Trojan Buck Store

The Trojan Buck Store is open for business and we went shopping for the first time today!  From now on we will go every other week.  The students were so very excited and a great time was had by all. :)

Before I show pictures of our shopping adventure let me give a little background information for those of you who don't know what the Trojan Buck Store is all about.  The kids earn these Trojan Bucks for good behavior:

At Colona School we have a behavior system we follow called PBIS (Positive Behavior In School.)  The beauty of this system is that we try to highlight the positive things that children do..... rather than the negatives.  It is seriously amazing.... if as we walk down the hallway I say, "Wow, look at Johnny!  He is walking soooo nicely and quietly!" Then, like magic, the other children seem to do the behaviors that earned Johnny that praise; not to mention that the look of pride on Johnny's face is worth a million bucks.  It works SO MUCH better than this example, "Johnny, you are doing a terrible job walking down this hallway!"  Who wants to hear all of that negativity all day?  I have found, through trial and error I must admit.... that children WANT to do well, and they respond SO much better when focus is put on the positive rather than the negative.   Children must follow our "Trojan Traits" of being respectful, cooperative, responsible, and prepared.  We teach the children what it looks like to follow the Trojan Traits in every part of our school.  When we catch them doing these things we reward them with Trojan Bucks.  They can spend their Trojan Bucks in our store!

I am part of the PBIS committee in our school.  I know how hard everyone has worked to make this possible for the children here at Colona School.  I especially want to give enormous, heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Legare because she has been instrumental in making this experience a reality.  Thank you!

Getting ready to spend our bucks!

Shopping fun!

So many choices. :)

Those poppers are just so popular!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere!

I have SO much to share with you!  Sorry this didn't get posted last week..... I had a sick baby on Friday and I'm sure we all know how that goes. :)  This apple unit is one of my very favorite units!  There are just so many fun things to do.  I love, love, love it!

We did a massive hallway display.  It turned out to be amazing!  I am going to keep it up so you can see it at conferences.  We read, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree, and decorated a tree for each season.  Then, we did interactive writing to write a sentence about it.  Interactive writing is a cooperative event where the children and the teacher jointly compose and write text.  The children are really learning how words work, basic sentence structure, and the relationship between reading and writing. Also, since each child had turns at writing, I use this time to reinforce how to properly write the letters.  Here are some pictures:

Interactive writing!

One fun thing we did this week was read, Ten Apples Up On Top!, by Dr. Suess.  Then we made an adorable class book!  This activity was SO FUN!  The kids loved the story.... and were so excited to put their apple stickers on top of their heads.  The class book will be making its way to your house.... but was so darn cute I just had to make a quick slideshow to show it off!

I try to have the children do entries into their "Math Problem Solving Notebook" and their "Writing Notebook" at least once or twice a week.  I absolutely adore using these notebooks.  My goal this year is to have entries be more systematic and meaningful.  I will have these notebooks at conferences for you to take a peek at. :)






If you read the "About" section of this blog you read that I am addicted to fonts and Coca-Cola. :)  Well, unfortunately, that isn't all..... I'm also addicted to making file folder games.  File folder games are, well...... games that are inside of file folders. :))  They are GREAT center activities and I am able to hit a ton of skills with them.  I made this great (if I do say so myself) file folder game this week to go along with apples.  The kids had to match upper and lowercase letters.  To differentiate the instruction the children who were able to also had to say the sound and a word that had that letter in it.  These games take a ton of time to make.... but are soooo worth it!



Okay, seriously, what kind of kindergarten class would this be without a song or poem to go with this unit?  Prompt your child with, "Way up high in the apple tree" and hear them go to town with our poem this week!  I have to give kuddos to Mrs. Parker who took the poem and cut up the words into a puzzle that the kids had to put back together.  They had a great time doing that and they really did a fabulous job too!

We of course had to do apple tasting!  We rated each apple that we tasted and then made a graph of which kind of apple we like the most and least.  How fun!  I wish I had pictures to share, but unfortunately the guest teacher did this with them on Friday when I was absent. :(

Is there anything better than warm, homemade applesauce?  We made it!  I took a ton of pics of this activity, so here is another slide show for you!  The kids added sugar and cinnamon.... then when the apples were cooked they took turns mashing it up!  It was soooooo good!

This is turning into a super long post.... but here are a few more pics of things we did!

Working on our apple book.

This was a great activity for number identification and counting. :)

We made apple patterns!

Tracing leaves for our hallway display.

This was a neat flip book we made:

Last, but not least, we had a birthday this week!  Happy Birthday!!

ABC Party!

We have gone through every letter of the alphabet!  Today was a day of celebration! We started off today by reading Alphabet Under Construction.

It was an absolutely ADORABLE book about a little mouse who constructs the letters of the alphabet in different ways.  The kids loved it!  Then, we constructed our own alphabet using the first letter of our names.  Oh my goodness...... I don't think I've ever had so much fun!!!! The kids had an awesome time constructing their letter!  A BIG HUGE thank you goes out to all of the parents who donated supplies for this activity, as well as Mrs. Bell for the idea!  It wouldn't have been half as neat or exciting without all of the goodies you brought! We sang alphabet songs, played an alphabet game, and made a new class book about our favorite letter!  Here are some pics of the kids constructing!!  Love it!!!

Hmmmm..... which cool thing should I choose?

There they are.... hanging in our room!

One of the finished products!

Next week we are going to do a thematic unit on apples.  I have been working hard on this and can't wait to share with you all of the fun things we do!  Have a great weekend! :)