Publishing Young Authors

Hey, friend!  It's Andrea from Always Kindergarten.  Writer's Workshop is one of my favorite times of the day in my Kindergarten classroom.  Watching my students' writing evolve over the school year is so amazing to witness.  I love how their personalities shine through their writing by the end of the year.  

One of my most favorite events of the school year is our Authors' Morning.  You can read more about this event over on my blog.  It is a celebration of our hard work and a way for us to show off our learning.  

Throughout the year, we learn how to write personal narratives, how to books, opinion pieces, and informational books.  At the end of the year, we review all we have learned and my students create fictional narratives.  This year, I decided to give my students their own writing journals.

At the end of our unit, I meet with each student and we choose their best story to publish.  I type up each child's story with a blank box at the top so they can draw final illustrations.

We also create a front cover, title page, dedication page, and a page all about the author.

Then I bind the books on this amazing machine!

No more laminating, no more annoying combs, this baby binds books in 90 seconds!  It's the Book Creator from Premier Binding.  You can find it here.  It has changed my life when making class books and publishing student work.  I absolutely love it!  If you give them a call, ask for Jay and tell him I sent ya!

The kiddos love reading their stories to each other!

Do you publish student writing?  I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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Zoo Scavenger Hunt FREEBIE

The school year is winding down. The snow is melting and the flowers are blooming. What does that typically mean, you ask? A field trip to the ZOO, of course! It seems that almost every school in my neck of the woods has been making its way to the zoo over the past several weeks and I have no doubt that this will continue until the end of the school year. We counted 21 school buses when we were there last week, in fact! 

Going to the zoo was one of my favorite field trips when I was a teacher and it has become one of my favorite things to do with my own kids. I thought since it is "zoo time" it would be fun to have a scavenger hunt for students to complete while they were on their field trip. This would be a great way to add some sort of structure to a crazy day and encourage some great discussions about the animals that they will be seeing. 

What is great about this is that my three year old can complete it and your second grade student can complete it! And most importantly, both will think it is so much fun. I had my three year old color in the box of the animals we saw and school age students can easily check off which animal they have seen. 

Molly loved it and was so proud of herself once it was completed. 

So whether you are a teacher and going to the zoo on a field trip or a parent taking your kid(s) to the zoo, grab this FREEBIE now by clicking on the image below. I hope that you and your little ones enjoy it!

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Thanks for helping me grow gift tags

As the school year is winding down, that means it is time to start thinking about gift ideas.  I blogged about some budget friendly gifts for students with free tags that you can find HERE.  Today, I'm thinking about gifts to thank teachers.  I came up with these gifts for my daughter's Sunday school teachers at our church.  There are 8 teachers and helpers that rotate throughout the year so I wanted to get something small and budget friendly for all of them.  These would be perfect for your child to give to a teacher with the "Thanks for helping me grow" version.  You could also use this idea and the included tags to thank parapros, secretaries, custodians, specials teachers, volunteers or anyone who has helped your students if you use the "Thanks for helping us grow" tags.

To make these gifts, I bought 6 inch clay pots from Home Depot for around $1 each.  I had my daughter help me paint them with acrylic paints that I had on hand.  It took several coats to get the color as dark as I wanted, so I did the rest of the coats after my daughter helped with the first one.

Luckily, this paint dries fast so I was able to paint multiple coats and get it done in one morning.  Once the bottoms were painted, I painted gold around the top a few times.

Next, I bought some succulents to add to the pots.  I bought a bunch of succulents last year for our garden and I love them since they survive on very little water.  I had it in my head that I wanted to use succulents for this project.  I didn't realize that these would be hard to find (5 stores) and would be around $5 for each plant.  Luckily, I found a multi pack that I split up and then bought  4 additional plants to help fill in the space.  The cost and availability might be different depending on where you live.  If you want to go with a cheaper and more colorful route, buy some flowers and plant them in the pots.

Once the pots were ready to go, I created little cards to go with them.  My daughter is just learning to write letters and words so I knew it was going to be a lot for her to write this on each card.  I figured I would just make a printable and she could add her name and I would write the teachers' names.  She also wanted to draw a picture for each teacher so I let her do that and we will add that with some washi tape right before we give them.  To attach the cards, I used skewer sticks that I had on hand and taped them to the back of the cards.

This is a super easy gift idea.  You can make it even easier by not painting the pots or by just tying a ribbon around the pot for some color.  You could also use cute washi tape and just tape the cards to the pot instead of using sticks.

If you want to try this out, I've included the cards (both the ME and the US versions) HERE for you to download.

If you use these cards and post on social media, I'd love to see what you pair them with.  Tag me (@sarajcreations) and The Primary Punchbowl (@theprimarypunchbowl) on Instagram.

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Very Versatile Victories

Celebrating students' success is something we always try to do…but if you're anything like us, in the hustle and bustle of the school day- sometimes we neglect to celebrate their "everyday"victories!  We've vowed to make this a focus of our next year.  We have reflected on the current ways we motivate and celebrate students' victories, and we've been searching for new and innovative ways to do so.  

Currently, we only celebrate a few successes, but, we are making a pact to change that.  We are planning to celebrate the really TOUGH kindergarten stuff…the stuff you really have to work to master!  We want to ensure that the "value" of these successes are felt, so we aren't giving these victories to everyone for anything; but rather, to those who work hard to accomplish big things.

Here are a few very versatile ways to celebrate students' victories!

We LOVE when students give that "glow" of pride when they master something after working so hard for it!  This is the way we used to post their accomplishments.  

 

There is nothing wrong with it necessarily, but they are scattered around the room and aren't easy to see unless you know what/where to look.  Now, we have several skills-based posters grouped together, in a similar format, and posted in a cohesive manner.  It's in one distinct part of our room, where students can easily (and at any moment) check their progress.

We wholeheartedly believe that when students are able to take ownership of their own learning, their learning becomes more meaningful.  We cannot wait to implement Personal Student Data tabs in our daily "take-home" binders…(HEROES Binders).  Along with our newsletters, class list, daily schedule, etc., we are looking forward to also having tabs for students to track their own data.  Since we have not  used these before, we are not sure exactly what we are going to include, but we have been looking at Pinterest and on TPT…it seems so many of you have awesome data collection products.  What we love about this is that students can take ownership of their own learning and can track their progress themselves.  We cannot wait to start putting these binders together!!!

Are you fluent in "ten finger woos"?  What about a "thirteen finger woo"?

We are very much believers in the Whole Brain Teaching strategies and these "woos" are something that Chris Biffle (Founder of WBT) uses to give immediate, quick praise to students…he also suggests having students give them, as well.  They are simple, but our students LOOOOOVE earning them!  These little chants can boost even the saddest of kiddos!  These little chants are what we "give" to students for accomplishing the smaller/everyday victories!

One last thing: We can hear some of you saying, "Ugghh!  What about the poor kiddos who struggle and may always end up at the bottom?"  We are so glad you asked ;0).  One of the things we strive hardest to do is creating a classroom environment that promotes a growth mindset and one where students build each other up and work together when appropriate!  Our students are often pushing each other to learn the newest sight word or skill; they practice tough stuff together and love when they can help a peer learn something new.  What we love about the growth mindset is that students are reflective of their own work and learning all throughout the day!  These posters, data binders, and class chants allow students to literally "see" where they are comparatively and our hope is that they feel an intrinsic desire to work to move up a level, color in a new column in their binder, or earn a ten or twelve finger woo from their classmates.

We'd love for you to share…

Thank you for stopping by…and HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!  We hope you have been pampered, spoiled, and loved…but, most of all- we hope you have felt appreciated this week!  

Much love,

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