Kindergarten Promotion Ceremony - End of the Year Graduation Song

I have written an original parody song to the tune of "Let it Go" from FROZEN by Disney. My class has been practicing three times a day for the last two weeks. We have finally memorized the song well enough to be recorded. Go ahead and take a listen. You'll notice they get pretty loud for the chorus!

Click here for Audio

Here is the note I sent home two weeks ago to parents teach kids the lyrics.

Here are slides from our PowerPoint presentation I displayed on the class' Promethean Board to sing the song off the board.

To download the parent note and the PowerPoint Slide Show as well as a PDF file for the PPT slideshow for FREE check out my Teachers Pay Teachers site. 

Frozen Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony Materials

**** If you need to alter my lyrics in anyway you must make sure to credit me, Janine Campos, the original author of this Parody with the following two forms in a font size no smaller than size 7 in all written/video/mp3/.mov etc forms you use or make.

©Janine Campos 2014

www.kindergartencorps.blogspot.com

Father's Day Projects

I'm more of an academics first and cutesy stuff after kind of teacher but every now and then I throw the rules out the window and get swept up in the cutesy! Here are the steps I took to make the Father's day gifts my students will get to take home next week.

First I took their pictures holding up a toy phone to their ear. Then I glued the pictures into the outline of a smartphone and let them decorate the phone with markers. I used card stock to give the phones some weight.

Father's Day Cards - Smart Phone Theme

The phone's caption says, "Daughter (son) calling .... to say Happy Father's Day!" I put a magnet on the back of each so that Fathers would be able to mount them on the good ol' refrigerator or to their file cabinet at work. 

The kids had such a great time coloring their phones. They even let their imagination take over and started taking SELFIES and play calling each other as they colored!

The next step was to print out the Google Search Fathers' Day cards (also printed on card stock). The children were given a sample of a real google page logo so they could color accurately. Then I wrote their father's name on a post it note and instructed them to write it on the blue line. They were to write a description of why their father is so great and draw his picture. This little guy has the cutest description of his Dad.

"My Dad is the best because he teaches me to cook and be a good Dad."

Children colored the logo to match the real one. 

This card was laminated as well to ensure it will remain a time capsule. Last, the children were given ties cut out of construction paper. I showed them images of men's ties and asked them to use a combination of markers and crayons to make the kind of tie their Dad would wear to a fancy event.

I placed the Google card and the Smartphone Card inside a paper bag cut and folded to resemble a man's dress shirt.

Father's Day Craft Bags - Resemble Men's Dress Shirts

We used real buttons glued on the collar!

The bags are ready to be taken home by the end of this week! To create your own set of all of the above click on the link below.

Father's Day Cards: A Technology Twist

~ Janine

Kindergarten and First Grade Phonics - Letters with Two Sounds

Spelling in English can be so tricky! As emergent readers kids must keep track of so much at once. My students definitely need an anchor chart to help their memory along. Vowels have two sounds, C and G have a soft and hard sound, and then when kids start to learn vowel pairs they quickly need to realize that THEY too can have a second sound. Here is a freebie anchor chart I have created to print and laminate. It will help my kids along and I hope that it will help yours too.

Double Check the Sound - Flip It!

The link to the pdf file of the above chart can be found on my teachers pay teachers page under the title, Double Check Chart.

I enjoy using this pdf chart in a small group guided reading setting but what I LOVE is to use a large sheet of anchor chart paper, my scented markers, glue, scissors, some time after school and these same images to create a large ANCHOR CHART to hang up on my classroom walls.

I use the images from this pdf file and glue them on to the anchor chart.

ANCHOR CHART IMAGES

This blog post also offers a free opportunity to recreate a small anchor chart onto LARGE paper. It features an anchor chart for vowel pairs that have the same sound. SOUND TWINS

My Pinterest Board Titled FIRST GRADE EDUCATION is full of anchor charts that feature PHONICS and Writing Skills

My Pinterest Boards - Anchor Charts

Click here to find it.

Narrative Writing for Kindergarten

Narrative Writing is a fun genre for my class because we are far enough in the school year that the class  can actually do some awesome inventive spelling. That skill combined with temporal words like : First, Next, Then, Later, After, Last, or Finally, and kids can really do some amazing writing pieces. I'm created a little poster to help introduce Narrative Writing to my class. I project it on the class' Promethean Board and start a discussion about it. Here is the poster link.

Narrative Writing Poster

I then give my students an example of a narrative story about how my family adopted a cat from a shelter.

Narrative Writing Sample Page

I point out to the class how the whole story answers the following questions: Who? What? When? Where? and Why?

Here is the journal cover master I run off on colored paper for my class. All the master copies are in a freebie file on my Teachers Pay Teachers profile. For that Narrative Writing Graphic Organizer Freebie click here.

Narrative Writing Journal Cover

Narrative Writing Graphic Organizer

Kindergarten Writing : Centers

High frequency words or sight words are an important part of writing. For this reason, many of my Literacy Centers are centered around sight words. A few weeks ago,  I noticed The Dollar Tree Store had cookie sheets for one dollar each so I grabbed a stack of them and headed for the register. With the help of a thick Sharpie and tons of magnetic letters the results are below.

Sight Words Magnetic Letter Center

Magnetic Letters Sight Word Center

Magnetic Letters Literacy Center

Magnetic Letters Writing Center

I took the time to check if I had enough letters to spell all words before introducing them to my class. Looks like I had enough letters!

For more sight word practice during writing center I also put out a cut and paste center for over 50 different grade level appropriate words.

Sight Word Practice for Kindergarten

Here is the link for this set of two letter sight words,  three letter sight words, and four letter sight words.