100th Day, Penguins, and SO Much More!

I seriously cannot believe it has been 5 days since I posted! Sorry I've been a bit MIA this week. It has been absolutely nuts. And I've had some negativity in my life the past few days that is really getting me down - I'll get to that in a moment. I have about 6 separate things to talk about to I am going to break up this post into sections. Sigh. This is what happens when you don't blog for 5 days, everything starts pouring out at once - this will no doubt be an enormously long post.

PENGUINS

This week we continued to work with on our penguin unit and it really was a lot of fun. On Wednesday we made a comparison chart between penguins and flying birds. The kids sorted facts about each into the 3 categories (penguins, flying birds, or both).

 

On Thursday, I created 2 life-sized penguins - a 4 foot Emperor Penguin and a 16 inch Fairy Penguin. The littles came up and measure themselves against them to see what it would be like next to a real penguin!

After comparing themselves to the penguins, they completed this super adorable page from Caitlin Clabby's penguin unit. They drew a picture of themselves and filled out the information. The little guy on the right absolutely cracks me up. His hair looks like the Fonz :)

Here are some of the other writing pages that we completed this week:

 

 We also made some adorable little penguins! We used this for our 100th day display. We cut out 100 fish and the kids each got some to put in their penguins belly!

Our Penguin/100th Day Display outside our room!

100TH DAY

Friday was our 100th day of school - woo hoo! The kids were just ecstatic. I made it a huge deal and they were unbelievably proud of themselves :) Earlier this week, we made our snack mats so that they would be laminated in time for our celebration. They turned out super cute! To get the templates we used to make our snack mix - click HERE!

 

 

 We also made some super cute 100th day hats! The kids colored in the large "100" using a rainbow pattern. they also outlined the black font with a yellow marker. The front of the hat was bought from Maria Manore's TPT store - check it out HERE.

 I then printed out a 100 chart and cut 10 colored strips of construction paper for each child. They cut out the numbers and ordered them on the strips until they reached 100! I kept it very structured so there wouldn't be chaos and numbers everywhere! HA! They were only allowed to have ONE colored strip at a time and cut out ONE strip of numbers at a time. When they were finished, they could go up and get their next colored strip. They had a TON of fun with this activity. For the ones who had trouble cutting out the numbers individually and getting them in the correct order, I had them leave the number strip connected and just glue the whole thing on the colored strip.

 After creating our hats, we went on a 100 Hershey Kisses hunt! I numbered 100 kisses on the bottom and scattered them around the room while they were at lunch. Then I placed a large 100's chart in the middle of the room. The kids had to hunt for all the kisses and place them on the correct number! They were only allowed to pick up one kiss at a time! They actually found EVERY one and most of them on the correct numbers :) This was their favorite activity of the day for sure!

 

 Here's my adorable little crew in all their 100th day glory! Such cutie pies :)

 Our 100th day was so much fun. The kids really felt special and that's what it's all about!

FONTS

I have a few new fonts! I added the links on the left hand side of my blog. To see all my new fonts, click the picture below!

and this provides a perfect segue into my next topic...

NEGATIVE PEOPLE

Why is it that there are some people in this world that just live to be mean? I have recently added my fonts to another font website out there. I have had mainly positive feedback, but there is this one person who is being a TOTAL jerk. To see what I am talking about, click HERE and read the comments that he is leaving on my fonts. I mean honestly, I'm sorry that my fonts are not "perfect", but I am truly creating them because it is fun and exciting and I enjoy sharing them with others. He has left these nasty comments on MULTIPLE fonts I have added to this site. It has really taken the wind out of my sails and makes me want to stop making fonts. I'm taking the high road and trying to be kind to him, but sheesh, he is really pushing it. Isn't it sad that he is getting joy out of hurting my feelings? Maybe I'm just being too sensitive, but I can't help it. I feel so saddened by it :( Anyway, enough about this meany.

 And that about wraps it up over here. SO sorry for the massive length of this post. I promise I will try to keep it shorter next time! I am so excited to have off tomorrow for MLK Jr. Day - awwwwweeeeesome! My knee surgery is on Friday (holy crow, that is so soon) so I will only be at school Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. I would soooo rather be at school though. I am going to have a lot of downtime pretty soon with my recovery. I will probably be going stir crazy with my hiney glued to the couch. I plan on reading everyone's posts from past to present to keep me occupied ha! Hope you're having a fabulous weekend and enjoy your extra day off (if you have one).

Love and HUGS!

Chit Chat, Penguins, and 100th Day Freebie!

Happy Monday everyone! So we were crazy busy today and I've been trying to drag this sorry thing I call a leg around with me all day. Sheesh. My kids put me through the ringer today also. Gone are the days of "Let's be sweet to help Ms. Bosland out". Today it was more like "Let's do completely ridiculous things to stress Ms. Bosland out and make her feel like crap!" The good thing about kindergarten is that the class mood can change drastically from one day to another so here's hoping that tomorrow is filled with love and kindness (and some good choices thrown in there wouldn't hurt either).

I have to share this conversation with you:
ME: It turns out that I am going to have to have surgery on my leg, everything will be just fine and they will make me all better!
STUDENT 1: What is surgery?
ME: Surgery is when the doctors do an operation to fix something that is wrong with you.
STUDENT 2: Like the game operation? Are they going to use tweezers to take a frog out of your leg?

HA! Those kids do crack me up!

Chit Chat is something that we do daily at the beginning of each day. Chit Chat was originally created by the absolutely amazing Deanna Jump! Please check out her always inspiring blog here: http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com. We use this time to focus on skills that we will be using that day and week. Here are some examples of our Chit Chat's that we have done this year:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week I have decided to change up my Chit Chat routine! I tried to write it as usual but it was super annoying with my leg. Usually I just kneel down to write and draw but I was having to stand too long. This may sound lazy, I realize this, but I was in pain and decided I needed to do something different. Our Chit Chat is going digital! Though we don't have a SmartBoard in our room just yet (we will be getting them soon - woo!), I can use my projector on the white board and then students can write on the regular white board to fill in the missing words. Here is what our Chit Chat looks like this week (click on the first picture to download this freebie in PDF form with the completed poems as well):

  

 

 

I'm sure you figured out by now that this week we are learning all about penguins! My kids are loving it so far. They are especially enjoying all the amazing fun from Caitlin Clabby's Penguin Unit. We started today by creating a Penguin KWL Chart and Penguin Word Splash, both included and inspired by the wonderful Caitlin. I was so surprised by the awesome things my littles already knew and wondered about. I will keep that chart posted in our room throughout the week so we can go back to it each day and add the things we have learned. I introduced the Penguin vocabulary through the use of a Word Splash. I printed the words on pink cardstock and glued them to these little penguin cut outs that I found at the Dollar Tree. Then I drew and cut out an igloo from white butcher paper and glued it onto blue paper. Voila! The kids came up one at a time to "splash" the words onto the igloo. They had to say the word aloud and the class repeated it. Then they splashed it! I did not write the definitions on the penguins. As we read different stories throughout the week, it is my kids job to listen for our word splash words. When they find one, we will discuss it's meaning and write the definition under the vocab word on the penguins belly!

 

 

Isn't the Word Splash so cute?! I can't wait for the other penguin activities we are doing this week! We will be reading some adorable stories as well. I love books. The kids were completely quiet (for the first time all day) while I was reading National Geographic Kids "Penguins!".

I also have to share our New Year's resolution books that we finished last week. I totally forgot to take pictures last week so I decided to post them now! They did such an amazing job. They did them completely independently and I was so impressed by their writing skills.

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to grab the New Year's resolution book to use next year, you can check it out in my TPT store by clicking HERE.

And FINALLY (I hope you're still with me - sorry for the long post) here is a freebie for the 100th day of school! I use this as morning work on the 100th day. If the kids don't finish by the time we begin for the day, they keep it in their chair pocket. At any point during the day when we have extra time or they finish an assignment early, they can take it out and continue writing until they finish. When they are done, I give them a special 100th day treat (a smartie for being such a smartie). Click on the picture below to grab your free copy!

Last, but not least, I have just added a new center activity to my TPT store. My students absolutely LOVE it, so I figured maybe someone out there would be able to use it as well. The "Sound it Out" mats have 4 pictures on each.  Students will sound out and write the word in the box. In our room, I like to print them on cardstock and laminate them. During centers, my students write the words using dry erase markers. Click on the pictures below to check it out!

If you didn't make it this far, I don't blame you. That was a long one, especially for a Monday! Love you all! Hope you have a productive and exciting week!