Reading Challenge!

Last week I proposed a reading challenge to my kindergarten friends. 

To celebrate our growth in reading, love of books, and our school year of 180 days, we are reading 180 books during the month of May! 

We have been counting all of the books that we read together at school and the books that the children read at home. 

I can't tell you the excitement that this challenge has created in our classroom. Students are running into the room each morning waving their list of books to add to our chart, announcing the number of books they read, and eagerly lining up to fill in their  blocks on the book chart.

                    

In just 10 days, we are already up to 159 books!!!

Dear Kindergarten Friends, 

Way to go! We are well on our way to reaching our reading goal! I am so proud of each one of you and love to see your excitement for reading and books!

We can do this!

Love,

Mrs. Rider


P.S. Here are some of my favorite pictures of you enjoying books:

This digital collage generated with Smilebox

This Plus That, Kindergarten Style

My Kindergarten Friends and I enjoyed Amy Krouse Rosenthal's new book, This Plus That, this week.

Thank you to everyone who entered my This Plus That Giveaway.

I loved reading all of your creative equations!

After reading the book we decided to try writing our own little equations. The children did an AMAZING job with this. 

First, we brainstormed a list of ideas together. 

Next, each student tried writing their own equations. They really enjoyed playing with different ideas and words. It was wonderful to hear students brainstorming and sharing their ideas with one another.

Finally, students chose their favorite equations to publish.

*click to zoom in


amazing mentor text + creative kindergarten friends = 
writing that makes me smile! 
Check out all of the students' amazing equations below: 

This free digital slideshow generated with Smilebox

We have a winner!!

Thank you to everyone who entered my

 This Plus That Book Giveaway.

I loved reading all of the creative equations that you came up with. 

To choose a winner, I numbered each of the 50 entries and used a random number generator to pick a number. Here are the results: 

I was pleasantly surprised to discovery that comment/entry #6 belonged to my son Scott's former 1st grade teacher. Scott is almost a 4th grader now, but often reminds me of the fun science and poetry activities that he did in Mrs. Langston's class. 

Here is Shannon's comment:

Langston's Learners said...

What a cute idea! I am going to have to check out her books! I love the other this+thats.

student "aha moments" + daily hugs = best job in the world!

April 28, 2011 9:16 PM 

Congratulations!! Scott will deliver the book soon!

My class loved the book and writing their own This Plus That statements... look for a post on this tomorrow! 

Fun Educational Songs & Videos

I just found a HUGE collection of great educational songs and videos on YouTube. (Maybe this is really old news, but it is new to me, so I am EXCITED!!)

Have you heard of Harry Kindergarten's Channel on YouTube?

It's awesome!!

I know that my students will just L-O-V-E these!

Here are a few of the math ones that I think my students will enjoy:

I Can Count to 100:

Blasting Off! Counting by 5's to 100

Numbers all Around

Numbers in the Teens

Numbers in the Twenties

Show Me the Money 

Check out more of HarryKindergarten's videos on YouTube: 

HarryKindergarten