Owls And Spiders (a real one)

My kindergartners also enjoyed this video of Australian spiders
(and a few other critters)!

Sunday Songs~Christy Nockels

I found Christy Nockels when she and her husband released 

"Glory Baby".  (If you, or someone you know, have a little one in heaven, this song is comforting.)

Today, I want to share "Healing Is In His Hands"...

the video is a series of landscapes, not an official song 

video, but the music is all Christy.  Enjoy.

Sunday Songs~ Matt Redman "10,000 Reasons"

Standing in the center of our living room, 

I drink in the colors of fall through the windows.  

The wind is blowing, 

the temp is hovering around 50, the hot chocolate is steaming.

A good day....that's what this is.  

And I'm singing this song in the glorious twilight of today.  

But I sing it in the darkness, too.  

Even on the hard days, 

especially in the hard times, 

I know He hides me in the shadow of His wing.

Fun In The Forest..& a Freebie!

My kindergartners are loving our study of nocturnal animals.  

This year's class is obsessed passionate about animals!

I've dedicated several book boxes to nocturnal animals, 

forest critters, and spiders. 

After reading Stellaluna, we drew bats in our writing journals.

"A bat can bite."
Note the baby bats hanging from the cave ceiling!
(Reading Rainbow has a terrific dvd for a study of bats.)

We crafted owls by using Amy Lemons' free template!

I needed a writing station activity for our forest theme...

so I created something!
It's FREE!

There is a color version and a grey scale option.
On each page, students will write
the name of the pictured animal.
For easy reference, I've included a grid page
containing the animal pictures and names.
I'm excited to try this with my kinders tomorrow!

Click HERE:  Animals In The Forest~Color
and HERE:  Animals In The Forest~grey scale
If you try it, please come back and share!

Sunday Songs~ "I Belong"

October Currently

Jump in!

The fun is at Oh' Boy, 4th Grade!

Sunday Songs~ "Starry Night"

Chris August, thank you for leading me in a new phase of worship.

Wonderful Writing

My VERY talkative auditory learners/kindergartners 

are doing well in writers' workshop.

This surprises me, given the amount of concentration and stamina that's needed to accomplish the work of writing.  

Our solution to the jabbering?.... a miniature blinking lantern!

  When the red light is flashing, the children know to be silencio!    
(Walmart--less than $5)
  The last 'button push' produces the red light.
The 'first push' flashes a series of white lights, 
which we use as the signal to whisper.  
The assistant's job includes regulating the light during table work.

During a guided drawing lesson, we learned to create a pirate.
A dad had dressed as a pirate the day before and treated us to ice cream sundaes!  He brought the loot in a "treasure box, which could only be opened after deciphering the pattern on the lid.
We used the drawing instructions in I Can Draw People.

This is from a mini-lesson on making text-to-text connections.
(Not a writers' workshop moment, but a favorite from the week!)
My class loves  Fletcher And The Falling Leaves;
we have read the book, heard the CD,
and watched the animated Scholastic version!
Most of my students made the connection to 
Leaf Trouble by the end of page three.
Don't you just want to do a happy dance when it works?!

These are writing samples from a write-the-room activity.
The student on the left is beginning to use more lower-case letters in his translations from eye-to-hand.  The student on the right is working on letter placement.  At this point in the year, I don't expect anyone to hit the mark with these kinds of lines; our curriculum worksheets, however, contain much smaller lines.  I like to build an "I can do it!" attitude by providing different types of writing paper.  I use paper with word boxes, single lines, etc.  Mrs. Wills has many samples of appropriate writing paper.  The paper shown above is from
Homeschoolcreations.com.