Back to school books and crafts

Survived 7 days of school and managed to accomplish quite a bit with the kiddos.I am a happy teacher though there is much left to do before i can actually take a sigh of relief. :)

To help children settle down, i love to read them lots of books. Its fun for them and helpful for me as i get to convey many important things without sounding boring !

I can go on and on about my favorite books but i am going to be calm and composed and will try not to sound overly excited.

These are the just a few books among the many that i love

I'll start with 'Kissing Hand' by Audrey Penn. This is an ideal book for the first day of school. My children always relate to the racoon and i normally get few kids who feel mousy and shy on the first day. This book definitely helps sooth jittery nerves. 

After reading the book, i let the children make a kissing hand for their mom's and dad's. They trace heir hand and add a heart and then stick a poem .

 I found the poem  at Kinder Alphabet. blogspot

You can download it here: kissing-hand

The next book is' Pete the Cat, rocking in my school shoes'. A must read if you want the children to feel excited about the various places in school.

Children love singing the chant in the book and my kids jumped with joy when i told them we will do a Pete craft. They had a blast choosing the color of Pete's shoes. Many kids requested me to read the story again even though we had read it a few times.

An amazing video that goes well with the book.

'David goes to school' is my favorite book ! OK, i am saying that for all the books i am mentioning but the character of David is so real , i think every kindergarten teacher relates to it. I personally love David and honestly enjoy having sweet and playful kids like David. All right ! nobody READ that :)

It is a super fantastic book to talk about good and poor choices.

The idea for the craft and the rule chart came from 'The first grade parade blog spot' and 'teaching,loving and learning. blog spot'. However i made a few changes and this is how our chart looked .

If you would like to download the craft template and the content of our rule charts please visit my TPT store by clicking on the link below:

David-goes-to-school

'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom' is a sure hit with the kids because of its catchy name and the way it is written.

We read the book and then practiced reading our names. We sort the letters in our names and then count the number of letters.

The last book that will feature on this post is 'I like me'. Its a hilarious book and i love the fact that the piggy talks about her round tummy and curly tail with much aplomb in the book, telling us that we must appreciate what we have and feel proud of it.

I love singing the 'I am special song' with this book. The lyrics go like this:

I am special, I am special

Look at me, Look at me

Someone very special, Someone very special

That is me, That is me

 Children look in the mirror and draw themselves. We also do a discussion of why we think we are special.

Hope you enjoy reading these books to your kids as much as i did.

I would like to end this post by applauding all the people in the education sector who work so hard to make a difference in the lives of children. One such organisation is Jodo Gyan. They help develop the math curriculum in our school. But their real work is so great and inspiring that i can't put it simply in words. They work with the underprivileged children and honestly there is no dearth of poor in my country.They have not only opened a school but work towards providing education which would actually produce thinkers and creative people in the years to come.

I loved the logo of their school and had to post it here:

It says that when you learn you don't just mug it up but true learning happens only when you understand it !

Need of the hour in our education system !

Giving their view point to the teacher.

 Multiplication was never this fun !

3 cheers to all the people who work at the grass root level and provide quality education to all !

First Day of School

The anxiety that the first day of school brings with it can't be described in words. The first day always gives me jitters. You don't know the kids and to handle 24 of them at once can be nerve wrecking. But the first day also brings with it a newness and freshness that makes you super excited to start the year.The planning, preparation and setting up the class gives me a great high. So this year was no different and i took precisely 3 days to give my class a makeover( Thanks to all the wonderful ideas on Pinterest). My classroom is quite tiny, so i couldn't make many changes in terms of moving the furniture. But still given the space at hand, i tried making it a warm and welcoming place for the kids.

This is the view from the entrance. My co-teacher hung silhouettes of boys and girls and wrote names of children on them. 

This is the calendar and the whole group meeting area.

Months and days of the week

Helpers chart

Daily Attendance Chart. I love Owls and have placed them in different places in my class. Children read their names and turn their card around when they come in the morning. The backside of the cards have their pictures. We count the number of boys and girls and write it on the pink/blue chart.

This is the birthday chart. Dr Seuss is another favorite !

I found a very cute birthday song from Teaching Divas.

You can download by clicking on the link below.

Birthday Chart

I put up different shapes with a little poem for each shape.

Pete the Cat on the door ! 

I love this cat and i would soon be reading the book "Rocking in my school shoes" by Eric Litwin and James Dean to my Kids. It is a super cute book to introduce various places in the school.

This is my favorite space in the class. The reading area !

Word Wall 

This board is to display children's work. They made self portraits on the first day.

 This is my desk. I did mention that i love Owls ! :)

 This Owl is our class mascot. The shelves are for children to put their work.

Our brain break ideas basket and the Sound Muncher which we will be using when we study letters.

You can download the brain break template by clicking on the picture below:

Children decorated the first letter of their name.

We have been singing some fun songs by Dr Jean to settle the kids down and to help them to know each others name.

Looking through My Window 

I made a picture frame with cardboard and held it in front of my face as i sang this song to the tune of “Go In and Out My Window.”

I’m looking through my window.

I’m looking through my window.

I’m looking through my window,

And I see my friend (first child’s name)

The child whose name i said looked through the frame and took another child's name. The song continued till everyone had a turn.

Another fun movement song was

Shakey, Shakey 

Child’s name, child’s name, sick in bed.

Called the doctor and the doctor said.

Come on, child’s name, you’re not sick.

All you need is an exercise trick.

        So stand up and shakey, shakey shakey.      

               Get down and shakey, shakey, shakey,           

          Turn around and shakey, shakey, shakey,      

              Sit down and shakey, shakey, shakey.          

The first day went off fabulously for me and each child had a smile at the end of the day. I made a small goody bag for them with a poem i found on Pinterest. 

I altered it a bit since we don't get 'smarties' easily in India. I substituted smarties with 'Five Star'

You can download the Poem with the 'Five Star' version here.

You can download the Poem with the 'Smarties' version here.

I would like to end this post with a picture, my husband took of the park which is right across my home. I know it is off key in relation to the post but it is a beautiful picture because it is rare to see natural beauty in the concrete jungle that Gurgaon is ! And it definitely puts a smile on my face. :)

Visual Thinking Strategy

Whenever their is talk of developing creativity in children and helping them to think for themselves, it gets me super excited.Unfortunately our education system focuses a lot on academics and a child is considered intelligent only if they score good marks. While i was a student, i was excellent at mugging stuff which got me many scholarships in school and put smiles on my teachers and parents faces. But things like creativity, imagination, thinking out of the box never really figured in my mind or that of my teachers. I understood a bit about creativity only after i started teaching and realized its importance and need in today's world.

I am an essentially a left brainer, not that there is an issue with people who are left brainers but i find artists, musicians, dancers ,writers fascinating. It gives me a great high when i create something and i am constantly looking at ways and means to spark the creative expression in my little ones.

So when i got an opportunity to be part of a three day workshop on art in my school, i was ecstatic.
The workshop was primarily designed for older children but i got many new perspectives and also understood how we can use art to develop many skills in children.

Art1st is a fantastic organization which is developing the art program in our school and they are doing a great job of bringing the aspect of creativity in classrooms.Over the course of three days we did various activities like doodling, ink blot art, learning about a view finder and using shapes to create stories.

Seeing different perspectives with one view finder

Doodling and finding images. The red dancing girl is mine :)

Group mural work. It got some children so excited, they joined in the coloring !

Using shapes to create stories

I am the proud author of 'Dottylicious'

But what caught my attention was the visual thinking strategy which helps develop critical thinking, observation, expression and language in children. I was completely blown away by this simple strategy and what all great things it can do in a classroom.

VTS essentially requires a discussion on art images where the teacher asks her students to observe and tell what's going on in a picture. She also asks students to validate what they say. She would then paraphrase comments by pointing at the area being discussed. It encourages children to think deeply and listen to various perspectives about one art image. You could read more about it by clicking on the link below:

Visual Thinking Strategy

I have identified two great artists whose works i would be using to implement VTS in my class.

Henri Rousseau who was a French post impressionist painter and Badri Narayan who was an eminent Indian artist.

The past week has been fruitful and i am super excited to try all the new things i have learnt, with my kiddos. I am ready to take on the new set of kids this Friday, when the academic year begins for us. And i am already on the way to create things for my class...pictures of my brand new class will be coming soon. 

Graduation

Its that time of the year when a teacher with a heavy heart has to bid adieu to her little angels whom she has worked with for the whole year. I am always melancholic during this time of the year and when my little sugar plums tell me that they will miss me a lot, it just makes my heart melt. But  i don't want to appear dispirited and want my kiddos to cherish and celebrate their last few days in kindergarten. We have been doing a lot of fun stuff and all of us seem to be having a blast !

We made a countdown chain and recite a chant everyday to remind us how many days are left.

I also hung three balloons for the last three days. 

We will burst one balloon everyday and find simple surprises inside it. Today we had our snack outdoors and played some of our favorite games. We will also have an ice cream party and a movie day with popcorn in the coming days.

Children talked about the things they enjoyed the most in kindergarten and drew their illustrations.

They also made their graduation portrait and expressed what they will miss the most about kindergarten.

I displayed all their portraits on our class door.

I am intending to give them a sweet poem which i downloaded from Pinterest and a chocolate with a message. The poem is wrapped as a scroll.

If you like these activities you could download my graduation pack from TPT store. Click on the link below :

Graduation

I have altered the countdown chant and  'Things i enjoyed the most in kindergarten' sheet  in my pack. Once you go to my store, you will be able to see the new ones.

I will post some more pictures later. Till then enjoy teaching !