How to Avoid Assessing!

We just started back to school this past Wednesday with a teacher workday.  Oh...my...goodness!

Work Day Schedule
7:00 - Holy moley...what IS that sound?
7:01 Throw phone in  floor to make noise STOP!
7:10  Find said phone to turn off horrible noise that continues (because some moron set it to do that!-ME!)
7:15  Get out from under new snuggly blanket (with whom I have become good friends!) and step on cold floor.
7:20  Shower, throw on some jeans, kiss hubs goodbye
7:45  Drive to work with music up WAY too LOUD ( kiddos are still at home in bed...NOT FAIR!!)
7:55  Pull in to school
8:00  Socialize - Talk about  7 pounds gained over break!  YES...7!  How can I even eat that much...truly...truly!
8:30 Notice ants have attacked snack bin...How dare they!!!
8:31  Fight back!  1 point Cristy! 0 points Ants!  (That will teach them to mess with our cheese puffs!)
8:35  Eye stack of papers sitting on desk to assess and record grades. Take down Christmas decorations instead!
9:00  Clean up the room.  Notice stack of papers again. Divert eyes and keep cleaning!  Ok...well...move some things around a bit just to make me FEEL like I cleaned the room...it's not that bad, is it?
10:00  Walk past desk.  Are those papers still sitting there?  Better tackle that in a bit!  Move on to writing lesson plans for the next 2 days.  Who doesn't love a SHORT week!
11:00 Almost lunch!  But really...those papers aren't gonna grade themselves!  Finally tackle checking papers, work samples, and checklists to get ready to enter 2nd 9 week grades.
11:45  What's that Page?  You are ready to go grab some lunch?  Am I in the middle of anything?  Nah!
12:15  Return from Zaxby's.  Eat lunch!  Still not sure where those 7 pounds came from!
12:30  No more excuses!  MUST...GRADE...PAPERS!
2:00  All papers, work samples, and checklists have been tackled!  Time to enter grades on the computer.
3:00  All grades are entered!  Well, all the ones that I have information for.  Realize I missed a few assessments.  Really...that standard is in the 2ND NINE weeks???  OK...better make a plan for that!
3:30  Plan for 1st day back with the kiddos!  "Good morning sweet babies. I missed you.  How was Christmas.  Now go get your pencil boxes and sit down!  We have some assessing to do!
4:00  Principal kicks us out of the building!  Bless you sweet principal!  Glad she makes us leave or I swear we stay until midnight!

OK...mostly productive day, but do you ever find yourself in this situation?  You collect work samples, assess all along to spread it out, make checklists, but wait until the last minute to get it all recorded and organized so that you can enter grades!  Ugh!!!  Why do we do it to ourselves!!!!!!

SO...STINKIN...GLAD that is over...well...until the next 9 weeks!!! :)

OK---So maybe we can't really AVOID assessing!  Just in case you are like us, and realized you forgot to assess one or two of those standards for report cards, here are a couple of assessment pieces we created to use with our kiddos.  Nothing fancy, but maybe 1 or 2 of them can help you out in a pinch!

      

Here are 2 others: 

 Prepositions and Extending Sentences 

Subject/Verb Agreement

Hope you had a great first few days if you started back this week!  If you don't start back until next week, please don't tell me!  I'll just be jealous! ;)

Leave a comment to win our newest math pack!

Whew! We survived Halloween week!

Time to get back to our regular business! You know...

Math ...that doesn't involve scooping seeds, weighing and measuring pumpkins, and orange festivities in general!

Reading...not including bouncing, rolling, thumpin, bumpin, runaway pumpkin stories!

And writing...all bats, pumpkins, and trick or treating are done!

We do LOVE  Halloween...but these kiddies are OFF...the...CHAIN!!! The -whole -week!

So...back to business!!!

We are just about to start Unit 3 for math.  We have been working on our newest pack for several weeks now.  I know we promised we would have it done by Monday, but it took us until yesterday.  

We are thinking the 2 day sugar coma from all of the Halloween candy we scarfed down like people stranded on an island with NOTHING to eat for years our kiddos ate could have p.o.s.s.i.b.l.y slllllooooowwwwed us down a wee bit!

Anywho...we finally posted it yesterday.  Thank you to all of you awesome followers who have bought BOTH Unit 1 and Unit 2!  We are SOOOOOO thrilled, elated, ecstatic that you like these packs.  We are LOVING them in our own rooms too!

So because we are probably just now coming down off the "sugar", and because you KNOW we like to give stuff away, and just flat out because...

We want to give this new pack away to some of you guys! 

Please leave us a comment and let us know what you think.  Be sure and include your email address in case you are the BIG winner!

We'll give the pack away to 3 of our followers!  Let's say you have until Friday to leave us a comment for a chance to win the pack.  We'll do the random generator thingy!

If you blog about our pack /mini-giveaway, please leave that in your comment too.  

We'll count your comment x's 5 for EXTRA chances to win!

We hope you are off the "sugar" too and revving up for turkey time (another wonderful excuse to eat ourselves into an oblivion!)  

Singin, Dancin, and Tiaras.. Oh ,my???

Hi Blogging Friends!! This is Page, the singin/dancin/tiara wearin half of Kindergarten Squared.

I love, love, love to sing and dance with my kindergarten babies!! I promise if they can sing it, they can learn it. We sing everything from the days of the week to counting by 5s, to the 50 States and even the Presidents' song. Seriously, my kindergarten babies learn the 50 States and all the Presidents just by singing songs. I have to say though, with the recent discovery of kindergarten songs on You Tube, singing and dancing have risen to a whole new level!! The songs on You Tube are so awesome that it even got my pal, Cristy, the better half of Kindergarten Squared, singin and dancin! (Hey Cristy here- Page is not even lying. I am not a big fan of all the singing hoo-ha! But alas... I teach little people and they do like the dancing!  So for all you non-dancers/singers out there...it's ok to admit...There's hope for us yet!). Below are some of our favorite You Tube song links. If there are specific standards you want a song for, just post a comment and we will see what we can find. Cristy and I found some of the songs, but I have to admit many of the links we will be posting were suggested by my fabulous sister-in-law, Dwan who teaches kindergarten in my hometown of Valdosta, Georgia. We used to teach together at WG Nunn Elementary! For more on my tiara wearin, see the picture at the bottom of this post and I will explain :).

Many of the songs below were put together by Harry's Kindergarten! Thanks Harry! We love u!!

Hip Hop Alphabet song is a fun song when learning to sing the alphabet. I love the catchy tune and that it doesn't sing with the traditional stops. Hope this helps your kiddos not think LMNOP as one letter. :)

Hip Hop Alphabet 

ABC Rap is a fun song to practice letter sounds. It shows the uppercase and lowercase letters as well as objects that begin with each sound.

ABC Rap 

 

I Can Count to 100 is an awesome counting song where we practice counting by 1s to 100. We do 10 different exercises 10 times each to add some motion to the song.

 I Can Count to 100

The Counting by 5s song is my favorite!! It is a great way to practice counting. It is so fun :).

Counting by 5 to 100

2D Shapes I Know is super fun! It sings about the number of sides on different shapes as well as objects in the real world.

2D Shapes I know

3D Shapes I Know helps with those hard to learn shapes like sphere and cube. It also sings about the cylinder and cone. That way your kids can Exceed the Standard in Kindergarten. This song also talks about the different shapes' attributes as well as objects in the real world.
3D Shapes I know

Days of the Week Rap Back is also fun! It has the kids sing the days as well as clap out the syllables for each of the days of the week!

Days of the Week Rap Back 

The Seasons song is probably the favorite song in our class! This song sings and spells the seasons. Also, pictures that represent each season flashes on screen with super catchy rhymes. 

If You Need to Know the Seasons

D Song is awesome when introducing and teaching the letter D. It covers all learning modalities! Kids see, hear and even write the letter in the air. The song is very repetitive and works on the letter name, sound as well as things that begin the the /d/ sound!! The best thing is that there is one of these songs for every letter in the alphabet. To find this song, my sister-in-law told me to type in D song. It popped right up. All the great letter songs are by Have Fun Teaching.  I have not used all the letters yet, but if they are as good as the D Song, I will be using them.

D Song 

The songs above are not all the songs we use, but just some of our favorite ones! We hope you love them!!

We have not found a fabulous Months of the Year song on You Tube, so would love any suggestions! Also if you know a great song for any other standard, we would love to have it!! Thanks so much!!

Yep, this is me in all my favorite things to wear! I love knee socks!! I wear lots of crazy knee socks in the winter with skirts and Mary Jane shoes. I know I am crazy! Sometimes it is fun to dress like a 5 year-old though. Also, I love my one of a kind, made by love, trash bag and duct tape sweat shirt!! Who made it you ask? Of course the most creative, talented teacher in the classroom, Mrs. Archer, my fabulous side kick and number 1 assistant, who I could not live without!! BUT my favorite accessory is the tiara! I love tiaras! I have several! No, I didn't really earn the tiaras from being a beauty queen but I do love everything Disney and princess! I never really had tiaras until I became a teacher. Now I get to be the princess of the classroom everyday. The main purpose of my tiara in the classroom is to signal students that I am working with other friends. This also signals them to ask Mrs. Archer or another friend if they have a question or a problem. It works most of the time :). They are five and sometimes they forget! I do have enough tiaras in the classroom for hat day, so all the girls can dress like a princess!!

 Fun times as always in Kindergarten!!