Saturday, August 23, 2014

Everything is new...even the crayons

A new school year has begun and for me that means everything new from the crayons to the building.  New job, new school, new district, new city, new state (1330 miles away) and of course new challenges.  The first day came and went.  As of now 20 fantastic, bright eyed, excited kindergarten students walked in my room over the last two days.  9 on the first day and 9 on the second day.  With each new face I met, I wondered where they would go in life and pondered on how I would spend the next 185 days working to make sure they succeeded and learned everything I could possibly teach them.  

Each year I take pictures of my students and put them in a memory book.  I've done the "First day of kindergarten" sign with the date for many years so this year I was looking for something new.  I randomly happened to find the fantastic blog called "Peace, Love and Learning" and loved what I saw.   The teacher had created a backpack tag for her students. Click here for the link to her original idea. I decided to change it just a little to make it into a sign that my students could hold on the first day that resembled the top of a graduation hat.  When one particular parent walked in, I asked her as I had asked all of the other parents and guardians if she would like to take pictures of her student.  I handed the student the sign to hold and the mom's eyes got huge and her mouth dropped open.  Her eyes welled up with tears and she smiled as she took the pictures.  Kindergarten is only the beginning but I sure enjoy creating that initial foundation for students and helping them take their first steps toward being life long learners.  

To all my teacher friends- I wish you the best of school years! 

Cheers to a fantastic year!  




The beautiful flowers from my Aunt Kris, Uncle Fred, and cousins Paige and Jordan on my first day at my new school.

The loved being in the center of the frame!

After our gingerbread hunt we made gingerbread man puppets.

The necessary first day self-portrait.





Sunday, May 5, 2013

Spring Break in the Midwest!

at the top of the Willis Tower

Sky Deck Chicago! I'm scared out of my mind!!!
My mom and me on Navy Pier

Hey Ms. Miller! Let's take a picture!

"I love my dad! I bet I will see him again!"
"Ms. Miller likes a rainbow!"

"Hey Ms. Miller! Let's take a picture just you and me!"
"Let's put bugs and frogs on our head and pretend we are scared and you take our picture!"

Weighing, Sorting, and Subtracting...oh my!

Who has the heavier side? Can you draw a picture to match what you see?

Once the jelly beans were sorted, students had to graph their results and then answer questions about their bag of jelly beans (most, least, favorite color, and complete number sentences using their results).

Introducing subtraction in kindergarten using dice

Santa Claus in Kindergarten?

No it's not Santa! We just had cupcakes for snack! :-)

You brought what for show and tell???????

You know you live in Wyoming cattle ranching country when this comes for show and tell!  Yup! You guessed it! It's a bone from a cow.  Hadn't seen that one for show and tell before!  LOL!

2 and 3 Dimensional Shapes with Marshmallows

 In math centers, students in KM built two and three dimensional shapes out of marshmallows.  Once they had created 5 2D shapes, they made 4 3D shapes.  It was really a light bulb moment for some students and allowed them to finally understand the difference between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional shapes.