Winter, Penguins and Antarctica... HERE WE COME!

We LOVED our Winter Break SO MUCH! We spent quality time with family and friends…no travel this year for either of us meant more time to rest and renew! 

We literally integrate literacy into EVERYTHING we do in Our Smart Community. We are both very passionate about writing in kindergarten. This year, we have begun working with rubrics. We use a behavior rubric and we have been using project rubrics for several months with GREAT results. The visual examples of each level are key to the success. I have uploaded my rubrics to share with you here:

 I also created a fun little listening center extension for winter…also a freebie! Enjoy! 

Kelly and I worked about 10 hours AT SCHOOL (not including all of our behind the scenes work) over break. Our rooms were ready to welcome our students into Antarctica on Monday! We both enjoy this unit SO MUCH and our new word walls will enhance our students' literacy learning! 

Be Blessed this year!!

Freebie and more from our Antarctica/ Penguin/Winter Unit!

How was your week? Why is it that 4 day weeks are always way crazier than 5 day weeks? Wowzers! It was a busy one! J

I worked really hard to finish my “Mini Unit on The Mitten”. I managed to post it Thursday night and made a freebie to share! I am a huge fan of graphic organizers… and I love Venns a bunch!

Mitten / Hat Venn Freebie!

We have been continuing our Penguin/Antarctica Unit. This week, students made a winter words book (from my unit). Here are a couple of student examples…

 

We worked in our Penguins Journals. We use them separate and apart from our “regular journals”. In our thematic journals, we write about our vocabulary word of the day. During this time, students are integrating science (or social studies, depending on the unit) with writing. We have been working a lot on conventions in writing. We are excited that our kiddos are beginning to make periods, finger spaces between words and starting sentences with an uppercase letter into writing habits.

Penguins keep warm in a crèche.

 Penguins toboggan fast.

Penguins can slide on their bellies.

I hope your weekend is off to a good start! I am taking a break from creating curriculum for the rest of the weekend. I love it but I love my family more. J Hug those you love and tell them how much you love them. Kelly and I both received several reminders this week about how fragile life is. It is truly a BLINK.

The Mitten!

I bought this totally cute Mitten clipart and it motivated me to start creating. J I am planning to post some classroom pics tomorrow and work on a freebie this weekend! Here is my new mini unit… it is posted on teacherspayteachers.com and teachersnotebook.com

HAVE A GREAT FRIDAY!!!!!!!

Winter, Penguins & Antarctica

FINALLY!!!!!

I completed my Winter, penguins & Antarctica Unit! J It is now posted to teacherspayteachers.com and teachersnotebook.com

This really is my dream come true… I have created lots of little stuff but this is my first complete unit! I am pretty excited.

I am simply... STOKED!

May I just say I am mighty stoked about this new and BEAUTIFULLY bright blog design. I am lovin’ it bunches! Thank you Alicia over at Dreamlike Magic for this awesome and very “me” design!
Of course, I have to mention that I am SOOO proud of those BAMA BOYS for winning the National Championship! I have only been a TRUE football fan for 3 years and 2 of those Alabama has won the championship. Just call me their good luck charm. :) I own it. (hehehe)
I am hard at work on my penguin/winter/Antarctica unit which will be my first BIG project published on TPT and Teachersnotebook. It is about to wear me slick... I am too picky but if it has my name on it, it will be all that and a little more. :D I hope your week is a rammer jammer kind of awesome! Hang in there ya’ll... there has to be a snow day coming sooner or later!

Kelly's boys and my girls... yep, they are ALL Alabama fans! :0)