'Tis the Season for blog neglect!
It is that most wonderful time of the year to be a kindergarten teacher but a very exhausting time! No time to blog! Every day is so much fun with the little ones but I got so busy that I forget to take pictures to share! They get so excited just talking about Christmas & then an elf shows up and the excitement is just too much to contain!
This past week, we have been on a "trip around the world" and exploring how Christmas is celebrated in other countries. Can you believe this is my first year exploring Christmas in different cultures?!?! I have learned so much!
For many years our district required us follow our curriculum with "fidelity" which did not allow much room for creativity on the teacher's part. Now we did have great success with the required curriculum but it was quite boring for the students and teachers. Thank goodness Common Core Curriculum Standards came along and now we have finally been allowed and even encouraged to venture away from the curriculum in order to meet the new standards. I don't think I have ever worked so hard, but hear me say I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE! My kindergarten team and I have fallen in love with teaching again! We plan together every single day, during our lunch, during recess, after school and even on the phone at night! Good thing we love each other so much! TeachersPayTeachers.com has been a life saver for us... there are so many great teaching resources to help us fill in the gaps in our curriculum and they are all great ideas because they come directly from teachers in the classroom and have been used with real, live children! Although we have spent a small fortune buying many of the thematic units, there are so many free resources available that are great. While planning for January tonight, I was reminded how useful those freebies are and threw together a quick dice game freebie. Just copy onto cardstock and laminate or print a black & white copy for each child and add 2 dice. The kids roll the dice, add the dots together (or numbers if you have number dice) and color the fish with the number on it or use counters to cover the numbers if you plan to reuse the gameboard. Now, this is my first attempt at loading a Google Doc so please let me know if you have trouble getting it! Click on the picture below to open it.
May you have a very blessed Christmas season!
