The teaching interview

I recently accepted a job in Dallas teaching kindergarten! To get ready for my interview I made a teaching portfolio. Even if the interviewer doesn't ask to see the portfolio, you can use it as a resource when asked various questions. I filled the pages of my portfolio with all of the things that I have accomplished as a teacher. You can add student work samples, worksheets, parent notes, assessments, etc.

(just a few of the pages I put in my portfolio)

Your portfolio should give the principal a clear picture of what you can bring to the school. They should be able to imagine you and your classroom in their school.

(click the picture to view product)

If you happen to be getting ready for an interview and need a little help I put together a unit with lots of tips to get you prepared. Like what to wear to you teaching interview! Most importantly it includes 87 of the most common questions asked during a teaching interview.

plants and bugs

Late April we began our study on plants and soil. I like to start a unit of study by charting what we wonder about. I had the kids write what they wonder about on a vegetable. I took all the vegetables and made a veggie garden.

Here is our wonder wall!

We read Dirt: The Scoop on Soil and then explored soil with cute gardening tools from the Target dollar spot and hand lenses.

Then it was onto insects. I ordered live caterpillar larva from Amazon so we could observe the life cycle of a butterfly. We watched the caterpillars grow and change into butterflies.

 We recorded our observations here. I just added this to my insect unit. You can get it here.

I also got this from Insect Lore on Amazon. They are figures that show how butterflies grow and change. I also made a mini unit to go along with this. You can find it here.

I added this to one of my morning tubs. The kids get to read a book on the butterfly life cycle. Then they get to build the life cycle using a mini anchor chart and the life cycle stages pieces. Then they get to make a mini butterfly life cycle book.

 I made one for ladybugs as well. You can find it here.

Building the ladybug life cycle

Ladybug life cycle mini book

weather

I just made my countdown to summer. We have 16 days left until summer fun! I am amazed every year how fast it goes. In April I taught my weather unit.  We made a tornado in a bottle! All you need is a tornado tube like this one from Amazon. I also added a couple of drops of food coloring and glitter. The kids got to create a vortex by twirling and swirling the bottle.

 

When we start a new unit of inquiry we ask questions and find the answers in non fiction books. Here is our wonder wall for our weather unit.

I made these cloud people a while ago from Babbling Abby. I use them every year. After reading and finding out cool facts the kids jotted down their new learning on sticky notes and added it to the different clouds.

We had to brainstorm what Earth would be like if there were no clouds.

Rhyming

We have been having a lot of fun rhyming lately! Here of some of the things I do to help kids learn how to rhyme.

 I found these adorable white boards in the Target dollar spot. I made a bunch of these rhyming cards to be used in our word work station. The kids pick a card and then rhyme words that end in -an. Adding the white boards make it extra fun!

Here are some fun rhyming songs on YouTube.

 

 

You can find all of the activities in my new rhyming unit on TPT.

dental health

We made it to March! We are so close to spring break! We wrapped up February with some dental health fun. I used this unit to teach my kids about dental health. I added a few more extras. So if you already have this unit be sure and go download the unit again.

 

In our science journals we recorded four ways to keep our teeth and gums healthy. We talked about brushing, flossing, rinsing, and going to the dentist.

 

Then we spent some time learning all about the dentist. We read this book and then made a circle map to help us organize all of our new learning.

We did a fun science experiment to help us learn that gas has mass and takes up space.  To help the kids visualize gas taking up space I gave each child a balloon and told them to blow into the balloon three times.

Here is what we learned. You can grab this simple science experiment from my all about heat unit.

a circus themed science fair

Remember this post all about matter and heat energy? For science fair we put on an expo to show off all of the things we learned about heat energy. I sent this note home with the kids in their PIRATE binder.

With the help of classroom parents we did five heat experiments in the classroom. All circus themed!

1. popping popcorn in an air popper

2. melting chocolate

3. melting caramel

4. making cotton candy

5. making ice cream with liquid nitrogen

The kids in my classroom and parents dressed up too. We had the cutest little tight rope walkers, lions, and clowns. I dressed up like a circus ring leader.

You needed a ticket to enter the circus. To earn a ticket you had to answer a science question. Then you got a recording sheet, pencil, and a clipboard. If you already bought my All About Heat Unit I just added this recording sheet and the questions.

Here are the tables for the experiments.

 

matter and heat energy

This past week we learned all about matter and the three types of matter. We also learned what isn't made of matter. We learned that energy does not have mass or take up space. We learned how a solid is turned to a liquid when heat is applied.  Here are some of the books we read.

All of the activities that we did came from this unit.

We talked about how heat changes things by popping popcorn in an air popper. We observed the physical changes happening to the kernels. We recorded our observations with popping the popcorn in our science journals. We got to use all our senses for this one and the kids loved it!

 We made this anchor chart by April Larremore from Chalk Talk. We discussed how the object would change if heat were applied to it.

After reading Sneezy the Snowman we completed this reader's response sheet. They illustrated Sneezy before heat and Sneezy after heat.

 This melted snowman craft was super simple to make. We painted the paper white, let it dry, and then added the snowman pieces.

Our science word wall about heat and matter.

 One of our science anchor charts. The kids added a mini anchor chart to their science journal and illustrated the definition.

We learned lots of big words from all of the non fiction books that we read. We discussed how non fiction books have bold words and a glossary. We made a mini picture glossary of all the new words we learned.

On this foldable I had the kids draw an example of each type of matter.

We recorded all of our new information on heat in this mini book.

On this foldable we wrote the three types of heat and drew an example of each one.