Zero The Hero

One of my favorite math activities that threads throughout the first 100 Days of School is Zero The Hero.  Zero is a monkey stuffed animal in my classroom, he wears a cape that has the number Zero on it!  As we count our days in school during calendar time and develop number concepts during math time Zero is used to focus student attention on the concept of zero.  It also provides an opportunity to explore different ways of counting, by 1, 5, and 10.  When Zero the Hero comes to school (every 10th day)  we have a celebration.  We sing a special song and have a mystery Zero the Hero visit our classroom.  We choose important people who work at our school to be Zero the Hero, that peerson wears a cape, mask, and brings 2-3 items that they work with that are in the shape of a Zero.  Children show this mysery person all their smart ways of counting and then this mystery Hero gives us thier Zero  items they work with as clues as to who they are.  We then make guesses!  I like taking the Mystery Hero's picture to use in a class book!


During Math we have art activities that represent the special 10 number.  For example, the 20th day of school we make Apple Trees where the students need to create 20 apples.  I will post pictures!  The idea is that this will become a math/art portfolio after 100 days!  I even paste a picture of who the mystery hero was on the back side!  As the numbers increase, it is fun to observe how children count by multiples, organize groups of numbers, and use 1-1 correspndence.  This is a great time to assess!


SNACK IN THE SHAPE OF A ZERO!  Parent volunteers send in a snack in the shape of a Zero!  Children LOVE to practice counting while eating these yummy treats!  Some ideas include:  life savers, froot loops, oreos, round pretzels. ets....  

Reading Workshop

This summer I am heading back to the Teacher's College at Columbia University where I will take the Advanced Training for Reader's Workshop!  I have been using the workshop model in my classrom for several years and it wasn't until last summer that I officially was trained.  I am eager to go deeper with my practice and learn new ideas to enhance the reading energy in my classroom.  This past Spring i read Ellin Keen's To Understand, I hope that there is practical applications shared at Teacher's College that come from this amazing resource.

Beginning of Year

Miss Bindergraten Gets Ready For Kindergarten


Knuffel Bunny    This book is a wonderful story that children love to hear over and over!  We have a Knuffle Bunny stuffed animal & book in a totebag that goes home for Student of the Week.  Children write about what they do together and take pictures in a journal.

Read Aloud With Accountable Talk

Choosing Read Alouds in today's classroom allows me to be creative and thoughtful.  There are a million wonderful children's books that could be used on any given day!  I hope that this can be a place to share my favorite titles that I know children love and that serve as a springboard for modeling comprehension strategies, writing ideas, or interactive reading using technology.

A New Beginning

Today I am attempting something completely out of my realm of experience and knowledge, just as our Kindergarten friends who walk into school feeling unsure about what will happen in school I am feeling timid about starting a Kindergarten Blog.  In the past five months I have been pouring over beautifully crafted blogs that are chalk full of fabulous ideas to share with other teachers.  I am so impressed with their blogs, ideas, and most importantly their determination to be reflective practitioners.   How great to have a place to discuss, post, and share ideas and lessons that have bee a success.  I hope that this blg can serve that purpose for me, a place that allows me to write about my experieces, challenges, and my accomplishments in this upcoming year!  I am not familiar with how to post pictures, upload documents to share, or basically how this post will make it to my blog!  I guess it would be easy to just not try, but then I could't be a teacher who encourages children to take risks if I cannot do it myself!  So here it goes, my first attempt to post!