I would like to share with you our "Math Calendar Wall".  I have to admit I search the web for different ideas on how to go about doing a Math Wall.  Many of you had some awesome ideas and I reworked them to fit my kindergarteners' needs.  Each day the children will participate in learning about a special number.  Tomorrow our number will be the number 4.  Our activities for the day will focus around the number 4.  These activities hopefully will help your child build number sense and help with number fluency, as well as, emphasizing the Math Common Core Standards for Kindergarten.  

Below I will share with you each of the activities and what the children will do with each.

Here is what the page in our Math Notebook looks like for August!  Please keep in mind it will change some over the course of the year reflecting new skills and Standards being introduced and taught during our Calendar Math time! Kathleen Pedersen of "Growing Kinders" has a whole package available over at her TPT store if you're interested.

Each day we add the date to our calendar on the chalkboard and write the date in our Calendar Math books.  The students highlight the day of the week using a crayon, what day tomorrow will be and write in the triangle how many days we've been in school while I'm modeling how to do this own the board, as well as in a notebook like theirs. These 2 activities will help the children learn the sequence of numbers which is Math Common Core Standard K.CC.3. 

Learning to count on from a given number is part of the Math Standard K.CC. 2).  So, this next activity will helps us with this concept during the year.   "What comes next?" is also Standard K.CC.4c. By using the "Shape Pattern" we are working on Standard K.G 5, which asks children to build and draw shapes. I felt it was important for them to understand patterns, so I chose to include this along with shapes.

Using our "Tally Marks" box we will add the correct number of tallies daily to reflect the number of days we've been in school.  As our number climbs we will be counting our tallies by 5's and 10's and ones emphasizing Common Core Math Standard K.CC. 1).

Number Bonds and Dominoes will help the children understand different combinations can be added together to make the same number.  Math Standard K.OA 3 asks the children to decompose numbers into pairs in more than one way. For example: 5 = 2 + 3  and 5 = 4 + 1). Standard K.OA 5 asks children to fluently add and subtract number combinations to 5. And, Standard K.NBT 1 asks children to compose and decompose numbers from 11-19 into tens and ones using objects or drawings or equations.  Wow!  Look what all we'll accomplish with our dominoes and number bond activities!!

At the end of each month the children will take home his/her pages from their Calendar Math notebooks for the month we are just finishing up with.  We will begin a new month of Calendar Math, sometimes with some new activities to introduce and reinforce the Math Common Core Standards.  Feel free to reinforce these concepts at home as well!! 

*Sidenote:  Each month we will go back and review the numbers, but our "We've Been in School ? Days" and our "Tally Marks" will continue to grow!!

Aloha!  I thought I'd share a few pictures of my new kindergarten room with you.  This year my kindergarten partner in crime and I are doing a "Luau" theme for our classrooms.  So, my sweet, sweet husband helped me build each us a "Reading Hut"! Stole this adorable idea from Pinterest!  I just love all of the wonderful ideas on there.

Check it out below!

In this next picture you can see some of the children reading tubs.  Half of their tubs are lined up on top of one of my bookshelves and the other half are to the left of the "Reading Hut".

Next are my new crate chairs!  Another fantastic idea from many of you and Pinterest.  I decided to cover mine with black vinyl.  I was a little worried about kindergarteners and cloth covers.  I wanted something I could easily wipe off and we'd be good to go.  So far, I have green and red ones done.  I'm working on some blue ones too!  Whoo!  Hoo!!

Right as you come in our classroom door you will find our "Bus" charts.  Many of our students ride buses.  I also have signs a few down for walkers and picker uppers.  You just can't see them in the picture.  Loved the bows many of you had so I added some throughout my classroom.  I can't tell you how exciting it is to have an actual classroom to myself this year.  For the past 6 years I've been teaching Title I Reading.  There were 3 of us sharing a room, so to get to decorate a whole room all by myself is amazing!  :0)

Right beside the bus chart is our "sink"area.  Lovely, right?!

Next up, the computer station.  I have 2 computers for kiddos to use.  So here it is!

On my back wall are the color word signs I made using clipart from Nikki at Melonheadz.  The theme was "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" with a few extra.  :0)

 Below you will find pictures of different book areas around the room.  I have a couple of bookshelves with books just for the kids.  They are sorted by genre, authors, etc. both for fiction and nonfiction.  We also teach the comprehension strategies, so I have many of my books to model with sorted by strategy.  These are the books under Bob the Builder.  Who by the way, really talks.  Scares me every once in a while, lol.

My writing station will probably be one of our tables close to the supply rack.  The next picture is of the rack with all of the goodies little ones might need to write.  From sticky notes, to crayons, to scissors and glue. Oooh!  La! La! What fun!  Can't wait to see what they create and write about!

This is our Popcorn Word Wall!  Complete with a hula dancer!  Our popcorn words have a Hawaiian theme to them as well.

Last of all, here are their mailboxes and community supply baskets.  We are using "Luau" binders and I'm trying to decide if we're going to put them in their mailboxes or on the cart right inside the door.  Any suggestions??  

Well, that's it.  Our classroom!!

Hello out there!  I wanted to let you know about 2 great sales coming up.  First, Teachers Pay Teachers will be having a 28% sale on August 12th and 13th!  Whoo!  Hoo!!  I can't wait to shop! 

 

Also, over at Teachers Notebook there will be a Back to School Bonanza sale!  It begins on August 11th and runs through the 13th!  Hurry on over to see all the great sales!!  Have a great day!  Next up, room pictures!  Yeah!

Hi Y'all!  I feel like I've been missing in action lately.  My husband and I just returned home from a few days of being in the mountains.  We traveled to Nashville first and spend a wonderful day just seeing some of the sites and then moved on to Gatlinburg, TN.  Absolutely love the Smokey Mountains!!  We've been there several times, but this is the first time we continued on down the road to Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.  Oh my!!  What a beautiful place!!  Little hairy going up and coming down, but well worth the trip.  Grandfather Mountain is the highest peak on the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It is 5280 feet above sea level.  Below are a few of the pictures from the top of the mountain.

This is the mile high swing bridge.  The old bridge used to swing a lot more than this one. Thank goodness this was only moved a little.  My husband got me to walk across the bridge.  I wanted to run just to get to the other side.  But, I refrained!!

 This is a view from after we crossed the bridge.  The clouds had cleared a little and we could quite a ways!  Isn't it beautiful?

 Me standing at the one mile mark!  Yikes!  Where I'm standing is 1 mile above sea level.  However, I'm really only 80 feet up in the air.  Chicken that I am when it comes to heights, this was plenty high enough for me.  It's a wonderful place to visit!! I love the mountains!