Classroom Tour

Welcome to K5! Let me show you around!

This year we are the Bates' Buckaroos and our room is ready for some rip roarin', rootin' tootin' cowgirls and cowboys!

We are lucky to have our own restroom and sink as well as an awesome loft! The loft provides a "roof" for our home living center as well as a quiet area for our "Peace Place" where students can solve friendship problems, calm down, or think about how to manage conflict using our "toolkit". During morning meeting we add resources to our toolkit that kids can use to handle problems - anything from a friend using hurtful words to missing mom and dad.
This is our calendar /morning meeting area. We begin each day by singing and saying letters & sounds, months & days, and other important things. We talk about place value as we count our days in school and our calendar pieces make a new pattern every month. Our calendar posters change as we master what we've been working on, so this area is always changing! You'll also notice our computer center to the left of our whole class meeting area.

These are our tables where we work together. They are named after the animals native to our state of Texas - mockingbirds, armadillos, longhorns and (my personal favorite...) horned frogs! Our word wall is on the cabinets and we will add sight words as we learn them. The colorful tubs in the front of the photo hold math and literacy manipulatives (labels coming soon!)

This is my horseshoe table where I meet daily with guided reading groups. We will work on reading fluency and phonemic awareness in need-based groups. The rest of the students work in literacy work stations while I meet with small groups of students. It is a highlight of our day!

These are our management boards for literacy work stations and centers. It's hard to see how they work, but the yellow stars have student names and they follow their "schedule" each day as we move through 3 rotations. For developmental centers, the students hang their picture beneath the card for the center they'd like to work in. There are just enough "hangers" as there are spots in each center, so it's easy for kids to know when a center is "full". Underneath the management boards, you'll where we keep some of our manipulatives and center work.

Thanks for visiting our room! We hope you can visit in person sometime soon!

Welcome to Galatas Kindergarten!

Welcome to K5 at Galatas! I am excited to begin a new year together! This blog will serve as an online scrapbook where I can share photos of what we're working on in class. This photo is a picture of our kindergarten team - we are ready for a fantastic year!

Field Day 2009!

Coulson Tough Field Day 09 was a blast! We had such fun playing together!

We may look sweet, but we are one tough team!

This was the first year that students got to work in partners for Field Day. The teams were able to go to any station and work together to try to accomplish them all. The kids LOVED being able to work at their own pace and complete stations multiple times if they wanted to.

I made our shirts to have our class numbers on the back... that made roll call pretty easy! : )

Here are some of our friends from Mrs. Richardson's class:

The infamous tug-of war! We won our first battle, but lost our second. Nonetheless, it was hard fought!

Here we are, showing off our numbers on the backs of our shirts. We also signed each other's shirts the day before Field Day so we could remember our classmates and friends.

Hip-hip-hooray for the "funnest" day of the school year - - - FIELD DAY!

A House for a Mouse!

As a class, we are reading Beverly Cleary's, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and loving it! We've enjoyed reading about the spunky main character, a mouse named Ralph, who rides his motorcycle through many adventures in the novel. As an extension to our literacy unit, the students created houses for Ralph using all recycled materials from their homes. They wrote a letter to Ralph, persuading him to travel from California to The Woodlands to live in their mouse house. We had such fun with this family project!

The kids were excited to see the creativity of their peers and I was amazed at what clever items were used to make Ralph's house a home for him. Way to go guys!

Students were encouraged to work on this project independently, using parents and siblings as "consultants" only. I was so proud of their ingenuity and resourcefulness.

This is a house fit for a king! I was impressed by the ways that the students personalized their houses to show the things they've learned about our main character. Many kids included a garage for Ralph's motorcycle and a kitchen where he could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for himself. Ralph would be lucky to live in any of their homes!

Each student presented their mouse house and letter to their classmates. They described the unique features of their home as well as interesting recycled materials that were used to create it. I'm always proud to watch the kids speak about their hard work and stand in front of their peers to make a presentation. They are becoming so confident and well-spoken!

The letters to Ralph were my favorite part of the project. The kids were quite persuasive and I was reminded about how wonderful our community in The Woodlands really is! Ralph would make a perfect citizen and we welcome a visit from him anytime!

Our Mouse Houses and letters are on display in our school's library for other students to see. I'm so proud!

Pen Pals

We are excited to become pen pals with Mrs. Eldredge's Third Grade class in White Settlement, Texas! Mrs. Eldredge and I taught next door to one another last year in Crowley, Texas, and we look forward to staying in touch and helping our students get to know each other through letter writing. To begin the pen pal process, we first had to brush up on the format of friendly letters. We learned all about proper greetings and closings, and we worked on indentation and spacing so that our letters would be just right!

Each student composed a letter introducing him/herself to their pen pal. The students wrote about their families, their hobbies and interests, and their favorite sports, foods, and books. I encouraged the students to ask plenty of good questions that would help them get to know their new pals. I was so impressed at the beautiful letters that we shipped off to White Settlement! We are awaiting a response from Mrs. Eldredge's class and we will be sure to post more about our pen pal adventures.