Rhyme Guy and Calendar Journals

Howdy friends!
I wanted to share something that we do with our students each year to help them with their math skills and reading skills... RHYME GUY and CALENDAR JOURNALS! After winter break, the students always return juuuuussstt a little bit more mature and they are ready for this next step in our routine. Sooo, after recess each day with have our Class Meeting. On Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays we complete our Calendar Journals and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we do Rhyme Guy. The students pick up on this routine quickly and I don't have to do much work to get them with that (I am a creature of routine and my students follow suit). OK, OK, hold on, before we alternate, we spend a week completing each one slowly together and then after that we alternate and work slowly until they can get to it all on their own. Let me show you pictures:

Calendar  Journals

Calendar Journals

Calendar Journals

I use my interactive whiteboard to walk the students through each step. We walk through all the steps together and they know exactly where to find the information they need.

Calendar Wall (imagine March has numbers on it)

Calendar Journal

I LOVE using the calendar journals! After a week or two of doing strictly calendar journals, we start rhyme guy...
Rhyme Guy is a superhero who only speaks in rhyme. He says a word and the students try to write as many rhyming words as they can...

When they are done writing, we put as many as we can on the board. I call on a student, they tell me their word, spell their word and we all read it together. LOOOOVE Rhyme Guy! After a while, I ask some students to write silly sentences using those rhymes, "The dog sits on a log with a hog."

Ok, ok, that was A LOT! You can pick up Rhyme Guy at my TpT store soon and my Calendar Journals are already there!

Want the Calendar Journal for free?? Leave a comment with your email before tomorrow night and it's yours!

Vanessa

It's almost 2013!

Hi everyone!
I talked yesterday about my favorite site Starfall and today, as promised, I have pictures! =)

We are making calendars as we teach calendar parts and our goal is to make them as cute as can be because we will send them home all wrapped up as gifts for the students' family.

First, you'll have to pick up my newest TPT product: Calendars! The one we used in class in not as cute as what I made for my product, you all lucked out!
We had the students start making their pictures for the months and then we'll glue them all on for them. Today, we glued in the missing months. It was so awesome to hear the students singing as they were gluing. "january, february, march and april..." Ah! So cute! We had a tour group (I teach at a popular school!) come through as some of the kids were gluing and they were so impressed!
The pictures below is my sample with a discolored paper...

Now on to the cute stuff:
The students have been working hard on these things!

We haven't gotten August, November & December done yet but we will tomorrow. I can't wait to see all of their finished products! Well, yes I can because I have a lot of gluing ahead of me!
Here is my new product, if you'd like a copy for FREE then comment below and don't forget to leave your email.

I am off to make some sugar cookies... a practice batch before I make them as gifts next week... fingers crossed!

Hasta manana!

Is it vacation yet?

Is anyone else feeling the drag?? I feel like my students are getting a little crazier, my patience is getting smaller, and I just want to sleep! =) Anyone with me??
Even though we have been on the coo-coo side, we have still been getting lots of work done!
The past week we have been teaching calendar: the parts of a calendar, how to read a calendar, etc. My students are already pretty strong in this area but we teach and re-teach, modify and extend for all! The reason why they are so great is because we do the Starfall calendar each day along with our morning meeting. The Starfall calendar is an AWESOME way to get the students talking about the calendar and interacting with the calendar. I just added a bookmark to my desktop and so that it is easy and ready to go! Before I had my fancy schmancy interactive whiteboard, I just used my projector and my laptop and a wireless mouse. If you don't have a interactive whiteboard, I HIGHLY suggest a wireless mouse. They are about $20 but it is soooooo worth it. I used to just hand the mouse around and the students were involved!
Here's a glimpse...
First go to the homepage...

Click on the calendar and you are set to go! AND if you haven't explored this website... DO IT NOW! Especially if you teach Kindergarten or first grade.
Here's a snapshot of the first calendar page...

I LOVE this calendar and site... My students are excited to play even when they can play any Starfall game! The best part of it? It's free!!! In the picture above you can see that there are little icons to mark special activities throughout the month. It doesn't save but by the end of the month, all my students have those special days memorized because we do them over and over again.

Tomorrow I'm going to snap some pictures of the students and the calendars that they are currently making AND if you're back tomorrow, I'm even throwing a freebie your way!

One last thing... I decided that I wanted to change my RAK (random act of kindness) to something different. I really like the idea of the Starbucks thing BUT I was thinking about it a little more and I'm going to donate to a Donor's Choose classroom of someone who I don't know and someone who is far away from me. I know how much all of us need things for our classrooms and I know it is so exciting to get a donation so I figured that that would be worth my $10-$20 instead of a cup of coffee (which is also much needed sometimes). So, who is with me on that one??? If you are, feel free to donate to my classroom (hehehehe). If you do, I'll give you anything you want from my TPT store... ANYTHING! 

Be back tomorrow!