Saturday, February 18, 2012

Kindergarten Hugs has a NEW LOOK!!! (TECHNOLOGY!! Isn't it GREAT?!?!)

I am so excited to share with you the NEW design of my "Kindergarten Hugs" blog!

As I sit here on a Saturday spending much of my time on the computer, I realize that much of what I can do on this wonderful invention, I taught myself! I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing but It sure feels good to be able to figure these things out on my own! And with the help of a very good friend Debbie Clement, who encouraged me to get into blogging, I have my own blog, I am an author in the collective blog Pre-K and K Sharing, I am working on a blog for our local reading council that I am co-President of! 

My self-taught technology doesn't stop at blogging though, I have designed our Kindergarten report card and I have created several literacy and math worksheets for kindergarten. AND I figured out how to upload them to Google documents awhile back, to include as a freebie in my blogs!   Now, this does not by any means make me a "PRO"! Because if you asked me to fix your computer or asked me to design a new template by using HTML codes...well, you are out of luck! I am not quite there yet, Sorry! :)

Next step...figure out how to use Teachers Pay Teachers other than just buying educational items but to sell some of my work  But that is for another day! I am enjoying sharing my work as freebies! And I thank each and every blogger who has shared freebies with me and other educators! It is so nice to have such a wonderful, sharing, caring family of educators here on the Internet! 

Speaking of technology, if you haven't had a chance to read it, my last post at Pre-K and K Sharing was about SMART Boards and their use in the classroom. There are a couple FREEBIES too! Check it out HERE!

                                                                                                                                                 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Celebrating the 100th Day of School!

We celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday! 

The kiddos and a few of us teachers really enjoyed ourselves! This year we tried something new, different, and exciting! We decided to dress up to look like we were 100 years old. So before the big 100th day, I talked to my students about what we might look like when we are that old. Kindergartners have a difficult time understanding age so I told them to think about what their Great-Grandma or Grandpa looks like (even though some great grandparents may still be pretty young, the point still got across to most of them). The kiddos came up with things like: Gray hair, white hair, no hair, wheel chair, cane, and wrinkles. There was some great brainstorming going on but I could tell they weren't quite clear on the type of clothes that one might wear. So I gave them some ideas.


This is what we looked like the day of!

Although many of my boys looked really great and did a wonderful job dressing the part with canes, vests, suspenders, glasses and fake facial hair,  I must say that my one little guy with the orange button up shirt on took the cake! His parents literally SHAVED the top of his head and just left hair around the sides, like he was balding!!!! and then painted on a gray mustache! Hilarious and so creative!


Our fun didn't stop there though, 

 we continued by making some 100 day art! We made self portraits of ourselves at 100 years old using construction paper, scissors and glue! Oh and we can't forget the googly eyes! 

Look at that hair!!! This is a really good close-up of my little guy who shaved his head!!!


 To top off our already exciting day, we had marshmallow fun!

First each student had a sheet of paper with 10 circles on it. Their job was to count out 10 marshmallows for each circle...eating a few along the way of course! Then we counted by 10's.  They were so excited that they had 100 marshmallows on their paper, they were literally bouncing off their seats!  Once we had counted out 100 marshmallows, I handed out toothpicks and let them make their very own "MARSHMALLOW CREATIONS". They had to use their imagination and of course they had to fuel that imagination with more marshmallows down the hatch!

Counting out 100 Marshmallows...
Putting together their masterpieces!

And so with this came the end of the 100th day of school full of fun, laughter and lots of learning! 

Linked to Making Math Meaningful at Rainbows Within Reach.