#noworksheetwednesday

I'm sure you've all heard of "No Worksheet Wednesday". A lot of teachers are trying not to use any worksheets one day a week. I think that's a great thing and that more teachers should try it out and try to do more than just one day a week!! In years past, I used to go through sooo much paper, photocopying endless amounts of worksheets and packets and whatnot. I'm sure we've all been there. Ever since my district adopted a new kindergarten curriculum, Tools of the Mind, that was the end of that! NOT ONE WORKSHEET PEOPLE!! It was scary! How will the kids learn?! Won't the parents be wondering what we do all day?! I have to admit I do miss some of the cutesy worksheets but boy do I NOT miss the never ending piles and piles of paper in folders in the "all done box". It's a great feeling I have to admit! The whole curriculum is based on the Vygotskian approach and learning through games with partners. You learn better through others. Everything is with partners! We do lots of "I Have, Who Has?" games, dramatizing The Magic Tree House stories, *a lot* of work on self-regulation. The second half of the year we introduce "learning records" which are very simple papers that each child completes after each game/center. Not really a worksheet, they never fill anything in they just record their learning. For example, say one center was "I Have, Who Has?" letters, they would play the game with their group and when they're done they write down four letters that they had in the game and draw a picture of something that begins with that letter. Real simple, super quick. They finish that and point and read it to their "study buddy" (partner) and move on to their second center. This is my second year implementing this curriculum and I have to admit at first I was super hesitant but it really is amazing. Last year was the first year I had ALL of my students at or above (way above) benchmark! That's with ELL students who knew minimal English in September, they were reading ON GRADE LEVEL at the end of the year!


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Samurai warrior helmets!

We made origami Samurai warrior helmets today with our fifth grade buddies! They came out so good! #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachtoo #iteachk #nightoftheninjas #magictreehouse @magictreehousebooks

A photo posted by ColleensKinders (@colleenskinders) on Dec 12, 2014 at 6:42pm PST

MOvember!!

As some of you may know two and a half years ago right around the time of our first dating anniversary my boyfriend at the time was diagnosed with testicular Cancer. He lived in NJ and I live in Boston so I immediately left school and drove down to be with him. I don't even remember the drive down it all seem like a blur. He had surgery and was fine and soon moved up to Boston with me and had to go back to Dana Farber every couple of months for tests and scans to make sure that it didn't come back. 14 months after his first diagnosis and just a couple weeks after we got engaged we found out that it had come back and spread to his lymph nodes in his abdomen. He would have to start 9 weeks of chemotherapy the following week. Not exactly how you imagine starting off planning your wedding! I tried not to think about what we were going through and just take it day-by-day and put a happy face on and we got through it just like we did the first time. As of September 24th he has been cancer free! We continue to go back to Dana Farber every 3 months to keep an eye on it, and the week of the appointment I can't help but think what if it comes back, it's a terrible feeling to always be thinking that "what if". I can't imagine how he must feel. We've got one year cancer free done and we have four more to go and I hope we never have to deal with this crap again because it's the scariest thing ever.

He had to get his lungs tested because one of the three chemo drugs he had to get affects your lungs. The technician was in awe at his lung capacity she said it was "super human". Which of course he still reminds me of! He credits it to years of swimming!




































He loves when I make play dough for my class. He has to test it out before I bring it in!












Last day of chemo!











One of our engagement photos that I just absolutely love...








Some pictures of our wedding this past July!























So needless to say we are huge supporters of #MOvember and raising awareness for men's cancer. I became a #MOsista and if you're feeling generous and would like to donate to my page to support #MOvember here is the link to my #MOsista page!

Thanks to Heather from Creative Teaching Press for all the mustache swag! The little mustache cut outs were perfect for our "Disguise a Turkey" project!




























We even got photobooth props that my class absolutely LOVED they went crazy over this! They kept their mustaches on all day I was cracking up!







These mustache postcards are perfect for the great postcard exchange I'm joining where our class is sending one postcard to a different teacher/class in each state...






I love to pay it forward and didn't want to keep all of these goodies just for myself so I did a MOvember giveaway on my Instagram and @arlanzone won all of these goodies!





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Days of School Countdown FREEBIE!!

Looking for a cute, fun sign to help countdown the days left until summer? Click here to download for FREE! Please leave a comment in return!

5 Little Pumpkins Fingerplay

The class was VERY excited when I told them that they were now famous because we recorded a song! This is one of our favorite fingerplays to sing…take a listen!

Tools of the Mind

This year our town adopted a new kindergarten curriculum, "Tools of the Mind." It pretty much revolves around teaching self-regulation to the children which will in turn make them better students and ready to learn. The first four weeks of school our theme is "fairy tales" we do a different fairy tale each week. On Monday, we make props for that fairy tale and Tuesday-Friday we dramatize the story. Each day one group goes to a different center and era to dramatize the story using different props. After we finish the fairy tales unit we move onto the "Magic Tree House" book series. We do books 1-12. Each book we take on the theme of its time and place for three weeks. The first week we build background knowledge about that time and place, reading non-fiction books to learn facts about that time and place and we make props each day to support the book. The second and third week we read one chapter a day of the Magic Tree House book and dramatize the story in our centers each day.

Here we are making or props for the second Magic Tree House book "Knight at Dawn."











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The Numerals Game

We added new "Frankenstein" counters to our "Numerals Game" . One person, who has the hand mediator card picks a number and counts out that many counters, the person with the check mediator card takes the counters and checks them using the numerals board and puts one counter on each dot. Then they tell their partner if they counted the right amount of counters and we switch mediator cards!



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