August's Calendar

Here is August's Activity/Homework Calendar. Enjoy!

You’re on the Right Track

As part of our transportation unit each year, we travel to our local train station and take the train to the next stop. From there we take the bus to the airport where there is an observation tower by the runway to watch planes take off and land. This field trip is easily one of my favorites. I used to take the train all the time in college to get from my dorm to the airport to fly home, but for most people taking the train is a rare opportunity and most kids haven’t been on a train before our trip.

Since the transportation unit comes pretty early in the year, I thought it would be fun to start the year with that theme as well for our “welcome” display. To start I created an engine and some train cars for the outside hallway display. The train track was just strips of black construction paper resting on green bulletin board paper for the grass. For the background I stretched a long rectangle of blue bulletin board paper and place the green paper and train tracks on top. I also added a sun with a smiley face because apparently I am really a kid at heart.)

To make the train I cut a silhouette of an engine out of black paper. Then, for each car I used a 12” x 18” sheet of colored construction paper and then added two black wheels at the bottom. I put several children’s names on each of the cars and wrote across the top in “smoke” letters:  “You’re on the Right Track in Kindergarten!” After the first week of school I put each child’s picture next to their name on the “kindergarten train.”

I actually ended up liking the train so much that I saved it and transferred into my room the next year. In this room we had these huge soffits that came down around the middle of the classroom. I hated the big bare spaces but had never gotten up to put anything there. That summer I made the same outdoor background using bulletin board paper and attached it to the soffit using stapes and glue. Then I attached the train so it looked as if it was running across the soffit. I made each car a different color and as part of our color unit the kids found and attached different representation of that color to the correct car on the color train. Classic teacher - we can reuse anything under the sun, which is probably why we save everything as well!

A New Year is Popping Up

It’s that time again to think about how you are going to welcome your future friends to a new school year. I spend a ridiculous amount of time deciding what my start of year display is going to be and typically use at least one workday to get it all done. I like to tell myself that it’s because first impressions matter (which they do), but secretly I think it is just one of those teacher things I dreamed about doing (like using an overhead) and now that I can finally do it I may go over the top a little bit.

I’m almost positive I originally saw this idea (or one very similar) in a Mailbox magazine years ago. A teacher had taken a large sheet of bulletin board paper and stretched it for a background display. Then he or she had cut a large bowl out of paper and put it at the bottom. Inside the bowl and popping up all around were pieces of popcorn with the students’ names on them. The title said “Look Who’s Popping Up in Kindergarten!” Too cute.

Keeping with the food theme, I also saw a display that was an apple tree that “grew” from the hallway floor up to almost the ceiling. From the tree were hanging apples with each child’s name and the saying “You’re the Apple of My Eye.” I also think it would be cute to have the same food - apples or popcorn - as a snack for families at the Open House. Yum!