Author: Andrea Darcy

I am a mom of 4 young adults and have been teaching for 24 years. I currently am in my best post yet! Im Teaching 1st grade at a private Christian school and love it!!!! Over the past 20+ years, I have taught grades PK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. In each grade I have also taught Special education, written IEP's, modified and accommodated lesson plans and activities and have also Co-Taught. When I began teaching Pre-K and then Kindergarten, is also when I was in the process of earning my Masters Degree in Education. As a result, I combined my love for teaching, learning and writing into my "2nd and 3rd jobs" which are: Writing curriculum and writing for my handful of websites!!! (green bean kindergarten, elementary elephant)! I hope you find something here that will be useful to you and your classroom! Happy teaching! -Andrea

Snow, Snowmen and Snowflakes!

Snowmen Words – I read “Snowmen at Night” and “Snowmen All Year.” Then, we made a list on the whiteboard, of things that a snowman could do for fun. We learned about thought bubbles and made our own with writing paper. The children used sight words to write about what their snowman will do. Here are some of the sentences they wrote. “I will play.” “I will have a snowball fight.” “I see snow flakes.” “I will fly a kite.”

Winter Windows – After reading many stories about snow (since we don’t usually have snow in Houston, TX), we imagined what it would look like if we were to look out the window. The students painted icicles, snow flakes, snow balls, wind and of course, snowmen. This activity was so calming for the children-they were so quiet!

Coffee filter Snowflakes – Just fold 2 times and cut in any way and like magic, you have a snowflake!

Snowball Names – This fellow teacher made used pre-cut white circles-one for each letter of a child’s first name. I love that this is also another way of graphing and comparing amount of letters in each child’s name. White circle stickers can also be used in the same way.

www.pattonspatch.blogspot.com

Winter Animals and “The Mitten”

Children love to hear and act out “The Mitten” by Jan Brett. I love creating new things each year for my lessons and finding new ideas too! Below is a great puppet show based on one of my favorite stories, “The Mitten,” by Jan Brett. Check it out by clicking on this video!

This would also be fun to do at home with your own children. My plan is to show the above video to my students, so that they will be inspired and see that they can also help produce a video!

Here is a sweet little song about “The Mitten” that I found on YouTube. It is also a play that other Kindergarten students performed. I am amazed at how the internet can be so inspirational for new teaching methods. I can totally see my students participating in such a fun activity!

http://youtu.be/oUHW4GbJG30

I also love the name plates that these first grade students are wearing. It is a great way to bring in text and visuals.
http://youtu.be/7JFwZir8M8M

This is a Math Station Game called Off/ On Bears-you drop a given amount of bears and count how many land on and how many land off the mitten. This covers “decomposing” numbers and “ways to make__.” It is also a fun way to introduce addition.

Bring back the grinch…..

I love that old grinch. He is so mean, but so kind deep down inside. Let’s not forget what he can teach us in this new year…

Have you ever encountered the shopping Grinch? The week before and after Christmas was a time that brought out the best and worst in people. Unfortunately, a Grinch sticks out like green broccoli! I was shocked when I was in Bath and Body Works and a shopper bumped into a Grinch who then proceeded to yell at this stranger-making the entire store of packed customers completely silent. Oh, it was such an uncomfortable feeling that I had, so I left the store and was inspired to find good. Why is it that those bad situations are easier to remember than the good ones? After all, that mall Grinch is what inspired me to write this….. However, if you remember Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” the story ends with the Grinch changing and seeing that Christmas is not about what we give and get, but it is about the love that is shared and it is about family and friends being together. When we focus on just the gifts of Christmas, we are at risk of becoming Grinch-like. Christmas is not about how happy a gift can make someone, but it is about figuring out how to make people feel special in a very special way.

I am sure that we all have seen good grinches, like how the Grinch became at the end of the movie. Maybe even you yourself are a Grinch turned good-I know that I am. So, can you recall at list 3 good Grinch behaviors? Here is my list: 1.The stranger that held the door open for me, at Olive Garden-until I walked all the way through, as well as three other people too! 2. My parents-instead of telling me how messy my house is, they cleaned it! 3. The person who let me into traffic, which kept me from missing my turn.

I would love to hear your list too!

Since this is my Kindergarten blog, I must mention how this applies to Kindergarten. The week before Christmas break, I read the story to my students and we discussed how presents are not the most important things. I had them take turns to tell me what they are happy for, which they always have. The answers I heard were amazing- “my mom,” “our school and food,” “the markers and books,” they said! I was so happy that they understood the lesson. However, I did have one student who told me that he went home and pretended to be the Grinch and take everyone’s toys. I am sure that his parents were real happy about that, right?!?

(So…I wrote this post before I left for the holidays and just realized I didn’t post it. So I updated it and now it is posted! I guess I will stick to writing my drafts in wordpress instead of on Microsoft Word. Then, I will be able to retrieve it virtually. Lesson learned!)

WriteStuff: The Grinch Makes Appearance at Camden Christmas Outreach (gloucestercitynews.net)

2011 in review-Every blog is a success!

My first blog writing began with this blog. I was so happy to recieve this report from wordpress. This report may not be very interesting, but to me, it is a validation that I helped someone out there in cyber land to find what they were looking for. I was also able to see how people found me online. Thank you wordpress for making my first blog a success for me and others!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 57 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Kindergarten Christmas Party Fun!

Last year my room mom organized my Christmas party with Stations. It worked so well, so this year, I am planning the same type of game plan. I plan to have 5 stations set-up with 1 parent at each station. I plan to start the party with my students singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer.” I will paint a red nose with tempera paint and they will wear their antler ears that we made earlier this week. Then, for the remaining 45 minutes, they will go their party stations!

Christmas Party Station Rotations

Station 1: Snack and drink

Station 2: Ornament craft

Station 3: Gingerbread house craft- Pre-made houses will be places out on red party plates, with each child’s name on the plate in permanent marker. The teacher will help students use plastic knives or spoons to spread royal frosting onto the house and students will place candies and gingerbread marshmallows on top. When finished, place the house on the plate inside a large zip-loc bag for students to take home.

Station 4: Game—Santa Says: Same as ‘Simon Says’: The student standing up is “Santa”. S says “Santa says hop”. All Ss hop. S says “Stop”. Ss should continue hopping on until “Santa” says “Santa says stop”. Repeat for other actions such as jump, run, turn around, sit down, stand up, hands up/down, star jump, says “ho, ho,ho”, says “Merry Christmas.” Students will take turns being “Santa.”

Station 5: Games—-Pin the nose on Rudolph: Students will write their name on a red circle, close their eyes, and then place on Rudolph with tape……also…..Pin the beard on Santa: Santa’s beard poster will have circles with numbers. Students will have 5 white circles to tape to Santa (while their eyes are closed). The group will add up the numbers to write down the points for the child. Then it is the next child’s turn. You can do the same game with “Pin the snowball on the Snowman.” You just draw a simple poster for each of these games.

Gingerbread “No Cook” Play-dough fun!

My good friend Bethany (and a great teacher!) inspired me to make my own play-dough infused with the wonderful smell of gingerbread! My own children loved playing with it and using cookie cutters to make thier own pretend cookies. I made three batches of the recipe below (for less than $10!) and placed a little gingerbread man into a little plastic container. I made one container for each of my students. This will my Christmas present to them! Along with a cookie cutter and the play-dough, I will wrapping it in a little plastic bag and tie with curly ribbon. I love being able to make something for my own children and my classroom kids at the same time!

This is a great way to incorporate team work, recipe reading and following, and responsibility for cleaning up. Reading and following a recipe is a great way to teach sequencing and the skills of “first, next, last,” which is always a skill needed for any reading lesson. So, not only is making play-dough fun, it is also educational!

GINGER BREAD PLAYDOUGH Recipe
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 tbsp. of each: cinnamon, allspice & ginger (this is a nice dark brown)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup water

Mix with a wooden spoon until well mixed. When it is too hard to mix, take out of the bowl and knead on the counter. For an extra special touch, add multicolor glitter. It makes it sparkle nicely! This is a “no-cook” recipe!

Here are some great ideas of how to wrap up and “gift” the play-dough:

littlebunnyfeet.blogspot.com

homeschoolblogger.com

meandmarielearning.blogspot.com

shabbychiccrafts.blogspot.com

First, we made sure that we had all the ingredients.

This is why you “need” to knead the dough. It looks pretty gross during mixing.

Here it is! Isn’t it nice! And it smells so good!

Here are the kids using cookie cutters to make their own things.

These are the cute and cheap containers I found at Wal-Mart. Instead of rolling the dough into a ball, I cut out the shape of a gingerbread man.

Now they are stacked and ready for labels. Click below to print the label which contains the recipe and directions. You can also edit and change it in Microsoft Word and add in your own name.

Gingerbread play-dough labels

Which Is the Better Investment: Higher Education or Early Education?

Have you ever thought of this question before? Not I-not until I read this article which I stumbled upon, on LinkeIn.

I think the main difference between both is the age of accountability. Early Education must be chosen for our youngest, by us. They have no say in the matter. It is not thier choice, it is our choice. At least with higher education, scholarships can be obtained or a young adult can work to pay tuition and fees. This is merely my opinion, though. According to the “Reading Horizons” blog article, they found that: “if a student is given a proper foundation from the start of their education they are more likely to gain a quality education.” I agree!

Which Is the Better Investment: Higher Education or Early Education?.

Read the article to find out what scholars and research says about the subject matter. You might be very surprised!

The Gingerbread Man

Cover of Gingerbread Baby

I love Gingerbread cookies! I love to make them, eat them and read about them in with my students and own children. Today we read “Stop that Pickle” which was a twist on the traditional tale. The Gingerbread Baby is one of my favorites because it has a happy ending. Story comprehension is an important skill in school. By putting stories in order of events, by sequencing the characters, it helps kids to retell the story. This also helps with summarizing a story too. Here is a fun way to sequence the Gingerbread story. First I print out the large cards and glue to construction paper and laminate them. I pass them out to some of the students. Whoever doesn’t have a card gets a turn to help put the characters in order. Then, after reading many versions of the story, I have the students cut out the mini-picture cards and glue in the correct order onto a sentence strip. I let them draw the ending.

The Gingerbread MAN Story Sequence large cards

The Gingerbread MAN Story Sequence-mini student cards

Guided Reading Made Easy

The purpose of Guided Reading is to teach and re-teach Reading to a small group of students, based on their current level of learning. It also is an opportunity to teach new skills a little bit above thier learning level, in order to challenge them and teach new reading skills. For Kindergarten, some of the skills that can be taught are: beginning sounds of words, sight word discovery, letter discovery, noticing capital letters and end marks along with spaces between words, finding words with long or short vowels, counting words in sentences, identifying characters and setting, recalling what happened in each part of the story, retelling the story, contractions, silent e, word chunks, and many more.

Guided Reading takes much preparation. Gathering the materials and books before the lesson ensures that no time is wasted. Here is a simple lesson plan and all the materials needed for a guided reading group. The lesson attached to the link below can be used to teach letters and sounds along with sight word discovery. I plan to use this lesson for my students who do not yet know all of thier letters and sounds and know some sight words. This lesson will help them to gain confidence in reading as they touch and read the sentence.

Kindergarten Guided Reading with -am words -is-and-like

Guided Reading the Four Blocks Way: Frog and Toad Quick Notes (writingeverydayworks.wordpress.com)
Guided Reading as an Intervention for Dyslexia. NOT! (theeclecticreadingteacher.com)
Reading Groups (healycrew.wordpress.com)

Humpty Dumpty Rhyme Video’s

Research shows that when children learn how to rhyme, then they will be better readers. Also, some dyslexic children have difficulty with rhyming. Practicing rhymes and making them fun will encourage the brain to remember rhymes. Repetition is the key, so if a child cannot “find or notice” a rhyme right away, than the adult should try something new. Animations, just like t.v., computer interaction and movies, is one way to grab the brain’s attention. Here is a YouTube video of a cute little Humpty Dumpty. Enjoy!