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Technology Tuesday

This week we are learning about the letter Mm.  I really love teaching phonics!  This week we will be watching and singing along to the Letter M song by Have Fun Teaching.  We will watch and sing along every day this week!  This is how one of my students learned the letters and sounds last year.  I had to figure out how he learned best and singing and dancing to a short video every day helped.

Here is the song that I am talking about:





We also begin our week by watching Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew.  This week's video is about letter M.



We only watch this at the beginning of the week and the kids LOVE this show.  Each video is about 10 minutes long and focuses on a different letter and sound along with a rhyme.

We also love watching StoryBots.  Here is their song for letter M.



The robots are cute!

At the end of the week, we do an activity by HooplaKidz to review the letter and sound.  This video which has you click the answer and provides feedback, is on, you guessed it, letter M!!!!




This is just some of the ways we use YouTube in the classroom.  It has really enhanced our phonics instruction.  I would love to hear about some of the awesome videos you have found to use in your classroom to enhance instruction.  Leave me a comment about it.  I'm always looking for new ideas.

YouTube Videos That Kindergarteners Will Love!

I have survived the first month of school!  We have been busy learning the letters of the alphabet, shapes, and numbers.  I think it's important to build a strong foundation for our learning.  Let's face it.  Many students enter kindergarten with fewer skills than what I feel they should know.  It takes a lot of exposure to fully grasp and retain information.  Our job as a kindergarten teacher, is to build the best learning foundation and get kids excited about learning.  YouTube is one of the ways that I get students learning and they don't even realize it.  I have found many great learning resources on YouTube.  Here are a few of the resources I have been using lately:

1.
 

We have been singing this alphabet song by Have Fun Teaching every day.  The kids are really excited about this video and they love to sing and dance along.  This video shows both upper and lowercase letters and goes through the sounds too.

2.


This song by Harry Kindergarten has helped us learn to count to 20 while getting our wiggles out.  There is also a section of the song that counts backwards from 20.  I don't think we will sing this song the entire year, but it has been a great starting point for improving our counting skills.  The students get to see the numbers as they count, so we are learning our teen numbers too.

3.



The Shape Song 2 by KidsTV123 has become our class favorite!!!  The kids ask for this song everyday!  It is very relaxing to sing and it is one that we sing when we need something calming.  It has taught us a lot of shape names and there is a section of the song that introduces some harder shapes.  I think we will know our shape names really well this year.

If you want to see more posts of how I use YouTube in the class, then leave me a comment and look out for some future posts.

Light Box/Table

I have been seeing a lot of great ideas using light tables and ideas on making one.  I really wanted to go shopping today to buy stuff to make one, but my laziness got the best of me today.  I sat around and read.  I think I have some kind of book addiction.  There should be meetings for people like me.  I mean, seriously, I try to find a home for every book that is disposed of in the building.  There is a kid somewhere that will read that book.  I can't stand for books to be thrown away.

So my plan for tomorrow will be to actually make it to the store and make one of the light boxes that I have been seeing around the net.  I have a few modifications to my design and I hope it works.  Fingers crossed.  I will post my results soon.

I'm Back!!!

I have been back at work the past 3 weeks and it is totally draining me.  If you didn't know, I haven't been to work since January.  I had to have major Crohn's related surgery.  I am getting back into the swing of things and I hope to have some things to share soon.  

Last week, my class made a book using our new sight words "I am___."  They drew a picture of themselves and glued their sentences to the page.  I plan on adding a small picture of them to each page so we can read the book easier.  Oh, did I mention I only have 12 students!  I love the small class, but it makes me question job security.  I think I need to go recruit.  Lol, I'm not sure where you would go to recruit new kindergartners.

This year I plan on changing out my traditional play centers.  We had a big training about "developmentally appropriate" practices in kindergarten and purposeful play.  The sad thing is that we knew what was developmentally appropriate, but we were pressured in the past to do things that weren't.  I'm so glad that we are moving back in this direction! 

I hope everyone has a great week!  I'm taking my camera to school tomorrow so I can, hopefully, post some pics. 

Where Have I Been?!

After all the craziness with the water around here, I ended up needing surgery.  There was no way around it.  I didn't want surgery, but I had to or I wouldn't get better.  You see I have Crohns and I have struggled with bowel obstructions for the past 2 school years.  In the past, they cleared on their own without surgery, but it required an NG tube and no food or water for a week.  This time I spent a week in the hospital, went home, and had to return the next day because it was back.  When I saw my bowels on the screen down in x-ray, I realized that I had a really narrow area and it wasn't going to get better so I finally agreed to surgery.  I spent a month in the hospital.  I haven't been to work since January and I don't plan on returning until next school year.  I hope to start blogging soon with my ideas for next year.  I am just now beginning to feel like my regular self and I'm getting excited for summer with my son.

School Closed Contaminated Water

Our water has been contaminated by a chemical used to clean coal.  I could smell it on my way to work yesterday morning at 7:15.  They didn't find the leak until around 9:30 am.  I thought something was wrong with my car.  We don't know when we will be able to use our water again.  This incident may cause long term effects.  I'm not sure why this type of chemical would be contained along a river.  It seems to me that this should be stored somewhere else.