iPads in the Classroom!

We just received an iPad for our classroom (actually to share among the kindergarten team), and my kids are LOVING it!  Here are a few of the apps that they are enjoying:

Monkey Word School Adventure has three levels of play and will self adjust to the child's level.  My kids can't seem to get enough of this one!

Montessori Crosswords is one of my favorites.  I am having my students who struggle with word building/ decoding use this one.  They can touch the boxes to hear the letter sound that needs to go there.  It also has different levels of play.  My high achievers love the crossword part of it!

Dora's ABCs- Vol. 3- Ready to Read is also a favorite right now.  Lots of word building/ word recognition in this one.  My pet peeve, though is that all of the letters are capital!  Other than that, it is a good one!

I am hope to compile many more apps for kindergarten.  Right now I am looking to add some good math apps.  Hopefully the Linky Party at Mrs. Wills Kindergarten will give me some great additions!

iPad Linky Party @ Mrs. Wills Kindergarten

Listening Station Recording Sheets- FREEBEE

Okay, so for you lovely 5 little followers, here is a little Halloween treat!  I am just figuring out how to create shareable documents.  I make tons of my own centers, posters, math and writing prompts, etc, but I have never made anything to share.  I usually use a Print Master program that is hard to share and doesn't easily convert to a PDF.  This weekend I started playing around with Powerpoint and making documents on there.  It was easy to convert to a PDF and voila!  Watch out!  This may become an obsession!  So here it is, my first venture into sharing documents...

FREE Listening Work Station Record Sheets

I LOVE using Scholastic books on tape or cd with my students.  I actually have two listening stations going each week during literacy work stations.  One of them is a skills activity (boxed set that I bought from Lakeshore), and the other is a book on tape or cd.  I have been wanting some different recording sheets for the listening station that go along with the story elements that we have been studying.  Try them out!  I can't wait to use the character one this week!  I hope you can use them too!

Tour Of My Classroom

I'm going to try to take you on a little tour of my classroom.  I have been reading Debbie Diller's book called Spaces and Places.  I have been trying to take her advice to heart and cut down on the clutter and make everything much more functional.  Anyway, here goes... hope you like it.

View from the door

Writing Work Station Area

Classroom Library

Word Wall

This is before school started this year, hence the empty word wall!

Drama Work Station

This is the front side of the drama work station.



This is the drama station from the back.  Here the children can use the flannel board to retell stories, as well as using puppets at the puppet stage.

Computer Station

Math Manipulatives

Literacy Work Station Tubs

Work Station Icons

Coming Soon...
I also have a small group table that I have not taken a picture of yet.  I hope to add that soon! 

Kindergarten Loves

Here goes my very first blog... I decided to begin my blogging career with a subject that is a passion of mine... teaching kindergarten.  I love, love, love teaching.  It is in my blood and my passion for it is sometimes overwelming to the other areas of my life that deserve as much or more attention.  I've been teaching kindergarten for the past ten years.  I feel like I am finally getting things organized the way that I want them and running a kindergarten program that I am truly proud of.  I decided that for this post I would post my most favorite kindergarten things.  So here goes, in no particular order:

*Debbie Diller's Literacy Work Stations
This book (along with her one on working with small groups)  has changed the way I look at teaching kindergarten.  Her approach to "centers" made so much sense to me that I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of it sooner.

*DJ Inkers Clip Art Cds
I think I have almost all of these cds.  You can use them for everything from newsletters, to classroom signs, to station activities.  They are a must-have for elementary school teachers!

*PrintMaster software
This is another must-have product for teachers!  I bought my PrintMaster software during my first year of teaching and have used it constantly.  I make my own classroom signs, poetry posters, name tags, desk tags, snack calendars etc. with PrintMaster.

*a hot glue gun
Every teacher should have her trusty companion... the hot glue gun.  When nothing else will stick to a cinderblock wall, it's hot glue gun to the rescue!  The glue residue just peels off when you are done.  On
occasion I have had some stick especially hard, but it pops off with the help of a paint scraper.  Usually without chipping any paint.

*Jack Hartman Cds

This is one of my all-time favorite cds for kindergartners.  My kids love Hip Hop Tooty Ta , Workout to the Letter Sounds, and The Pirate Song among others.  This cd is a great investment.

*My SmartBoard

Okay, I'll admit it, kindergarten is not what it used to be.  I love, love, love my SmartBoard and LCD projector.  We use it for all sorts of activities from word building to simple addition and subtraction.  Our Parent Teacher club has been raising funds to buy SmartBoards for the last few years.  I was one of the first lucky recipients!  Yay me!

*My ELMO document camera

I also really love my ELMO document camera.  I was lucky enough to have received one from my school district through a technology grant that I wrote.  It is one of the most handy things ever.  I can project small books onto the SmartBoard and read them as a class (great for emergent readers).  I also use it for projecting manipulatives (like pattern blocks) to illustrate a teaching point.  The kids most favorite thing to use the ELMO for is to project their writing from writers workshop onto the SmartBoard and share.  My ELMO cost approximately $700, but recently I took my students to Art class and saw that our art teacher had made one using some wood and a web cam!  Since then the kindergarten teacher next door has made one using a web cam and an adjustable microphone stand.  She was just in the assembly stage last week, so hopefully I will take some pictures and post more about it later.

Well, that's all for now.  I wonder if anyone will actually read this?!?  If you do, let me know what you think.  If you are a teacher, link up with some of your kindergarten (or whatever grade) loves.
-Becky