Our Month in Pictures...

Hello?  Are you still there?  Oh my goodness, I have been so MIA from my blog that it's already been a MONTH since my last post...a MONTH!  So, so, so, so sorry y'all.  Life has definitely been very busy around here, and I just simply haven't had the blogging time that I had before.  But, I am a creature of schedules (not habit, just schedules), and I have finally put my life back onto a schedule!  (insert loud applause here....).  Plus there's the added benefit that handsome had 2 Fall Baseball games to coach this afternoon, so I got ALL of my big kindergarten bag of stuff finished before the last inning...this is the time I usually break it out, and I am very very happy that I brought it with me to the game!  Oh, one more added yay for today...tomorrow is our Fall Break (just Monday off), so I get an extra day to tackle my to-do lists.

We have be SOOOO busy in kindergarten!  I may be the only one, and if so, that's totally fine with me...but, it seems to take me a little time to get used to my sweet babies each year.  Let me clarify: I fall in love with my classes each year, so the following year I miss my old students like crazy.  Especially when the new group comes in and we have to learn the rules/procedures all over again AND get to know each other.  Now don't get me wrong...I LOVE my new students, but there always seems to come a point in the beginning of the year when it finally starts feels like a "team" and the new feeling wears off (hence our class name: Team Johnson).

It happened a few weeks ago.  We were learning about bus safety, and we were singing "The Wheels on the Bus" song.  We made a makeshift bus at the front of the room using the student chairs.  We talked about the rules on the bus and stuck them to our GI-NOR-MOUS bus that my wonderful assistant made last year.  We sang each rule to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus" except the song is called "The Students on the Bus Should..." and they loved it!

Then we made these buses (inspiration from Mrs. Jump) in the art center that week.  On Friday afternoon, we wrapped up Bus Safety week with our song and makeshift bus again.  This time, the students replaced the "b" in "bumpity bump" with the first letter of their first names.  This student's name begins with "E."  We brought our buses down to our whole group meeting place on the carpet, and took turns singing the song to each student's name.

They had a blast!  Then we displayed it outside of our classroom like this:

Onto fire safety and community helpers from there...however....I kinda didn't take pictures of that stuff :o(

So, on to Fall and Leaves we go!

First we brainstormed about fall together, talking about all of the things that we LOVE about the fall...cool weather, FOOTBALL,  :o) watching the trees change colors, etc.  We honed in on the leaves on the trees part.  We made a circle map to list the different things we already know about leaves...

We read some books about leaves...our favorite were...

The Leaf Man is a super cool book about how the leaves blow all over the place and create new images. You have to look close and you have to have an imagination to see each "thing."  We made our own leaf things on Friday from leaf stamps.  The students could pick between making fish, turtles, and/or trees from their leaves.  We let the paint dry and then practiced labeling.  Through interactive writing, we figured out together how to spell each thing.  I left the words up so that they could write their labels on their pages.  If you go ALLLLLLL the way down to the bottom of this post, you can see our Leaf Man art project.  I'm sorry...I forgot to get a closeup!  But they turned out really good!


In math, we have been learning about numerals...how to count them, how to write them, and how to use a dice.  This activity was PERFECT!  It's from




...they have a teachers pay teachers packet called Happy Fall Y'all!  And it made this teacher VERY happy!  It has TONS of very cute and very appropriate kinder games.  Too much for us to make/use this year, but we definitely used about 1/2 of this 100+ page packet.  VERY worth it, I promise!  :o)

Here is the first part of the packet we used...it comes with a poem that I cut out, mounted on red paper, and laminated.  It was a very simple and quick poem for my students to learn...

These leaves were spread out on the floor in front of the pocket chart (we made a 1/2 circle around it).  Each student came up and turned over a leaf (they were just copied on leaf-color paper and laminated).  S/he had to tell us quickly what number the picture represents.  We did this 2 days in a row, and by the end of day two, they were very competitive on who could recognize it the fastest!  :o)  (Please ignore my orange toes!  I was trying to give some kind of size reference...the leaves are the size of your palm.

 THEN!  I found THIS super cute Graph-a-Leaf math activity.  We did this on Friday.  We did everything whole-group, because it's technically a first grade math activity.  Most of my students were able to complete it with no help, but I still had a few who struggled with the questions at the end...

If you like this, go to Mrs. Oakes blog and then on to her teachers pay teachers page.  She rocks!  Thanks Mrs. Oakes!  :o)





As Fall Intro/Leaves week came to a close, we read that book up there called The Leaves on the Trees.  It is a WONDERFUL book that describes the different shapes/colors of leaves on different trees.  It names a different tree on each page, and is sung to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus."

Here are some leaves a parent sent in with her daughter (mom is a science teacher at our school and has so much cool stuff to share!)...we were able to look at them and point out the different parts of a leaf (stem, blade, veins).  Thanks Catherine!

She also sent in leaf rubbings.  I have never seen plastic ones like these before.  Aren't they cool?  We didn't have any time left in the day on Friday for each student to try it out, so it will be in the Art Center for them to try when they finish their art project.

 During our last science meeting this week, we came up with a tree map about leaves.  I have to say a HUGE thank you to Babbling Abby.  Girl, I saw your post about bats and was totally inspired!  I have never, ever seen a tree map like this...with the "can, are, have" words at each branch.  I fell in love!  We did this with leaves, we will do it for bats and spiders in the upcoming weeks, and I'm sharing it with every teacher I know!

Go to Abby's teacher blog "The Inspired Apple" to see her thinking maps about bats.  If you check back here next week, you'll see that I just about copied it point-blank...I know my students will love it! Click on the VERY cute bat tree map to check out her stuff!  :o)

On a very separate note, I created this bulletin board to display some student work.  We started the year with a Monster theme, and I thought it was appropriate to have a Monstrous Work board!  Still haven't been able to put up the title...ugh!  This is all work from our learning centers.  We have 5 centers going each week...one is the art center, so that automatically gets put up around the room or outside.  This bulletin board shows SOME of the great work from the other centers.  I switch them out almost daily so that everyone has a turn.  They love seeing their work up on the board.  :o)

And here was my desk at 5:30 on Friday...last thing left to do was to put up the leaf learning in the hallway before I shuffled on home for girls' night out!  Whew!  I leave my big calendar on the left side of my table, and my lesson plan notebook (aka my LIFELINE at school) on the right side.  Every Friday before I leave literally everything else must be gone from my desk.  Nothing can be left for Monday (it comes home with me).  You can also catch a glimpse of my newest and most beloved coffee cup....

Here's the display I just couldn't leave school without finishing....

Anyway, once again I have created a terribly long, drawn-out post, but I hope it helps with planning either for this year or the future!  :o)  Happy Sunday night, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

...be at peace, and all will be well...

Yard Sale, Anyone?

Happy Sunday everyone!

Yesterday I went yard sailing with my very avid-yardsaling-mama, and I want to share our experience with you...

Each Saturday at half-past dark-thirty, she and her friend Johanna and Johanna's mom and Johanna's mom's dog Sophie go Yard Sailing.  I catch a ride every blue moon to stock up on classroom items and home goodies.  Sometimes we end up with zilch. nada. nothing.  And then other times we hit the JACKPOT!

Letmetellyou that yesterday was a jackpot kinda day!  It was awesome...no, spectacular!  I spent $25 yesterday.  Here is my loot!  Yay!  :o)

Okay, y'all...Everything in this picture was 25 cents each!!  $1.25 for EVERYTHING!  Two Halloween doormats (gave the one standing up to my kinder-friend Cindy), an Easter doormat, Halloween stencil, and a mini-Christmas tree.  All for the classroom.

The Halloween mat that I gave Cindy was the first one I purchased.  I found the "Trick or Treat" mat at another yard sale and liked it better.  It will sit outside my classroom door in a few weeks.

ALL of the books were 25 cents a piece (I usually like to pay 10 cents, but these are in such great condition, I couldn't pass them up!).  I LOVE Dick and Jane books.  I have so many now that I'm going to have to make a separate book tub for them.  My students love them for the repetitious nature like Dr. Seuss has.  I love them because of the repetition AND the nostalgia.

On the top step in the middle is a Vowel Pattern game from Scholastic.  I almost bought the very same one last year for $14.99.  It was $1. Ha!  :o)

Total here...$3.50.

By the way, two of these books are so cute - they are "What to Expect..." books for children who are going to be a big brother or big sister.  Two of my students became big sisters/brothers last year, and I have a little girl this year who will big a big sissy soon!  :o)

My mom asked me to take a picture of just my Dick and Jane books for her yard sale blog.  She loves them almost as much as I do!  :o)

Markers for 10 cents (brand spankin' new!) and two like-new binders for 25 cents a piece.  Total?  $0.60!

The first yard sale we hit had the red sweater.  25 cents!  Bonus?  It has shoulder pads!  As soon as I laid eyes on it, I knew instantly that I had found my tacky Christmas sweater for this year.  I should have kept this secret (I won the contest last year, so this will give my competitors an advantage...), but I'm in so much love that I couldn't resist.  Now it's on to find the perfect tacky leggings, wooly socks, earrings, and the rest of the ridiculous accessories!  :o)

The black dress is for Halloween...I want to be the Wicked Witch of the East this year.  This dress was $1.  It was at a yard sale I found on my way home.

Some Christmas decorations for my classroom (I am in LOVE with snowmen!) - both were 25 cents a piece!  And two terra-cotta pots (again, 25 cents each!!) to clean, paint, and monogram.  I have some over-grown house plants that need to be separated.

For 10 cents I picked up those little black hangers.  They are for my house.  They are stocking hangers that work like those purse hangers.  They don't fall down!  I picked them all up for 10 cents.  I want to find some snowmen to hot glue to them so they look a little more festive!  :o)

So that's all for the classroom...here is the rest of my stash for my house/ my veryownself....

Y'all, I have been dreaming of owning and collecting a Christmas light-up village for about 1/2 of my life.  BUT when Christmas rolls around, I can't afford the dag-on stuff!  I have kept my eyes out for this at yard sales through the years and have always come up empty-handed.  Until yesterday.  Oh. My. Goodness!  All 5 of these were $10!!!  Like, $10 for the whole set!!!!!!  They came with their original boxes...and each box is marked between $19.99 and $34.99!  Yay!!  These are from an estate sale where the mother had passed away, and her children were selling what was left.  I assured them that these would be taken care of and were going to a good home!  Now I just have to find the accessories and a place to display them at Christmas!  :o)

Boxes for the Christmas village.

I just finished the Twilight saga.  It was my summer love affair (aside from my handsome of course!).  I spent countless hours diving into each book and went into mourning the day I finished Breaking Dawn and realized that the books would be no more.  I bought the first two books at Goodwill, borrowed the third and fourth, but want all four for my bookcase (and future re-reading).  Yesterday I found Breaking Dawn - hardback, mind you - for $1!!!!

I also found two Nicholas Sparks novels that I haven't read yet (I have a weakness for him too) for $1 each, and also The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (I've been wanting to read this for a while).  The Girl was $1 as well.  THEN I found these TOO CUTE handbags for $1 each.

The matching candlestick holders were $0.50 each at the estate sale where I found the village.

Total...$7!  :o)

On a side note, I'm stuck on the couch today, but not the same reason as my last post.  This time I woke up feeling just absolutely ICKY!  ...one of the only drawbacks of being a teacher: getting germy germs from my students. Anyway, my laundry is mid-cycle and the dishwasher is mid-washing...here is a reminder of the harsh realities of house-work (look closely at the sign above my sink...then look at the sink...)  :o)

High ho, high ho, it's off to work I go...

Check out my mom's blog by clicking HERE.  If you are considering yard sailing, read her blog - she has many helpful tips if you are new or do not go EVERY Saturday like she does.

...be at peace and all will be well...

Lesson Plans...

...I've been debating on whether or not to change the layout and title of my blog...trying it out today - what do you think??


Y'all, I have been searching for almost 5 years for a decent way to organize my lesson plans.  I have never once been 100% satisfied.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am a TAD bit OCD, type-A, CDO (that's OCD in alphabetical order - the way it should be!)...get the idea?

So when I taught first grade, our "special" class time was at the same time each day.  So everyday we would have the same amount of time for our planning periods.  It made lesson plan templates very simple.  My mentor shared her template with me, and I was able to organize all of my plans easily and quickly each week.  I was in CDO heaven!

Now in kindergarten, and a different and bigger school, I don't have that luxury of the same planning time each day.  Our school ranges from Transition (preschool) to 12th grade.  Our "special" teachers have to work us and 12 other grade levels into their schedules.  I have a special place in my heart for our music teacher who has the difficult task of creating these schedules.  I would NEVER want that job!  ;o)

However, my poor CDO-self is still adjusting to having special classes at a different time and sometimes a different time-frame each day.  Last year was my first year teaching kindergarten, and I wrote out my lesson plans for each day (so one page of plans per day).  I really took a lot of time to plan out my lessons so that I could get acclimated with what I needed and wanted my students to learn.  Now it's year two, and it doesn't take QUITE as long to plan...still takes a lot more than I would want it to, but again, this CDO teacher is trying to get it just right for her students.

Here is a run-down of the materials we use...

Reading:
We use Open Court Imagine It series.  I take what I need from this - I use the Morning Message and Phonemic Awareness portion as well as the Letter Knowledge and Penmanship part right now (we're teaching the sound AND handwriting techniques right now).  I also like their Book and Print Awareness concepts - but most of the time I pick my own Shared Reading book and use the Imagine It's concept to learn (I hope that makes sense!).

Not this week but next week we will start Guided Reading (I haven't finished my back to school assessing yet).  I bought "Become a Guided Reading Guru" from Lesson Plan SOS this summer.  Oh. My. Goodness.  It is awesome!  I was raised a guided reading teacher from college all the way up through teaching 1st grade.  I love it.  I swear by it.  I didn't get to do it like I wanted to last year, but this year we are kicking it up a notch!  If you are still struggling like I am to make Guided Reading everything you want it to be, go check this TpT packet out. It's only $8 but it's worth EVERY PENNY!

Math:

Scott Foresman is the adoption we use for math.  I like it a lot because it focuses on so many hands-on manipulatives.  We basically follow this lesson-by-lesson unless there's a wacko lesson that we skip (there is one in chapter 2 that is just crazy confusing for the teachers to understand let alone the kinders!).  So when you see the math part in my lesson plans, I basically just include the title of the lesson and what the students should do (practice on the handout is what most days say).  In between all of that is the "good stuff"...I just don't have enough room on my template to spell out what we're going to do.  I have sticky notes all over my teacher's manuals to remind me of what went well last year and what I need to change this year.

Writing:

Last year I purchased a book with my bonus points from Scholastic called The Complete Year in Reading and Writing for kindergarten.  I loved it, but couldn't start it up right away and had to pick-and-choose lessons to get us through the end of the year.  Our Reading adoption has writing plans built in, but I just felt like I wanted to step it up a notch in my classroom.
I am LOVING it this year.  It tells you what books to use, it has great units of study, and it also has pre-made lesson plans for teachers like me who are not very good at breaking down the components of writing.  I adapt the lessons to fit "Writing Workshop" guidelines.  We have a 5-10 minute mini lesson and then they get 10 minutes to practice.  Then we close with a 5 minute share.  I LOVE to write (as you have noticed), but I'm still learning how to teach my students to write. My handsome purchased this same book for 4th grade and is loving it too.

Science and Social Studies:

We create weekly and monthly units of study for science and social studies.  Right now we are in the middle of "All About Me" ...getting to know differences and similarities in each other.  This week we will continue that as well as talking about family life and the components and structure of different families.  We are blessed with a Science Lab at the school and as a "Special Class."  Students get to have wonderful hands-on experiences with live animals and different objects each week.  LOVE the science lab!

Okay, here are my plans for this week...in all their glory (yeah right).  I am always looking for new ideas and constructive criticism, so let me know if you do something similar, or if you have tried something in the past that works better...

Johnson Lesson Plans

This post was inspired by Mrs. Lochridge's post:

Lesson Planning in the 21st Century...go check it out!

Happy Sunday, y'all!

...be at peace, and all will be well...

While You Were Out Freebie

Happy Saturday, blog world!  Ahh it is almost noon on this glorious Saturday...confession?  I'm typing this in the middle of my unmade bed, still in my pj's, and it is SO NICE!  :o)  Handsome has already turned on the world of college football, and we have t-minus 3 hours until our Pirates play.  Arrrgh!!!

One of my students was absent the other day, and as always I pulled out my "We Missed You" page to attach to her missed classwork.  I wanted to share it with you.  It has made my life SO easy!  I used to use a regular piece of notebook paper just listing the assignments, but it took FOREVER!  I just couldn't find a printable that fit me, so I would continuously write the same template over and over again as students missed school.

Last year I finally broke down and took all of 3 minutes designing this:

Student Make-Up Work


**I just changed this so that it doesn't talk about being sick - I think I'm actually going to start using this one instead - thanks for asking Janae!  :o)

All you do is fill out the form, put the date somewhere up at the top, and then staple any missed work to this sheet of paper.  I usually send home the shared reading book and put it all in a gallon size ziploc bag.

If you grab this and like it, let me know by leaving a comment.  If you need it to say something different, I can change it too :o)

GO PIRATES!!!

The Aftermath of Irene...

Happy Tuesday!  We are VERY happy here in the south that life is getting back to normal after a horrible hurricane.  We endured almost 48 hours straight of rain and wind.  It. lasted. forever.  We thought the rain wouldn't ever stop!  All over our city and surrounding cities and towns you can't drive a block without seeing at least one HUGE oak tree uprooted.

As the storm came over us on Friday night, my sissy and I camped out in the living room.  She's staying with us as she gets ready to move to Florida.  For some reason, after only one glass of wine, we started singing a song.  That somehow lead into trying to remember (successfully!) all of the words to "Part of Your World" sung by none other than Ariel herself!  THAT lead into changing the Pandora radio station to "Disney."  A little more wine, a little game of Scrabble, and we were in full Disney singing mode.  Here's sissy and my dog Kody and kitty Hank.

On a side note, like many girls our ages, when we were little we OBSESSED about the newest Disney animated film.  When she was 3, sissy "officially" changed her name to Princess Jasmine.  I remember our aunt called us one afternoon and asked for sissy, and sissy wouldn't come to the phone until our aunt asked to speak with "Princess Jasmine."  I can also fondly remember our family road trips to vacation in New York or to Florida (we live right smack in the middle of those two states, so our road trips were usually no less than 10 hours one way).  Our poor parents suffered as we sang at the TOP OF OUR LUNGS to every single song on every single soundtrack (on cassette tapes of course!).  We had to strike up compromises between "adult music time" aka NPR and "children music time."  Looking back, I feel like we were out-compromised because it was something like "y'all can listen to 2 songs and then we'll listen to NPR for an hour.  It's totally the same thing."  We were (and are still) so naive that we didn't ever figure out the difference!

My favorite moment of this Wine Scrabble Disney was "Hakuna Matata" ...somewhere in the middle of the song we were crying harder than we were laughing as the lyrics struck up some hilarious memories!  Love you, sissy!  :o)

Handsome and I were blessed because we suffered very minimal damaged as compared to many others around here.  Saturday morning we came upstairs to find our bay window leaking...no make that dripping water.  We stuck pots, bowls, and cups all along the window sill to try to keep our walls and carpets dry.  Turns out the water was coming in through the molding at the top and was behind the walls, so some of the spots in the walls are ruined.  See those drips running down the wall?  The one furthest to the right is NOT coming from the window sill.  It's seeping out from behind the wall.  Hopefully shouldn't be a big deal to fix.

As soon as the storm let up a little, we headed to handsome's parents house for the night.  We lost power, and so did they, but they had the *da-da-da-daaaa* generator!!  That same day their big tree in the back yard went down.  Luckily it didn't hit the house - it went the other way and landed on their two storage barns.  When the weather cleared, lots of friends came to help start the tree-removal process.

I helped the girls work on the front yard and back yard - my in-laws have lots of wonderful shade tress in their yard...but we all know what happens to those wonderful trees during a storm.  Yep!  Nature prunes them!  Here are our piles in the front...

And here is handsome helping us out in between cutting up the tree...

Because of this stupid storm, we have many friends and even some family dramatically effected by this storm.  Handsome's parents and hometown still have no power.  This is day 4 of no power.  Yuck.  Some have lost homes and/or vehicles.  I am counting my blessings more than you know.

Luckily we get to go back to school tomorrow.  There will still be some teachers and students who cannot come, but we're all going to get through this together!  Please send up your prayers and think of all those involved.  If you are going through this too, know that I'm thinking of you very much!

...be at peace, and all will be well...

Mrs. Johnson Gets Ready for Kindergarten!

Here we go!  We start Kindergarten tomorrow!!!  I still cannot believe how quickly last year flew by.  Now summer has flown by and it's almost time to meet my new kinders!

Let me ask the teachers out there: this is my 5th year of teaching and I have butterflies worse than EVER before.  Does it get worse through the years?  Does it let up a little?  Can I expect all 30 + years of teaching to do this to me at the beginning of every year??  I was a wreck last week - a jittery, jumpy, OCD wreck!

I'm not nervous...no negative thoughts whatsoever...just very anxious.  Anxious to meet each individual student.  Anxious to watch this group's chemistry.  Anxious to get to know them and love them and watch them grow for a whole year!

It took countless hours to get this classroom ready.  I have mentioned my OCD-tendancies in past posts.  Well, the monster OCD comes out at the beginning of the year.  The room has to be PERFECT.  Every way, shape, and form.  Perfect.  Period.  End of sentence.  Get it yet?  :o)

My assistant has helped me so much in the past week.  We were out at school until an un-Godly hour Friday night setting out all of our name tags, getting homework folders ready, taping down names onto the carpet (this is in lieu of a rug for assigned seating - works like a charm!)...Don't even ask me how many "to-do lists" I have gone through!

My friend Joelle came out on Saturday with me to bring my rocking chair and a few other things.  She put up with me for 2 hours (I couldn't stop finding little things to tweak!).

Here it is...in all its glory...my classroom for the 2011-2012 Kindergarten School Year!

I loved our "Johnson" door last year so much that I brought it back!

Welcome, Team Johnson!

Clothesline outside our door just waiting for brilliant kinder-work!  :o)

Here's the view from just inside the door!  Drop off your bookbags and come on in! 

Our behavior cards...they are color coded...maybe I'll blog about these later in the year...

The wall of cabinets and a view of the Math Center!  Remember what the inside of those cabinets looks like??  They are still happy cabinets!  :o)

My teacher spot in front of our meeting area!  The newest addition is my grandma's rocking chair...I could sit in that all day it is SOO comfy!  It's making me a little emotional right now looking at this picture.  And to think I was fine when I carried it into the room...I miss her so much...She rocked me in this chair about a year and a half ago...and now I get to rock my kinders in it.

Our Calendar Meeting area...plus our monsters on the floor...this is assigned seats for the students.  They are far enough apart that it's a comfy fit.

Our story time side of the front of the room.  Here's my new Big Book easel!  The rocking chair over here is from my mother-in-law!  Love her!  :o)  Also, the pink table is new to this room, but it's not new to me: I had it when I taught first grade in my old school, and the teacher I gave it to didn't want it any more.  It is PERFECT at the front of the room!

Our Reading Center!  Complete with the yard sale rug I found last year!  :o)

View from the front of the classroom.

Our "Ducky Helpers" in front of my assistant's desk.

Our Art Center and student cubbies.  Also, I took some magazine storage boxes and turned them into my planning boxes.  I put all of our projects, supplies, manipulatives, and copies for each day of the week in each box (can you find where they are on the counter?).  Just started it this year.  I'll let you know how I like them.

Waiting on a table, but here is the Writing Center!  We will add items to work with as we introduce this center in 2 weeks.  This is another yard sale find from a few years ago.  I LOVE this bookcase.  It has the letters A, B, and C cut out on each level.  If we are blessed with babies one day, this bookcase may have to come back home with me!

My group table and storage!  I got rid of my teacher desk this year and will be operating from here.  I NEVER sit at my desk, and I have plenty of storage and drawers (as you can see), so I decided to just go with this table.  What do you think of our Mon-Stars bulletin board?

Our Center board.  I still have to add a header to it as well as their names when we figure out our learning center groups.

View from my chair at my horseshoe table.  I'm in love!  :o)

Please be aware that our students find out who their teachers are on the first day of school upon arrival.  I have blurred out any place in our room that has a name for privacy reasons (as I always do), but this time it's extra important to secure the element of surprise!  I hope the blurs don't completely ruin the view!  :o)


This post is a part of a linky-party on TBA!  Check out other classroom picture too...

...and all will be well, and all will be very well...