A New Beginning

Since I was in 1st grade, my dream was to teach in my home district where I fell in love with education.  I have great pride for my hometown and a strong passion for giving back to the community that built me.  All of the memories, learning experiences, and connections helped shape me into the teacher I am today.  I am so grateful for the principals, leaders, teachers, and parents that supported me during my first 2 years of teaching.  I still keep in touch with many of them because I value our relationship.  However, a new chapter has started in my teaching career.

For the 2015-2016 school year I am excited to take my teaching experiences into a {full day} Kindergarten classroom in North Carolina.  As many of us are moving forward with change this upcoming school year, strive to make each day count by modeling a growth mindset and being a lifelong learner.  Let your passion be your fuel.  I am so excited to finish setting up the classroom and meet my students at the end of the month.

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Remember, home can be in more than one place.  Most importantly, make your classroom a home worth spending time in.  Our students need a positive, welcoming environment each school year.  

My next blog post will be a classroom reveal.  Stay tuned.

Picture Book 10 for 10

I am linking up with my friend and former teammate Mandy for her annual #pb10for10.  This is my first time participating.  I am teaching full day Kindergarten this school year so my 10 picture books are books that I will use at the beginning of the school year.  With each book I also tried to include a sample activity to use with your Kindergarten students.

The Kissing Hand is a great book to ease your kindergartener's nerves about starting school.

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Go HERE for free math and literacy stations that correspond with the book.  Over 90 pages of activities!

Laura Numeroff books are a must have for Kindergarten students.  I plan on familiarizing my students with essential staff members at school such as my assistant, principal, secretary, custodian, and related arts staff.

At the beginning of the school year I plan on starting a name unit by looking at the letters in our name as well as our friend's names.

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                      I am also using Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as part of launching Daily 5.

With this book we discuss names and how we are unique.  

In the classroom, I want to have all student's named displayed in the classroom to reference throughout the school year.

David Shannon's books lend themselves to great discussion about behavior and how to treat others.

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This is a great book to discuss qualities that make us different.

I plan on creating a class display for the hallway.

Kindergarten students love Pete the Cat!  All of Eric Litwin's books are upbeat and fun for students.  I plan on incorporating this book into my color unit.

Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten talks about how the teacher gets ready for the first day of school.  I like to show students that both the teacher and student have a routine for getting ready to start a new school year.

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As a follow up, I plan to make a chart to list ways the teacher and students prepared for back to school.

I never heard of this book until recently.  I plan on using this book to review school safety and rules.  It will be a good opportunity to collaboratively create class rules.

                                       

In the primary grades I love using picture books to model expected behaviors.  Reading these books leads to discussion and even having the students model both correct and incorrect ways for a specific behavior.
My friend Mrs. Wheeler has a free activity on her blog as well as a list of books to use in your classroom to build community.

I can't wait to read everyone's posts.  Comment with suggestions for any must have books for Kindergarten students so I can continue to build my classroom library.  Thanks for reading!