Miss Amy's Schoolhouse

Hello friends!

Raise your hand if you like teaching and working on sight words?  In my classroom, I use HeidiSongs to teach the words using music.  What is also great about the resources on her sight, is that she has quite a few things to make games and centers for classroom use.  However, for me, since I use the Daily 5 method for my literacy centers, I can go through her resources pretty quickly.  One of the literacy stations is called "Word Work."  For my classroom, I do a mixture of ABC letter work (games for identification, letter order, letter sounds) and sight word practice.  I created a new packet for my team and I to use as it follows the words outlined in our reading basal (SRA).  The activities are actually all ideas that came from my class last year, so I have to give them credit on helping this adult come up with some things a kindergartner and first grader would enjoy!

The words in the packet are:  a, the, and, go, had, he, I, see, has, you, we, of, in, am, at, to, as, have, is, it.

The first set of activities comes from a group of boys in my class that loved to use color codes and find a mystery picture, whether it was symbols, numbers, or words.  Here is a picture:

The next activities  are perfect for a "Word Work" type of center, handwriting practice, or even spelling practice.  (Yes, I said spelling in regards to a kindergarten class.  I have heard of school districts assigning spelling lists for as young as kindergarten.)  The first set is designed to work with a set of stamps and two ink pads in red and blue.  You have the child read the sight word aloud and then stamp it out, using red for the vowels and blue for the consonants.  Then they can use math skills (Look! integrating sorting and counting) and figure out how many vowels and consonants are in each word.  I had a few kiddos last year that loved to do this all the time.  The second set of activities is a nod to my girls who would rainbow write EVERYTHING last year!  You can use any type of crayon or marker and let them write the sight words in a pretty fashion! :-) 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Words-for-K-and-1st-1345462

Here is a preview of a new unit I posted today on TeachersPayTeachers today.  I created a Noah unit to use with Kindergarten and First Grade classrooms!  I made a reflection journal to help apply the story of Noah to a child's life. Also, to help build life application skills, there is a graphic organizer so a child can write about four ways they obeyed just like Noah. n Included are two games; a version of "I Have, Who Has" and an Animal Matching Game.  I also added a Bible verse sheet and two activity pages practicing rhyming and counting by two.  Finally, there are some fun art projects: making a tissue paper rainbow and a collage of Noah and the animals.  Here are some screenshots below:

Do you have Olympic fever?  I do.  I have always loved watching the Olympics since I can remember.  When I was younger, my cousins and my sister and I would pretend we were figure skaters with our socks on linoleum flooring.  I thought it would be fun to incorporate the Olympic fever into some math activities for my classroom this year.  Below are some samples:

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Today I wanted to share with you a brand-new activity  for sequencing.  For early readers, putting things in the right order of events can be difficult.  I created eight sets of sequencing cards to use as a center in the classroom!  My goal in creating these cards was to pick everyday life events in order so that students would be able to successfully put the cards in order.  I based them off of some sequencing cards a reading specialist let me borrow.  I don't know where she got them, but I have never been able to find any quite like them.  I loved them because of that everyday life  feature.  For example, I have a set about doing laundry and washing hands.  I find that if they can make the real life connections to what they are doing in the classroom, the students are more confident about their abilities to understand a skill.  Once they have mastered the skill, it is then easier for them to transition to putting it in use when we read stories or even later in the year as they begin to write their own stories!  Here is a sample below:

Today was our first day of kindergarten for the 2013-2014! It was so much fun!  The children were all sweet and excited to be here.  Today they were strangers, but I know by the end of the year we will be family.

For me, the first day of school is always unique every year.  I try to follow the same plan every year, but I always find something new and different to do.  Like a new management system for lunches or a new way to line up.  Today it was a new way to start off the year writing.

The school that I teach at has very strong academic expectations, especially in writing, which  fits well with the new Common Core emphasis on writing.  This year in my Back-To-School packet I created, I added a writing activity, which now turned into our first class book!  I love doing the class books and especially love at the end of the year when I raffle off the different ones to the students.  What a precious keepsake to have for your lifetime!  Anyway, back to the class book.  I am sharing it with you all, because it was so easy to do and the results were fantastic!

We read the book, Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten.  It is a great first day of school book to read!  I love it because the pictures are so detailed about all the different things people do to get ready for school!  Plus, the author uses alphabet order for each character, which is really fun as well. After we read the story, I had the class go to free play centers which consisted of legos, books, puzzles, and a special color sheet on which they traced the lines using markers, practicing the fine motor skills.  While the free play centers were happening, I called small groups over to work on the writing page.  I had them draw the pictures describing step by step their own getting ready for kindergarten process.  Then I wrote the caption underneath as they dictated to me what happened.

The results are below!  They did a great job drawing pictures to describe how they got ready for kindergarten that morning.  There were lots of teeth being brushed, lots of pancakes eaten, lots of new backpacks, and lots of car rides to school!  They loved connecting their real-life experience with the book!  Here are the pictures:

Happy Thursday y'all!

Today's theme that I uploaded to Miss Amy's Schoolhouse Store is based upon one of my favorite series of books: Pete the Cat!  I love Pete because he tackles fears and worries.  He doesn't let the small stuff get to him because he knows in the end, it will all be good.  It is a great series!  Check out the author's website! Watch this video below:




Because of how awesome Pete is, I just had to create some math and language arts activities based on this book!  Every year, I always have a few kids that love Pete.  Last year, I had a little boy love Pete so much that was all he would listen to in the listening center.  In fact, his friends stop going with him there because they couldn't listen to Pete one more time.  :-)  Here are a sample of the activities:

I finally finished my whole TpT Back-to School theme using the Common Core Skills.  What is a really neat feature just added to TpT is that you can now find items by the exact common core skill!  Makes searching for that perfect lesson or activity that much quicker!  Here are some previews from the theme:

Hello Friends!  I hope that this Tuesday is finding you well!  I'm excited because tonight I'm getting together with some former team members.  We all taught kindergarten together at a Title I school.  I love these ladies so much!  Although another member and I have moved to a different school, it is fun to get together and share not only our personal lives but stories from the classroom.  I love how teaching is just a big network of ideas and in sharing those great ideas we all become better educators for our students!

Anyway, today I upload a free Back-To-School reader to my TpT store.  It is very simple, only eight pages with simple black and white drawings.  I like the openness of the graphics with no shaded spaces, only outlines for the students.  There is nothing better to the average kindergarten kid than getting to color the pictures in a "book."  They take so much pride in creating a unique book, even if that means rainbow colored hair on the people or a hot pink school bus.  :-)  Under each drawing, I simply put a vocabulary word related to school items.  My goal was to create a fun, simple booklet that could be enjoyed by ALL learners in the first few days of school.  Did I mention it was free?  Oh yeah, it is FREE!!  Go download it today at Miss Amy's Schoolhouse!

     Hello!!! It is that time of year again!  The time I love to walk through Wal-Mart, and Target and see all the fresh new school supplies!  I've always loved buying school supplies, so I guess it is only fitting I became a teacher!  Yesterday I bought myself some NEON Ticonderoga pencils at Target!  They are so fun and only $2.00 for ten!  Miss Amy will have some very special teacher pencils this year!  (By the way, Ticonderoga pencils are the BEST out there.  They are more pricey, but I promise they are more durable than any other brand.  And I should know, after all I teach kindergarten.  They can be pretty destructive!)
    Anyway, also in exciting news, I've finally opened my very own Teacher Pay Teacher store.  I'm starting off small.  My first thing to offer this week is a series of Math activities that are perfect for individual work, whole group work, or even center activities, all around a Back-to-School theme!  It is great to fill in those days before curriculum starts (which we all know can be a headache to try to plan), as a supplement to curriculum, and especially for new teachers to begin to create center activities!  Here are some sample pictures of the activities:

Raise your hand if you like interruptions to your plans? As a reforming planner, I can definitely say I can tolerate interruptions a lot better. God has spent the year breaking me of my planner heart. It has been hard because I love that part of education- writing out lesson plans and schedules and then checking the activities and schedule off as needed.

Today God reminded me that is in control of it all, including my classroom. Our principal reminded us of that at morning devotion and then God decided to provide me with the opportunity to see if I would listen and obey. We were in the middle of Bible lesson when I noticed a student was getting upset. Tears had formed and slowly were going down the cheeks. We only had a little in the lesson left to finish, and I was faced with the decision: Do I finish my lesson or stop and minister to this child? I didn't want to stop but I yielded to God. I asked the child to come forward. I asked what was wrong, and the child told me,"I miss Mommy." Then I gave them a hug and asked the class if we could stop and pray that Jesus would comfort the child. Everyone prayed and that opened some little hearts to be compassionate and include that child to play. By the end of the day a new friendship was formed. Thank you Lord!!

Thank you Lord for breaking this planner apart into a person that embraces and now anticipates interruptions. Your ways are not only higher but better than mine!!

Hello friends!!It's been awhile since I've updated. A big change has happened since I last posted. I'll try to be brief as I get up to date.
•First, the daily 5 went amazing in my class! I saw an interest and a love for reading and writing instilled in my students. One boy jumped from reading at a preK level to reading at a first grade level by the end of the year. I pray that he continues to be a life long learner. Another boy went from hating to write in his journal to finally writing an entire sentence on his own. I cannot encourage teachers to look at this method more. It saved my sanity as we moved to common core while engaging my students in a way I've never seen before. I think a huge reason is because it allows the students to become independent and responsible for their own educational journey.
•Second, within a week at the end of May, God opened another door for me to teach kindergarten at a Christian school. It was a hard decision to make because I still loved everyone that I worked with at my other school. We were a great team and I've found that is hard to come by in education. However, I really felt God calling me to this new place.
•My new school is amazing! I LOVE my new team! They're wise, encouraging, joyful, and helpful. I have never had a transition to a new school go so well. On that note, everyone at my school is WONDERFUL! Last week, I was on emotional overload. My room wasn't coming together and I didn't know what to do. My principal noticed and organized some help along with my team leader to get things sorted out. The advice and suggestions were so helpful and made everything fall right into place. I am so blessed!!!
•My good friend, Miss L, attended the WillowCreek Leadership Conference via the power of web conferencing. During that time, God laid on her heart a message for me from a Spanish speaking pastor. It was the passage in 1 Samuel where Samuel is mourning over the loss of Saul being king. God tells Samuel to stop the morning and get his horn of oil to go to Bethlehem to anoint the next king. Miss L shared this with me during our accountability time last week about another area God is growing me in. However, His words carried me through the week. You see, Monday I ran into my old team at a restaurant. After I left, I was mourning that chapter had closed. While I was excited to start what God had in front of me, it was still sad to not be starting school with comfortability of the old. This passage of scripturereally helped me through the week to move on to the place God wants me now.
• I met my new class and their parents on Wednesday and we started school Thursday. I know that God has called me here for such a time as this. There are so many diverse needs of each student and their families and God has taken my "rolling-stone-patchwork-experiences" and is using it to His glory. He is taking the good times, like when I befriended an international student from China in college, and using it for His good. He is taking the hard times, like working with some challenging students for the past four years, and using it for His good. He is taking my sad times, like grieving over a loss and using it for His good. Don't ever doubt Romans 8:28! Even though life has blessings and dark times, God is in control and will take it and use it for His purpose.
• I am so excited for this new school year and I can't wait to watch it unfold!!

This week is Spring Break for my school district. I know that all my friends that have non-teaching jobs are always super jealous...unless they are my friends who are still in college. :-) I've been trying to decide what would be the best use of time this week. So far, I've decided these things are a MUST DO:

1. Get some rest and relaxation. Enjoy quiet moments, like today with the rain outside, hot tea in my hand, and a little Italian Greyhound curled up next to me.
2. Finish my children's book and get it in submission state to start the long process of finding some one to publish it.
3. Get all my school paperwork in order instead of a stack of quickly written down notes tucked away here and there.
4. Get organized on how to present the next step in the Daily 5.

Anyone have any other suggestions on Spring Break time for teachers?

I figured I would begin my blog by telling you a little about myself and where I teach. My name is Amy and I teach at a high poverty school just outside of Oklahoma City. The school is located in a wealthy suburb, however the students that make up a majority of the school are not. The majority live with some kind of constant transition in their lives, from the amount of parents to the place to live. A large group live in section 8 housing and rely on free/reduced meal programs for breakfast and dinner. The neighborhood surrounding the school is filled with your average middle class families who are working hard to provide for their children. It is a diverse population that can often clash, but in the end works hard to get along.

I find myself called to this desert. It surprises me how thirsty for knowledge, love, security, and acceptance all of the children are, no matter what their background. Some have bigger deserts in their lives, ones that would put the Sahara to shame. They are all the same though, and it is my job, even though it can be tiring and tear-filled, to water these deserts as much as I can. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but God has called me here. I know that I have only been able to survive these years, and especially this past one, by relying on His strength and grace.

I hope that by serving God in this manner, Isaiah 35:6 (The Message) will be true for those student I teach. May they be like lame men and women leaping like deer, may their voiceless hearts break into song. May the springs of water burst out in the wilderness of their lives, and may streams of knowledge, love, security, and acceptance flow into their desert-filled lives.