Liebster Award Nomination!

Well, that Brittany Brune over at Nifty in First Grade is just the best friend a girl could have! She has nominated me for the Liebster Award!! Pretty fitting that the word "liebster" is a German word meaning such things as "dearest, sweetest, kindest..." because that's what my best friend is!! :) 

The Liebster Award is given to a new blogger with less than 200 followers.

Per the rules of the Liebster Award, Brittany has given me some questions to answer about myself. 

1.  What grade do you teach? What grades have you taught? How long have you been teaching?

I teach Kindergarten, I have taught Pre-k as well as I have worked in daycare and childcare settings. I have been teaching Kindergarten for about 2 years now, but have been teaching in the Early Childhood field for about 4 years. 

2. What book do you read to your class each year without fail? 

If you've read my previous post you'll know the answer to this question already. Any and all of the Piggie and Elephant series by Mo Willems. My kinders love them as read-alouds, but they also love to read them themselves!

3. If you weren't a teacher, what would you be doing? 

If I wasn't a teacher, I would be working in DisneyWorld somewhere. My ultimate dream would be to be a "friend" of a Disney Princess in Disney. To see the happiness of every visitor coming in each day would be so fulfilling. :)

4. What's one thing you're just dying to buy for your classroom?

New bookshelves! I have recently been very inspired by another blogger and her classroom (check out Maria Manore's blog KinderCraze). I am hoping to totally revamp my classroom this summer!! 

5. What's your non-teaching guilty pleasure?

Pretty Little Liars and Once Upon a Time. I am a little bit obsessed with both of these TV shows...Besides some great TV, I just recently bought myself an iPad and I have been spending way too much time playing around with it and figuring out what it can do!

6. Favorite book that is not teaching related?

The HUNGER GAMES series. These books got me back into reading recreationally. I love that the main character is a strong heroine, a great role model for girls today! The story is also incredibly compelling, I couldn't put them down!

7. What's one thing on your bucket list?

Travel around Europe. Hands down, this is the next big trip I will be taking!

8. Favorite restaurant?

The Cheesecake Factory. They have EVERYTHING, fabulous drinks, and tasty cheesecake. I also feel really classy whenever I eat there :)

9. Who would play you in a movie about your life?

Rachel McAdams. I have been told she's my  celebrity doppleganger! And I just love her.

10. What's one thing you could eat everyday?

Mozzerella cheesesticks. Is that weird? I actually eat one of these everyday!

11. What inspired you to begin blogging?

I actually began it to help me get more organized. The best part about this blog (when I actually keep up with it!!!) is that I have an organized, easy to access lesson plan log! While the main purpose now is to share my ideas with other teachers, it is great to be able to look back on what I did this week last year and have it all organized for me, pictures and all!!! 

Along with answering Brittany's questions, she has also asked that I share 11 random facts about myself! Here goes nothing!!

1. I am Disney OBSESSED!!! "It all started with a mouse"

2. I am a Mac user. Apple all the way!!

3. I hate the smell of popcorn.

4. Spring is the best season, and it seems like it will be the SHORTEST season this year!!!

5. When asked what my favorite hobby is, I usually answer with "shopping"

6. I have a puppy (who lives at my parents' house) who is my favorite animal on the planet!!

7. I LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC! Especially Miss Miranda Lambert!!

8. I have to sleep with a fan.

9. I knew I was going to be a teacher since the 5th grade. Never changed my occupational aspirations after the 5th grade.

10. Tulips are my favorite flowers!

11. While you'd never guess it from my personality, I absolutely LOVE traveling to Las Vegas! 

There you have it pals! Here are my nominees!!! 

Keep smiling!!

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

niftyinfirstgrade.blogspot.com

http://therazzledazzleclassroom.blogspot.com

http://oodlesofteachingfun.blogspot.com

http://iluvkinder.blogspot.com

http://kindercutie.blogspot.com

It's MO WILLEMS week!!!

Alright, everyone. This has been MY FAVORITE week thus far! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Mo Willems' books, and think you ALL need to get some in your Kindergarten (Pre-K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade) rooms. Even big kids love these books, so get them NOW! 

We have been reading Mo's series Elephant and Piggie all year, but this week we read "Can I Play Too" as a mentor text and reference text for our activities. 

amazon.com

Tuesday was our Pigeon day. I love that Pigeon, and the kiddos do too. He is so CRAZY! I love how Mo Willems draws and writes the characters emotions in such a melodramatic way. I read "The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog" to the class, also a great mentor text. We discussed how the words look when Pigeon talks (Mo likes to use speech bubbles for his stories' dialogue) as well as how the words look when he changes emotion (i.e. when he speaks excitedly you see many exclamation points, when he is angry the words are VERY big and different colors). After discussing the different identifying parts of the story, I taught the students how to draw "The Pigeon" 

(check it out here! http://www.pigeonpresents.com/activities/pigeon_draw01.pdf )

After learning how to draw the Pigeon, we made up our own "Don't Let the Pigeon..." stories! Some of my favorites were Don't Let the Pigeon Eat Sushi, and Don't Let the Pigeon Mow the Lawn. 

Here's a picture of Don't Let the Pigeon Ice Skate.   

Today we journaled about our favorite Mo Willems character (lots of my kiddos LOVE the Duckling featured in the Pigeon series). Tomorrow we will be making our own Elephant and Piggie comics! I will be doing a separate post about that activity.

LOOK in my next post for a FREEBIE of my "Don't Let the Pigeon..." story sheet! 

Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to follow me on twitter (@littlemissABC), follow my blog via email, and like the Kindergarten Alphabet Soup page on Facebook! 

Keep Smiling! 

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Well fellow bloggers and friends, the time has come for a little throwback Thursday action. I am going to start a Thursday entry each week (hopefully!!) where I will share with you one of my favorite memories from school past, teaching ideas from my past, or funny stories from my childhood. In honor of Easter coming so soon here's a silly story --

One Sunday morning during the children's message in church, Pastor asked us all a questions. "Who is coming back?" He asked. I quickly raised my hand and yelled out, "MICHAEL JORDAN!!!!" (I assume this was the year that MJ was returning to the fabulous CHICAGO BULLS, but I think the answer Pastor was looking for is Jesus...)

PS: You can now find me on twitter!! Follow me @littlemissABC for funnies, teaching tidbits, and ideas!
Follow @littlemissABC



KEEP SMILING!!!
xoxo,

Kindergarten Alphabet Soup is on FACEBOOK!

Hi followers, visitors, pinners, and teacher friends! Make sure you head to facebook and click "LIKE" for Kindergarten Alphabet Soup's new facebook page! The page is another great way to keep connected with the blog and teacher updates! :) Thank you so much for all the support! 

https://www.facebook.com/kindergartenalphabetsoup

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Update post!! Letters to Mickey and Cinderella!!

We have heard back from the main Mouse himself!! Mickey sent my kiddos some cute little postcards in reply to the letters they sent last week to Mickey or Cinderella! I am so glad that we were able to get replies, and even though the kiddies were looking for actual letter responses to their writings and questions, they were overjoyed to receive a response from Mickey Mouse. 

Here's what YOU can do to  use this as a fun tool for a letter writing introductory activity! And (hopefully) you'll get a reply from the main Mouse too! :)

During Fairy Tale week, I thought it would be fun to let the kids do some letter writing to some Disney characters. I had seen the activity done all over Pinterest/teacher blogs, and being a Disney girl I wanted to give it a try to see if it would work! I introduced the kinders to a basic letter writing template, where we discussed headers and ending statements. (Dear __________,

 From, ___________)

I had read that usually the responses people got after sending letters to Disney were from Mickey or Cinderella, so those were the two character choices I gave to the kiddos. I wanted to be sure to do everything so that they would get a response! We had some ADORABLE letters to these characters, I was floured with how excited they got about writing!!! (see picture in previous post)

I put each letter into a separate envelope and addressed them separately. I didn't know how the postcards would be sent back, so I wanted to be sure to get one for each child. On the return address line I put each students' name and then the address of our school (make sure to inform your school secretary that you may be getting a package from the Mouse so they can get it to you! Our FABULOUS school secretary was totally happy to help deliver the envelope!)

We sent the letters to the fan mail department at Disneyland:

Disneyland Resort

Guest Communications

Attn: Character Fan Mail

P.O. Box 3232

Anaheim, CA 92803-3232

Within a little over a week we had received a big white envelope from the MOUSE! I was so ecstatic that we had gotten a reply, and a quick one at that! They sent about 25 blank postcards to us, which I then took and wrote (in Mickey's autograph, of course) each child's name onto the postcard. I handed them out and I have never seen such happy kiddos! Such a fun activity to get kids excited about writing, and learning in a different way!

Check out http://www.mousekatools.com/2013/05/07/disney-characters-respond-to-fan-mail/ for another example of how this activity works! Thanks for the idea :) 

Keep Smiling and have a MAGICAL day!

xoxo, Little Miss ABC

Hello fearless Kinder teachers! It's been a while since my last post...almost a year to be exact. My fault! I want to keep this up more!! This year has been insane, as many of you can attest to I'm sure.

Today we had a visit from a silly leprechaun who not only messed up our traps, but he got into our Lucky Charms stash AND left green foot prints all over. But at least he left us some gold before he skee-daddled out the door.

I have recently been traveling a lot for conferences where I have learned a ton of great ideas, interventions, and activities that I am excited to implement in my classroom. My next post will be a compiling of some of the great things I learned at the conferences! Some of the teachers I had the privilege of listening to are some of the Kinder community GREATS! So excited to share their ideas with you.

Keep smiling :)

Little Miss ABC

PS: Here's a picture of some of the ADORABLE letters my kinders wrote to their favorite Disney characters during Fairy Tales week. Love that my little lady asked Cinderella if she was having a "very nice day" :) <3

Weeks of Weather

I have been MIA the past few weeks. It's been hectic in Kindergarten with the end of the year approaching. But I just HAD to share the fun things we've been doing the past few weeks while learning about the WEATHER! And we've had some crazy, real life examples of all kinds of weather in the Chicagoland Area. Rain, floods, snow, sunshine and 70 degrees, wind, clouds, you name it we had it. 

The first week when we began talking about weather the class and I discussed the water cycle, clouds, and precipitation --

Clouds

We had one nice day to be able to go outside and look at the clouds. Before heading outside, we read the story Little Cloud by Eric Carle. We talked about how clouds may sometimes look like different shapes, as well as when lots of clouds join together and get heavy, they produce precipitation. The students all had clipboards, "sky" paper, and white crayons and were able to draw the cloud shapes they saw. 

I found an awesome way to make puffy paint using glue and shaving cream, and the next day we painted our own clouds. The students were able to choose whatever shape they wanted to make their cloud, and they LOVED painting with the puffy paint!

Precipitation

Once we had learned about clouds it was time to talk about the water cycle and precipitation! We used some science experimentation to discover how the water cycle works. One experiment we tried was by creating our own rain storm using a glass vase, boiling water inside of the vase, and a plate with ice cubes on top to create the condensation. The kiddies struggled with sitting and watching the rain form, but once it began to drip down they were very excited that we made "rain!"

We also made a rain storm using shaving cream, food coloring, the clear vase, and water. This experiment helped show the children how once a cloud gets heavy, the rain falls down.

Check back next week for some pictures of our Weatherman project where we made our very own Kindergarten Weather Reports! :)

Xoxo,

Little Miss ABC