Chapter 5: It's Fall, Y'all!

We had a week full of fun!

This week's letter was S, and here's our poem:

"S says /s/

spider in the soup

/s/, /s/, /s/"

Our list of letter learning is growing fast!

We continued learning about numbers 1 through 5, how to make numbers in a ten frame, and how to model and write them.  We also started studying spiders...yuck!

Our week started out by one of the sweeties, T, telling us that she had some pizza and french fries in her backpack.  Of course, Mrs. Henson and I were very concerned, and wanted to make sure we kept them refrigerated if needed, so we asked her to get them out and show us.

"See, it's my pizza and french fries!"

Since we celebrated the first day of Fall this week, we decided to make some pumpkins and decorate our classroom door!  The directions were for the students to create their own pumpkins with only paper, scissors, and glue.  I gave them the pumpkin cutout, and they had to create the rest.  It was so much fun to see what they came up with!
Here are some pictures for you to enjoy! (excuse the blurriness - privacy is important)

Our finished door!  "Happy Fall, Y'all!"

 Ok, now here's a story for you.  We have a problem with wasps somehow making their way into our classroom.  Mrs. Henson is allergic and of course the children are terrified.  So, Mrs. Murphy has to wear her "brave hat" to get these pesty bugs!  ("pesty" was one of our vocabulary words this week!)  Last week, we had some administrators come in to observe us during Writing instruction, and one of these little guys landed right on Mrs. Henson's sweater.  She froze, and I literally leapt over the children sitting on the carpet to swat it off and kill it.  Of course, I saved the day!

Well, this week, we had another unwelcome visitor.  I chased this little stinker around all morning on Thursday, and the kids kept a close eye on wherever he flew.  In summary of me trying to get this guy, I pulled down the curtains, knocked down the display board behind my desk, and lost my shoes! No worries, I didn't give up.  See....?

On Fridays teachers can wear jeans to school.  I usually wear my jeans rolled up since it's still warm outside.  After breakfast I was sitting in the rocking chair getting ready to start the day, when I noticed one of my boys trying to roll up his jeans.  I asked him what he was doing.  He doesn't talk much, so he just looked down at his jeans and looked back up at me.  I said "Are you trying to roll up your jeans like Mrs. Murphy?"  He shook his sweet little head "yes".  So, of course, I helped him!  (We eventually unrolled them, but he just wanted to be like me for a few minutes!)

My sweet girl, T, would not got to sleep at rest time on Friday.  She was restless and kept calling my name.  Finally, I gave in and asked her what she needed.  She said "Mrs. Murphy, can you rock me in that chair?"  "Have you never been rocked in a rocking chair, sweet girl?", I asked.  T said, "No. Can you please?"  I could not pass up this opportunity to love on her and rock her as long as her little heart desired.  So we rocked for about 10 minutes with our music playing and all of the other children snoring, and she fell right to sleep.  My eyes filled with tears while I rocked this sweet angel, and I prayed that she would always remember what it feels like to be rocked in arms of love.

Kindergarten Funnies:

The school gives us a fruit or vegetable for snack on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays - and we love it!

T: "Mrs. Murphy, I want a pinch." (peach)

JW: "I like your braces, Mrs. Murphy!" (bracelets)

JL: "What that is?"

A precious little girl had on some cute shoes, so I asked her to find out where her mom got them from.

Me: "Did you ask your mom where she bought your shoes from?"

J: shook her head yes.

Me: "Oh good! Where?"

J: "The sto'."  (store)

We were working on 10 frames, and somehow the kids kept losing their numbers...

JL crawled under the table and all I could see was his hand pop up holding a number and he shouted "I got me a ten!"

In my attempts to kill that pesty wasp...

JL: "Mrs. Murphy, don't get stinged by that wast..."

Practicing the number word EIGHT:

"eighk".... "eighch".....

(We will keep working!)

T: "Mrs. Murphy, can you fix my belp?  It has come a loose."

That's all for this week, folks!

Please continue to pray for me, my assistant, and all of my sweet kiddos daily.

Believe me, they are much needed and appreciated.  

Until next week,

XOXO

Chapter 4: Half of My Heart

This week was a busy one! 

Our letter this week was R, and here is our little song:
"R says /r/
rooster on the roof
/r/, /r/, /r/"
So far we have learned A, E, H, K, M, and R!  We are getting smart!

We worked on some Close Reading strategies with the book Friends.  We will continue to work on these strategies for a while so that the students can understand all of the elements of a story.

We also worked on our numbers, 1 through 5, this week.
I've got some smart kiddos!

This poor guy came in to school on Monday and could not hold his eyes open... He even fell asleep standing up in line.  Bless him.  He had a rough weekend.

(Don't worry, I let him sleep all morning!)

I can't take full credit for this one, but it was too good not to share.

One of the other Kindergarten teachers did a "Take Home Project" to help her students practice Rhyming Words.  They each got a little brown paper bag with a note that read "Please send two items from home that rhyme!"  

Well, here it is!  Very creative!

 Bear.......Hair

One of my students from my very first year of teaching, who is still very near and dear to my heart, is now in the 4th grade.  Wow!  That's hard for me to believe.  She's got a bit of a "rough" side to her, but she never wants to disappoint me.  I hadn't seen her in a few days, so I started to worry that she had been in trouble.  On Thursday, the counselor came to my room with this note and told me that Paris wanted me to read it, and that she needed to see me during my planning period.  I quickly opened it up and this was inside......

"To: Mrs. Murphy

From: Paris

I got the other half"

My heart swelled with love, and my eyes filled with sweet tears.

I love my Paris.

This week's Kinder Funnies:

JW: "I got exmas on my arm." (eczema)

Me: "Who writes the words in a book?"

AL: "The authostrator."

Me: "Who draws the pictures in a book?"

TW: "Them grown folk."

One of my kind parents brought candy for the kiddos on Friday!

I asked the kids if anyone had any allergies, like peanuts, that I needed to know about.

JL: "I ain't got no asames, Mrs. Murphy!" (allergies)

That's all for this week, folks!

Please continue to pray for me, my assistant, and all of my sweet kiddos daily.

Believe me, they are much needed and appreciated.  

Until next week,

XOXO

Chapter 3: M is for Murphy

This has been a week filled with emotions...

This week, we learned the letter "Mm".  Our letter poem goes like this:

"M says /m/

monkey on a mountain

/m/, /m/, /m/"

The kids like this poem because when saying the /m/ sounds, they rub their bellies (like, mmmm good).  I must say, it's really cute!  As we were practicing identifying words that begin with "m" I saw some lightbulbs go off in their precious minds...

Me: "Children, let's think of words that start with /m/"

Class: "monkey, music, money, man, mop, mouse"

Me: "Very good!  There's another /m/ word...that's very obvious...Mrs. ___"

Class: "MURPHY!!!!!"

All week, they continuously told Mrs. Murphy that her name begins with /m/. 

We also started learning our numbers! yay!  We worked hard on numbers 1 through 4 this week and we reviewed all of the shapes that we have learned.  We learned how to write each number, how to identify each number, how to represent each number, and how to spell each number.  That's a lot for kindergarten, right??

It is really fun to watch their little brains learn.  It is truly miraculous.

Our big learning activity for the week was comparing and contrasting our two stories: Caps for Sale and Straw Hats for Sale.  We worked on these stories all week, and on Friday, we made this Anchor Chart, also called a Venn Diagram.

(please excuse the fact that Mrs. Murphy can not free hand big circles...that's why we turned it into a pumpkin!)

Instead of getting into the emotional stories, let's get to the funny stuff! 

That's the stuff we want to remember anyway, right?!

On the playground at recess one day, there were some locusts on a tree.

Me: "Hey children, what is that on the tree?"

JL: "a crab."

TW: "a peanut."

(They were very serious...)

TW: "Mrs. Murphy, you working on your boputer?"  (computer)

JW: "My skin fell apart on my hand..."  (she had a hang nail)

TW: "Mrs. Murphy, why this fruit cup don't have no shugahs in it?"

TW: "Mrs. Murphy, he's tryin to eat them leaves..."

Me: "What? Leaves?"

TW: "Yeah! You see them leaves on his tray?"

Me: "That's salad, sweet love...."

Even though Mrs. Murphy had an emotional week, I stop myself and look at these sweet children every morning as they come into the classroom, and I can't help but thank God for this opportunity to love them and teach them.  Mrs. Henson and I love these babies so much, even when it can be hard.  I'm sure there will be more emotional days and weeks before this school year is over, but I can always start fresh the next day and show these children love.

That's all for this week, folks!

Please continue to pray for me, my assistant, and all of my sweet kiddos daily.

Believe me, they are much needed and appreciated.  

Until next week,

XOXO

Chapter 2: Tears of Love

Everyone is still here and doing well!

I was not able to post last weekend, so we have lots to catch up on!  This week was a short week, only 4 days, but it felt like it was so much longer than a regular week.  Any change in schedule throws the kiddos off, and makes this teacher a little crazy!

We have learned the letters H and K since last time we updated you!  Here's our poems:

"H says /h/

Horse in a house,

/h/, /h/, /h/"

"K says /k/

Kid in a kayak,

/k/, /k/, /k/"

These poems are all part of our Read Well program, and they build upon each other to create a fun song!  The kids are getting super good at recognizing letters, knowing the sounds we have taught (A, E, H, and K), and how to write them.  I am impressed with their little minds - they learn so quickly!

We also started learning about Rhyming Words, and read Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham book.  Rhyming is a difficult skill to master, so we will work on it for a good while!

We finished up our study of shapes.  We had such a fun time learning the names of shapes and how to describe them - how many sides and how many vertices.  (I know, vertices is a big word for Kindergarten, right?!) Here are some pictures of our Shape Anchor Charts:

We have started learning sight words, and we have also started learning how to write sentences.  We focus a lot of time on this:

"Letters make up words.  Words make up sentences.  Each word has it's own special space in a sentence."

The students can copy the sentence starter from the board, and then try to complete the sentence with their own word or words.  Here are some pictures of our "I Can..." writing.  The students drew a picture of something they can do, and tried to write the words to describe their pictures.  We also had a little fun with this writing activity...since we have been learning shapes, I put on my "brave hat" and let the kids paint circles onto colored paper by using toilet/paper towel rolls.  They had a blast!

Last, but certainly not least, we celebrated Grandparent's Day at school on Friday!  We had a few grandparents come visit our class, and I made sure to take pictures (of course).  Here's a picture of our sweet little craft we made for our grandparents:

"Grandmas and Grandpas are

everything nice,

Like presents and candy and 

raspberry ice.

And chocolate fudge sundaes,

with cherries on top,

And popcorn and peanuts and

grape soda pop.

In winter or summer,

In rain or in sun,

Grandmas and Grandpas

are wonderful fun!"

It happened...the kids saw their teacher cry....
One of my precious boys, who does not listen to Mrs. Murphy, at all, but adores Mrs. Henson, got into some trouble during Resource class one afternoon.  Mrs. Henson was explaining to him how she was disappointed in his behavior and how she expected him to do better the next day.
She said, "L, Mrs. Henson loves you, but tomorrow I want you to do better, ok?"
Me: "L, what do you say to Mrs. Henson? She said she loves you."
(no response....but not surprised!)
Me: "L, doesn't your mom and dad tell you they love you at home?"
(he shook his head no....)
So, I lost it.  In front of the class.  As they were walking out to go home.  There I stood, crying.  Mrs. Henson ran over to him and scooped him up into a big huge hug.
So, needless to say, Mrs. Henson and Mrs. Murphy tell every one of them that we love them every day.

Kindergarten Funnies:

AL: "Mrs. Murphy, I brought you some money.  But my momma said to bring her the change."

Me: "You brought me some money?"

AL: "Yep! I brought it for you.  But I gotta get some change."

Me: "Ok...I'm confused, though?  What's the money for?"

AL: "Just to go shopping with!"

Me: "What shape is this?"

LM: "That's a sware."  (square)

Me: "T, what does that 'fajita' taste like?"

TW: "It tastes like a tie..."

Me: "A tie?  What is a tie?"

TW: "A tie.  Like on a car."

Me: "Oh, a tire?!  How do you know what a tire tastes like???"

When the kids were leaving on Friday for our long weekend:

Me: "Goodbye children, I'm going to miss you all!"

KA: "Oh, please don't be sad, Mrs. Murphy.  You're too pretty to cry."

TW: "I got a dog at the house.  His name is Sawshit."  (Sausage)

TW: "Mih Henson, do you stay with her?"  (meaning, do you live with Mrs. Murphy)

Henson: "No, I have a house and Mrs. Murphy has her own house."

TW: "Oh, well I want you to stay with her, ok?"

Me: "Do you like those apple jacks?"

TW: "Uh huh, they got shugahs in it." (sugar)

"Mrs. Murphy, you got some more of them corn flake jacks?"

I fall more in love with my kiddos and my job every day.  Even on days when they test my patience and seem to be a bit difficult, I leave school loving them more and more.  I am happy, happy, happy!

That's all for this week, folks!

Please continue to pray for me, my assistant, and all of my sweet kiddos daily.

Believe me, they are much needed and appreciated.  

Until next week,

XOXO

Chapter 1: Little Peeps

We have survived another week in Kindergarten!  

More learning and fun has happened, and I'm ready to share!

This week we spent a great deal of time working with our color words, shapes, our five senses, and the letter "E".  We have been singing our color songs, a lot, and the kids are so cute singing them!   The students also practiced playing "I Spy" and using their words to create sentences about what they see according to colors.  (Example: "I see a red car.  I see a blue ball.  I see a green shirt.  I see a yellow book.  I see an orange pumpkin.")  They had to complete a sentence with the color word of the day and something they can see.  

We learned all about circles and squares this week, too.  It was so fun to watch the kids go through magazines and cut out pictures of circles and squares!  They would get so excited when they found some!  (I'll have some pictures to post next week of our Shape Charts!)  

Of course, our letter of the week was "E", and we talked about what it looks like, how it sounds, and how to write it until we became little robots about "E".... Here's our "E" poem:

"E says /e/

Eel on wheels

/e/, /e/, /e/"

I took lots of pictures of my sweeties this week, but unfortunately I will not be able to post them.  :(  I do not want to risk sharing any pictures of the children now or ever.  So, this week I promise to take more pictures (that I will keep for our class yearbook) and some of their work that I can share with you on here!  I'm really sad I can't show you their sweet faces, but it is best for us to keep their privacy.

Here are a few pictures of last week's "Apple Jack A's":

I love having them help me clean up the room every afternoon while we wait on their busses.  I happened to capture this precious moment of cleaning....

(note: I blurred out the face for privacy)

Time for Kindergarten Funnies:

Again this week I have been using our picture flashcards to develop oral vocabulary!

Me: I showed and explained a picture of a volcano.

EF: "I had a volcano until my daddy chopped it down."

Me: I showed and explained a picture of a walrus.

EF: "My daddy found a little walrus until he threw it back into the ocean..."

"That's a elegator!"  (aka- elevator)

Me: I showed a picture of a flute.

JJ: "That is a fishing rob."  

(notice he said "rob", not "rod"!)

We have been working very hard on how to ask nicely to go use the restroom.

This little guy was thinking hard about what exactly he should say when he asked...

"Mih Murphy, May I go use the mushroom?"

Me: "T, why are you not smiling?"

T: "Cuz I ain't got no teefes!"

Me: "T, what's on your arm?"

T smells it and says "That's from my head."

Me: "From your head?  What is it?"

T: "uh, it's gwease!"

On Friday, Mrs. Murphy showed her skills on the swing during recess.  The kids loved seeing me play in their element!  I called for my assistant to come swing beside me, and she declined.

One of the sweet angels, "T", ran over to me while I was swinging and said:

"Mih Henson said she can't get on the swing cuz she gonna throw up."

(side note: Mrs. Henson has bad motion sickness...)

I love birthdays!  And especially when they are little kiddo birthdays!  We have already celebrated 2 birthdays in our class.  My sweet girl, "T", turned 5 on Friday, and it was a very special day (especially for Mrs. Murphy).  

Let me just go ahead and say, I love these precious children so incredibly much.  I don't think I can explain just how much I love this job... :)

That's all for this week, folks!

Please continue to pray for me, my assistant, and all of my sweet kiddos daily.

Believe me, they are much needed and appreciated.  

Until next week,

XOXO

Introduction to Kindergarten

Welcome Back!

Just a quick update - I have moved from teaching 1st grade, where I was for three years, to now teaching Kindergarten.  I actually requested this move, and I am ecstatic to say that I am already loving it!  I have decided to rejoin the blog world so that I can keep my family and friends updated on our growing and learning experiences throughout the year.  And maybe to make you laugh and cry with me along the way...

I have missed the blog world!  So, I'm back!

I had so much fun designing and decorating my new HUGE classroom!  My assistant is the sweetest and helped me move all of my "stuff" around a few times before I figured out the best flow for us.  Here are some pictures of our classroom:

 (We have now all painted our hand prints on the "Classroom Rules" because we promise to follow them every day!)

Here's the classroom door:

In our first week of Kindergarten we started learning the alphabet and colors.  We have really cute color songs that help the kids learn how to spell each one, and believe me, they like to sing!  We also worked hard on the letter "A".  What it looks like, how it sounds, and how to write it.  Our cute "A" poem goes like this:

"A says /a/

Ant on an apple,

/a/, /a/, /a/"  

We also had a fun Friday by gluing Apple Jacks onto the letter "A"!  (I think they had more fun eating the Apple Jacks, though...)

I am currently working on getting permission forms from parents to allow me to use some pictures of the children at work.  I have some from the first week, but I want to make sure I follow the proper protocol before making any mistakes!  

Here's a selfie of the teacher on her first day of Kindergarten!  I'm just a little excited, can't you tell?!

I'll end this post with a few Kindergarten Funnies for you this week:

Me: "T, what's your favorite color?"

T: "oranch"

Using picture flashcards to develop oral vocabulary:

Me: I showed a picture of a camel.

JL: "I had a camel at my daddy's house."

Me: "You did?  As a pet?"

JL: "Uh huh, he was nice!"

Me: I showed a picture of an astronaut.

T: "That's a cowboy!!"

Me: I showed a picture of lightning.

JJ: "If you take off your shirt when it's storming you might get sharked..." (he was very serious)

KW: "Mrs. Murphy, I digged in my nose."

Me: "What?  Did I hear you correctly?  What did you say??"

KW: "I digged in my nose."

Me: "Ok, that's kinda nasty.  I need you to go wash your hands with soap, please."

KJ: "My daddy plays football!"

Me: "He does? Wow! For what team?"

KJ: "The grizby's."

I have my work cut out for me this year!  And I am so incredibly blessed to have this opportunity.  I have a wonderful assistant teacher and am ready to tackle this school year with her.  I am truly happy, and can't wait to share more exciting news with you next week!  

Please continue to pray for me, my assistant, and all of my sweet kiddos daily.  Believe me, they are much needed and appreciated.  

Welcome to Mrs. Murphy's Kindergarten class!! :)

Chapter 18: Celebrations!

So, I have not done a good job of keeping you updated on 1st grade happenings.  Although I really enjoy blogging, I am finding it difficult to make time for myself to write!  I promise to make you laugh, and maybe cry, in this post.  And I promise to keep you updated more frequently.  Count on it.

We have been learning A LOT in 1st grade:
-pronouns & possessive pronouns
-contractions
-irregular verbs - past, present, and future tenses
-counting money
-telling time
-measurement (inches & centimeters)
-writing paragraphs
-classifying solids
-disciplining hurts the teacher's feelings, too...

It happened....I had to paddle my first child.  :(
I know, let's not really talk about it.  I just need you to know that it hurt my feelings more than it hurt hers.
I really didn't enjoy it, and I really don't care to do it again...

We celebrated our 100th Day of School - and had lots of fun!
We wrote about:
"I would like 100...", "I would not like 100...", "I would buy 100...", "I would not buy 100..."
"If I had 100 dollars, I would buy..."
"100 words we have learned in 1st Grade"
"100 Nouns" & "100 Verbs"  (group projects - see pics!)
"What I will look like when I am 100 years old!" - oh, boy!

Here are some pics of our 100th Day Celebration:
As a whole class, we made "100 Collages" for Nouns & Verbs.  Each student was given a magazine and a pair of scissors, and they were instructed to cut out 5 nouns and 5 verbs.  It was so much fun watching them search for nouns and verbs and to hear them discussing things with their groups!  After they cut out, they would show me their items (a way for me to assess their learning) before they could paste them onto our posters.
One kid cut out the word "player".  I asked him if that was a noun or a verb.  He said "both."  Yay...
They all had so much fun with this project!

 Here are some pictures of "What I will look like when I am 100 years old!" drawings.

 singing!

 check out the goatee!

 another goatee...

SO cute!

Valentine's Day was special for my 1st Graders!  I painted each of their handprints in the shape of a heart for them to take home.  And they each made a Valentine's card for someone they love.  They had to write at least 3 reasons why they love that person - which was sweet!  We had a little Valentine's Party, where they each got a happy from their Secret Pen Pal, a valentine from me, and a really cute valentine from Mr. Bojangles & Snoopy!

(It said: "Hoppy Valentine's Day" - "You are toadally special!"  xoxo, Mr. Bo & Snoopy)

I got lots of candy, no - I didn't eat it all, some sweet cards, and a really cool musical light up rose.  It was a great Valentine's Day!  :)

February is also when we celebrate Black History Month.  Each classroom selected a famous African American inventor to learn about during this month.  Our class studied Phillip B. Downing, inventor of the mailbox!  We made a display for the wall outside of our classroom so that everyone who passed by could learn about him, too.

Check it out:

Most recently, we celebrated President's Day.  I had each student write about "If I were the President, I would..."  The responses were not only hilarious, they were fantastic!  They really made me proud.

"I would giv speaches to the hole world."

"I would tell evryone to be nise to peeple and treat othrs the way they want to be treated."
"I would work hard, and pik up trash, and giv peepl money."

"I would love everyone.  Everyone loves the President, so I would love everyone, too."

"I would help the unit90 stat of Amarica be friends."

Finally, "Mih Lemon" celebrated a birthday!  The kids had SO much fun with my birthday!  They were so sweet.  My Assistant Teacher was so kind to have all of the students sign their names on a handmade card for me - something I will keep forever!  As they left school on Friday, they all said "have a Happy Birthday tomorrow, Mih Lemon. I love you!"  :)

Again, I apologize for the long overdue update.  We have lots of exciting things planned for the rest of this semester, which will be over before we know it, so you'll want to stay tuned!

We have 10 school days until Spring Break!  Woohoo!