Summer Book Club

It has been my experience that sometimes getting little learners in the mindset for reading can be challenging.

With some searching and adapting, I have implemented this reading program into my classroom for my summer campers.

For our reading program this summer, each child gets their own special reading necklace. I used 24" ball chains. These necklaces are all posted on a bulletin board in our classroom labeled "Camping With a Good Book" (to go along with our camping theme). Each student is allowed to wear their necklace during their reading time, but are required to hang it back up afterwards so that it doesn't get damaged or accidently taken home (and never to return dun dun dunnnn).

In camp some students are there for a full day, some for a half day. In order to make it so that most students can benefit from the book club, we designate 15 minutes in the morning hours (from 10:30-10:45am) and 15 minutes in the evening hours (from 3:30-3:45pm) for some silent reading time. Students grab their reading necklace and choose somewhere cozy in the room to read books of their choice. I remind students that we are to have "voice level zero" during this time.

At the end of the 15 minutes, if students have put an effort into looking at books for the length of time, they are rewarded with a bead. I had my program coordinator order me pony beads from this website but you can certainly get them from any craft store. Students choose whatever color they want--I even encourage them to make a pattern!

Now here's the fun part...the incentive. Once the camper (I keep calling them students, habits die hard over summer!) collects 20 beads, she can then choose a tag. I ordered my tags from this company. They're relatively inexpensive when bought in bulk, so go for it!

At the end of summer my campers will have a nice take-away for all their hard work. And they end up looking pretty cute too! The bulletin board makes for a nice conversation piece at pick-up time with parents. Campers love to share their bead colors and tags with their parents. I think I might try and adapt this for the school year as well.

Getting Ready For Camp

This week was our first week of camp. I like doing camp after we end the school year; keeps me in the mindset of teaching, while still taking a break from the "regular" evaluations that seem to be constantly going on. I also end up meeting a lot of my future kindergarteners this way.

There's nothing I hate more than an empty bulletin board. When I took down all my kindergarteners work, to send it home with them, I knew that I didn't want to leave the bulletin board blank all week. Instead I created this bulletin board for my incoming campers.

There are two kindergarten "camp" rooms this year. In fact, after making this bulletin board we had 8 more students enroll! So exciting. I wrote all my campers names on purple tents, and all the campers for the other room on green tents.

I noticed a lot of children stopping their parents in the hallways so they could check for your name. I learned in college that the most narcissistic people are children. It sounds silly to say, but it's so true! They love seeing their name! I'll write their names across the walls if that's what it takes to make them happy :).

So excited for summer this year! I think we have a good bunch.

Kindergarten Memory Books

So I have to preface this with the fact that I had extremely high expectations for these books and when I go back and do them next year I will 1. use a computer, like a sane teacher, for all this text and 2. not wait until the last 2 weeks to assemble everything. Holy moly.

Some teacher friends have asked me for my memory book ideas so I thought that I'd put them all in one giant post. Like I said, I suggest doing these once a month and assembling that page that month, but hey...it's your sanity (or free time).

Please excuse the poor quality of my cell phone pictures. All of my pages are done on 12x18 construction paper. Only the first and last page are laminated.

On the first day of school I take two pictures of each child. One is just a cute picture of them in their first day of school outfit. The second photo is of their profile. I print this as a 8.5x11 in black and white (to save color ink) and then cut it out. I trace the picture onto black construction paper, cut out, and glue to a large piece of 12x18 paper. I run the Kindergarten Extension Enrichment Program at our school (thus the KEEP acronym).

The first page in my books is our August page. Some of my pages are specific to months, others are not. For this page I have the children fill out a worksheet and then draw a picture of themselves. I made my own worksheet, but I'm sure there are cute, "here's me!" worksheets on TPT. To the right of this I place their first day of school photo.

At our school we do a week long theme called apple fest. It's pretty awesome and the students love it. If you don't do this (or something similar), you should :). The students make apple print t-shirts (the picture in the upper left), do an apple tasting (they then vote by coloring an apple their favorite apple color), and we also make apple trees with our hands and paint. There are a ton of other activities, but these are the three I documented. On fall conferences I have the parents fill out an apple saying why there child is the apple of their eye and I place it on this page too.

For October I place a picture of each child in their Halloween costume. We have a skeleton that hangs with us during the month of October (his name is Cody) so all the children this year insisted on having a picture with him as well :). For an activity during October I have the students make monsters on coffee filters using makers. We then spritz them with water and watch them "disappear." I include the following poem:
"Every night when I'm asleep,
Into my room the monsters creep.
I call to my mom, "Please come and stay.
And don't forget the monster spray!"
She comes right in and sprays right here
And all the monsters
D-I-S-A-P-P-E-A-R!"

For November I have the students use their hands (can you tell I enjoy getting messy in the classroom?) to paint a picture of the Mayflower. I also ask each child how to cook a turkey, and then write this onto a turkey die-cut. You get some pretty funny responses. My favorite? "Put it in the oven and then scream. That's what my mom always does. It makes it go faster." Got to love what they pick up!

So as not to make anyone feel bad who doesn't celebrate a December holiday, for our December pages we do paper snowflakes. Most students have never made these before, so it's pretty fun teaching them and seeing how they all look different :).

In January the students painted snowmen. This time I let them use a paintbrush ;). Once the snowmen are dry, I ask them to make them "the best snowmen" by drawing details. Some students go a little crazy (like this friend) and others are more simple with their details. I like the simple ones better, but you can't control a 6 year old with markers.

I think I go a little overboard with my February page because at this point you know the students so well, it's fun to do these things with them. For most of the books I used pink of this page, but I ran out by the time I got to Madison's. In the heart on the top left I have the students draw what love means. They then dictate this to me and I write it on a heart die-cut which I also include on the page. For the picture I have the students all say "I love you" in sign language. At our school we call sight words "Star words." I have the students choose any 8 that they know and write them on a worksheet I created.

For March the students draw what a leprechaun looks like. I think Madison's turned out looking a little like Slash. That's pretty cool.

I didn't label this page (oops!), but for April I take the students on a nature walk. We keep journals for the month and record how the season is changing. The students draw a picture of how they know it's spring and then I record their answers.

I didn't label my May page either. Did I mention I procrastinated on these books? Ahh! So not like me. Oh well.

For May I have the students choose three things to grow in their gardens. Below this they write "Gardens grow with seeds and dirt." To the right they draw a self portrait. Below this they write "But I grow with love."

We're done in May (sorry to all you teachers still in session) so that's the end of my "months pages." The following are some extra pages I mix in through the year.

In January, right after winter break, we start writing our last names along with our first. I make sure that I save a copy of their first try writing their last names and add it to their books.

For the 100th Day of School I ask the students to draw what they would buy if they had $100. They dictate this to me and I add it to the page. I also include a piece of fake money that I photo copy on green paper.

February is national dental health month so in talking about this, the students draw a picture of their tooth fairy.

For Earth Day this year I did two pages. Mostly because I couldn't decide which one I liked better. For the one on the left the students made coffee filter earths. We then spritzed them with water, let them dry, and glued them to green or blue construction paper. Each student then wrote out an Earth Day promise.

For the project on the right the students used paper plates, squirted blue and green paint on them, and then smooshed them on white paper :).

In our classroom we have Celebrities of the Week. It's similar to star or student of the week. The "celebrity" gets to paint their hands and place them on a start at the end of their week. We hang these on the "Celebrity Wall of Fame" in the classroom. At the end of the year I pull them down and add them to their books. I also include a picture of them with the poster they present.

At the end of the year I have the students make another self portrait. This time they're allowed to use paint to make themselves.

Towards the end of each memory book I include a page of pictures that I look throughout the school year of that child working, at holiday parties, and with friends.

On the last page of their books I include a picture of just me and the child. I then write them each a special little note about our year together.


And that's my memory book strategy. Seriously, use a computer and don't wait too long to get started. Oye.

Summer Learning Loss

Working as a kindergarten teacher and a camp counselor gets me thinking about summer learning and the proven summer learning loss. Of course, no parent wants their child to digress over summer, but most parents think you're starting a marketing spiel when you bring this up.

This year my school opted out of spring conferences to have a summed up end of the year conference. It worked out nicely in that I could then talk about summer learning loss in a sneaky way.

This year I gave each family the following handout. If it will do you any good, or if you'd like to try these things at home, go ahead and grab it!

Children's Memory Books

So it's weird to be starting a blog at the end of the school year. Or, maybe, it's nice.
For me, and for many teachers I'm sure, the end of the year is almost as hard as the beginning. And in teaching kindergarten, it is never easy to say goodbye to those sweet little faces you grew to love through the year.

For the last week of school I am giving students these memory books to work on in their "free time" to keep the busy and to keep them from going coo-coo-bananas. Is it just me or do students get super restless the last month of school? And my students are not even old enough to be aware how close summer is. I don't get it!

For this project you need:

I got the activity pages from this blog. It's a cute blog that has differentiated pages for Pre-K through 2nd grade. I reduced the pages in size by half so that they would fit the paper bag book.

I started by assembling the paper bag books.

Place three brown paper bags side by side. I used larger sized lunch bags so that there would be enough room for the memory book pages.
The important thing here is that you alternate the openings so that the "pockets" in the book alternate as well.

Stack the paper bags on top of one another and then fold in half.
When I looked up a tutorial to do this originally the blogger was all, "now punch two holes in the edge and you can start stringing ribbon through your book." Well, now doesn't that sound like it should be easy? I'm not the strongest woman alive but I pride myself on my hole punching skills, and I couldn't for the life of me punch through three bags at once.

Instead I punched each bag individually.
Once you have the bags hole punched, stack them back together (being sure to keep them in the alternate order as before). Now you can string your ribbon through.

Using the double sided tape, attach your memory book pages. Hand to your students and run. Just kidding :).