Down By the Bay!

The Kindergarteners are studying rhyming words in their classrooms, so I thought I would help them out by studying rhyming words in songs. We read the book "Down By the Bay" which is perfect for rhyming. After reading the book and doing some matching work on the Promethean board, I decided to tackle an art project. Now anyone who has Kindergarten knows that art projects can be a bit scary! Especially if you only have 30 minutes like I do! We used all 30 minutes (ok it was really 35, but the nice teachers let me keep them a bit longer!), but we finished! I think they turned out great! Here is what we made:

First we decorated and cut our watermelons. Then, each child was given an animal and had to find the picture that rhymed with it. They glued these on to the two pieces of their watermelons and I added in the starter phrases. How cute are these?!

Here is a copy of the pictures I created to put on the plates.

Music Symbol Centers: Symbol Stack Attack!

My 5th graders are preparing for their composition project, so we are covering all of the music symbols on my classroom rug. I posted pictures of the different centers I use last fall, so I won't post them again. But I do want to show you a new center I added this year.

It's the Symbol Stack Attack! center. I took small Dixie cups (the kind you would use in your bathroom) and drew music symbols on the outside bottom of each one. The group must name and define the symbol in order to use it to build a tower. The more cups they answer correctly, the bigger the tower they can create. Here is a picture of one group who was able to identify all 24 cups.

Classroom Tour

I know, I know. It's the middle of September and I'm just now getting my first post up for the year. Better late than never, right? Once again, I changed classrooms this year (that's 3 rooms in 4 years!). Call me crazy, but I kind of enjoy it. It keeps things fresh and keeps me from collecting too much "stuff". Here are some pictures of the new things I've added to my new room this year.

I'm using Freddie the Frog a lot this year with my K-2 students. He sits on top of my Promethean Board every day and watches over the kids to make sure they are listening. I often pull him down to involve him in a lesson if I need to get the kids back on track. They LOVE Freddie and often ask if they can give him hugs before they leave.



This is Humphrey. He's not new to my room, but I don't think I've ever posted about him before. Humphrey hangs over my instruments and watches to make sure nobody is playing them out of turn. He hangs by my window, so if there is a breeze, he rotates slightly, making it look like he's watching the room!

This is my main bulletin board for the fall. I love this quote by Henry Van Dyke. Next to the bulletin board, we created a poster of all of our talents. Every student in the school signed it and put something that they are good at.

 This is my reward board for this year. Students earn "beats" each day to move their clothespin down the keyboard. Once they reach the end, they get a class party. A whole note=4 beats, dotted half note=3 and so on. Each day they start at 3 and either move up or down depending on their behavior throughout class. They know that 4 is very special to earn because it means everybody in the class was doing a good job.

 These tempo posters have always been on my cupboards, but this year I added colored borders around them. It's amazing how many students noticed them for the first time! And I love my time for music clock. Whenever someone asks what time it is, that's what I respond!

 These are my classroom rules. DO your best, REspect others, and Have a MIghty fine attitude. Hanging next to it is my solfeg hand signs chart.

And next to my manipulative shelf and my book shelf I have "Pete the Cat". For those of you who haven't read his books yet, they are wonderful!

There you go! Hope everyone has a wonderful school year!!