Jennuine Teaching

My schools is working with a local university to increase small group instruction. With small group instruction comes centers. I have done centers many ways throughout the years and I've even gone without centers. I thought I would bring back centers in kindergarten and with a little practice, they have been doing an amazing job. I think the reason for this is our center wheel. I will show you how I make my center wheel in the video below.  I'd really like to make my centers early on for next year. That way I can have them organized and sorted by month. That way when it's time to switch out centers, it's just a matter of taking out the old and putting in the new, instead of recreating a center all over again. This is how I have my centers organized. Very simple and easy for the kids to manage on their own.

It's been about 2 months since school started and my room is a mess. I finally had to just take the time to clean it up and get it organized. I feel like I will be organizing the rest of the school year. At least my classroom will be clean and organized for next year... I hope!  I'm not sure if you can see the time on the clock, but that says 8:17 PM!!! Yes, it was a late night, but well worth it. I'm sure I will need another one in a couple of months.

Can I just say how awesome kindergarten is? It really is. This week I had my yearly observation. Since we are kindergarten, we ended up going first which I actually prefer. My lesson was a reading lesson. We read a story about fish in the ocean and we identified the colors that each fish were. The students then had to pick their favorite color and finish this sentence prompt "I see a _______ fish." I then saved those prompts and on Friday we created our own fish and took out the paint again.

If you love being crafty or just love creating things for your classroom, then I suggest looking into a die cutting machine. I have been using the Cricut in my classroom for years. This year I have the new Cricut Explore in my classroom and I am so excited to put it to good use. The first thing I wanted to create for my classroom was a behavior chart. I have talked about my behavior chart before and you can view that post HERE . In the video below, I show you how I use my Cricut Explore to create my own custom behavior chart.

I have given free time almost every Friday in my teaching career. I think it's important for kids to have fun in school and giving free time is a great way for them to express themselves. I especially think this is true for kindergarten. At the beginning of the year I gave free time every afternoon. The kids could go to the dramatic play center, puzzles, blocks, computer, and other stations. As they year is going on, we are having less time to participate in free time. I still make sure to include it every Friday afternoon though. Here are a few pictures from our free time. Look how happy they look!