Magical Wizards Behavior Clip Chart

A colleague of mine mentioned that her class was called the Wizards. I thought that theme would look pretty cool in the Behavior Clip Charts especially when I found some vibrant  Watercolor Star Papers on TpT from Creative Clips! If your classroom mascot is a wizard this may be the clip chart for you!

Foreign Exchange Student Fun in St. Louis

In my previous blog I shared some insights about hosting a foreign exchange student. We were amazed to see how many cool things there are to do in St. Louis. We live about 20 minutes from downtown and every time we traveled that direction our motto became "You can't go to downtown St. Louis without stopping at Ted Drewes for frozen custard!" Our German daughter, Isabell, said she always had room for ice cream! Enjoy our pics from in and around St. Louis:

Yummy Chocolate!

Backstage Tour

The girls at the Old Courthouse.

Heading up in the Arch

Tom Sawyer Riverboat Cruise

Strike a pose!

St. Louis Ball Park Village

Isabell's First Baseball Game!

It was a great game!

View from the Arch at night - Fireworks were a bonus

as a result of the grand re-opening of the Riverfront!

The Blue Owl in Kimmswick

Billikens Basketball Game 

St. Louis Union Station

Elephant Rock

Baby chicks from my classroom

High School Prom at The Falls

One of our MANY trips to Ted Drewes!

A New Experience for Our Family

In January we volunteered to host a foreign exchange student who was displaced by a local flood. Her former host family had to move in with their relatives and there wasn't room for Isabell. We had the room and our daughter already knew Isabell from school. We found out a lot of things with this experience. 1) two teenage girls make more noise than one! 2) you never really know someone until they come to live with you! 3)we don't eat enough vegetables! 4) St. Louis has sooo many cool places we had never been to and 4) we really enjoy showing off our great country!
    Not too many things make you a prouder American then when you have the opportunity to show off our city, state and country. We flew out to Vegas after school was out because Isabell wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Here are a few wonderful things we were able to experience with our German daughter (she's the tall one) on that trip:

I would be remiss if I didn't share some of our fun times in St. Louis too! I will share some of those activities in my next blog post!

New Themes for Behavior Clip Charts

Happy Summer to all of my early childhood friends!

My creative juices are flowing now that I have a little bit of time to relax and think. Kindergarten keeps me hopping and this year we hosted a foreign exchange student from Germany. I would highly recommend doing this! We found that this experience encouraged us to get out and see our city and surrounding areas through the eyes of our German daughter. We also learned quite a bit about her country as well. Nature, Gnomes, Fairies and Forest Animals are seen a lot in their children's art. That gave me an idea that was also supported by a lot of fairy gardens and forest-themed classrooms popping up on Pinterest. I just uploaded a new behavior clip chart in my TpT store! The Woodland Animals turned out so cute! If you are looking for Woodland Animals to add to your Forest/Camping theme then be sure to check out the behavior clip chart: Click on this link to visit my store: Woodland Animals Behavior Clip Chart

Valentine's Day emergent reader

Just in time for Valentine's! This sweet emergent reader shows the many ways to show someone you care. Using four high frequency words and a variety of Valentine vocabulary words, this repetitive text and adorable clip art will get your little ones excited about Valentine's Day! 

Check out this sweet emergent reader on TpT!

Polar Animal Research Packet

Brrr....It's cold outside and we had a snow day last week! Perfect weather for this Polar Animal Packet. It is designed so students can research and write about 22+ different polar animals. 

Depending on your grade and student abilities, the research can be done in whole groups, small groups or individual.  Students can record what they learn on class charts, single pages, or in their research journals! Use the fact-filled slide show and anchor chart headings to make learning fun and concrete. You can choose how many or few animals you want to research.

Also included in the packets are label pages for the students to complete and color. Students can use the cut and glue labels or write the words.

Polar animal picture and vocabulary cards are included for your writing center.

Polar Animal Research Packet

It’s What Month?!

Where did October go? The month was so busy...fire safety, pumpkins, field trips, Halloween parties, and parent-teacher conferences!  Our Halloween parties are always on the half-day followed by parent-teacher conferences until 7:30 that same evening. I am so thankful our district gives us the day after parent-teacher conferences off. I did go back to school for a few hours to prepare for a new student who will start on Monday. It is amazing how many things are labeled in a kindergarten classroom! I rearranged a few of my tables too, since some of my koala kinders were getting a little chatty!

Now I am gearing up for November and decided that I wanted my koala kinders to work on fluency so I created four theme-related emergent readers to send home with them. My plan is to send one home each week in a Take-Home bag. I will include a bookmark to help them keep track of how many times they practice the book for the week. I will also include a parent letter that quickly explains the Take-Home bags and the purpose of the readers. I spoke to 18 out of 19 parents during conferences about the Take-Home bags so I feel confident that this will be successful. 

The four November-themed emergent readers include the following:

o Each reader prints in black and white

o There are two sets per page which helps save paper when copying for the whole class. 

o A detailed cover is provided for each multi-page emergent reader. 

o Each reader also includes follow-along touch dots to aid in tracking left to right.

 You can find these four new November-themed emergent readers in my TeachersPayTeachers store. Click on the caption below the preview page to take you to my store:

Click here to learn more about November Emergent Readers

Janet aka KoalaKdgTeacher