I love to read it at the start of the school year then reread it throughout the school year. This year I am starting it as my theme, welcoming all the new "crayons" to our colorful, friendly pack.

Crayon Wreath

Got this idea from Pinterest. It was easy to make. I was able to get almost all I wanted to use from the dollar store. Here's how I started:

Here's the finished product:

Starting to get ready----It's a slow process!!!

Dollar store hunting, got some good finds!

Once in a blue moon

They say teachers can always tell when there is a full moon. Well, last night's full moon was a blue moon, called this because it is rare to have 2 full moons in one month or four in a season. It was a beautiful sight!

Books Galore!

At this time of the year, I start thinking school wherever I may be .Couldn't wait to show this to our school Librarian!

Almost time to start getting ready for school!

Shells collected. Smooth stones collected. Now time to come up with some creative ideas. Already know what to do with the stones. Loved Cape May Point! Just what I needed to refresh and be ready for school preparations.