A Look Thru Deanna Jump's World

It's Debbie Clement, Master-of-Ceremonies here at PreK+K Sharing.

Today is our colleague Deanna Jump's contribution in our February issue.
She's up to her elbows right now in a myriad of exciting responsibilities and has been kind enough to agree to allow me to prowl through her blog and 'share' an over-view of my observations. Isn't she generous? Thank you Deanna!!!

The very first thing that stands out above all other as I look around, is the amazing 'quality' and 'maturity' of the student artwork created in Deanna's Kindergarten classroom. This is no doubt a testimony to many things: Deanna's own creativity, her guidance to the children, her presenting them with oodles of occasions to be creative and her immersing them in MANY opportunities to express themselves.

Here's a peek at their study of all things Americana, from earlier this month for President's Day. Those are absolutely amazing studies of the Statue of Liberty. You can see from the many examples around their anchor chart that all of the children in the room are reaching a sense of accomplishment. Deanna is teaching her students to FILL THE PAGE, one of the great delights of Art teachers everywhere.

As a picture book author and illustrator myself, one of my favorite things on earth is to see how teachers 'extend' the picture book into their classroom and into the hearts of their students. So of course I couldn't resist sharing a recent project unfolding in Deanna's room. They are studying Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are."

It's delightful to see the many ways that they are interacting with the concepts and artforms from the book.

The anchor chart is obviously a creation of the children's responses to the open-ended statement,

"When I feel WILD_________________"

It's awesome that their personal Wild Thing creatures are holding their wild writing assignments!!!!

I LUV several of their insightful comments: I stomp my feet. I swing really high. Favorites!

Now take a look at this variation on their Sendak Study. Yet more learning and lessons.

While everyone is provided a template to fill,

each child creates their own unique creature:

shapes + colors of their own design.

I could spend days prowling thru Deanna's blog.

Thanks for the opportunity to share!

Deanna invites all of our friends here to visit her at her blog and go on your own investigation of her journal of sharing going on there at Mrs. Jump's Class. I know this year she is really opening her planning + organization to viewers the world over.


She also has a store at Teacher's Pay Teachers. I know that she is too shy to toot her own horn here. So I'll report the facts on her behalf. The truth is, she is the Number One selling contributor to the TPT site.  As a result of her dedication to the field Deanna will be presenting this summer at the "I Teach K" National Conference in Las Vegas!!!

Starting Your Day the Brain Smart Way!

Hey Y'all!  I hope you are enjoying your week.  

Today is Friday!! Can I get a Yee-haw!!!

This is Deanna Jump speaking to ya from Georgia!

What is it about some weeks that make them seem sooo long?  Sometimes it feels like Friday will never get here!  I have to honestly say that's how I've been feeling a lot lately.  Our class sizes this year are a little larger than usual and when you add a lot of extra little bodies into one tiny little classroom that can equal: exhaustion, behavior problems, chaos, and did I mention exhaustion?  

But luckily, I found the book above.  My teammates and I recently started a book study on 

Creating the School Family by Dr. Becky Bailey.  We have just started this journey but we are seeing some positive changes already.  One of the things we've started implementing is Starting the Day the Brain Smart Way!  

There are four types of activities that are necessary to start your day this way:

1.  Activity to unite the group- this pulls the scattered energy of the group together.  

2.  Activity to disengage stress-turns the stress response off which increases higher-order learning.

3.  Activity to connect-stimulates impulse control centers and activates attention centers in the brain.

4.  Activity to commit-activates planning circuits in the brain and builds self esteem which helps focus attention and achieve goals.  

Dr. Bailey goes into the process in great detail and lists lots of ideas for each of these four activities. 

We've implemented this by starting our day with a Morning Meeting.  We come together to the carpet and sing our special Good Morning Song.  Then, we do some partner exercises.  Next, we recite our class pledge and make our daily learning goals.  

This is a picture of the class pledge:

I'm totally not brilliant....  I took the idea for this cute chart straight from the book.  

The picture clues are made with Mr. Potato Head pieces.   

I would love to hear from you!  What types of activities do you do to create a classroom family?

Deanna Jump

Getting Organized with Deanna Jump!

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Deanna Jump: Kindergarten Thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving!!
Happy Day of Tradition and Time of Reflection.

It's me, Debbie Clement, circus ring-master and editor-in-chief here at PreK + K Sharing, broadcasting to you from the land of opportunity and the home of new beginnings. Today it is my great joy and privilege to introduce you to our newest contributor, Deanna Jump. Deanna is part house-hold name, part professional cheerleader to fellow educators,  part celebrity of Teachers Pay Teachers notoriety fame -- plus kind and gracious fellow grandma filled with smiles. She has a very special spot in many a kindergarten teacher's heart. I can't wait for her to take up official residence here among the rest of our crew.

In the future Deanna is eager to share with us here from her own kindergarten classroom and she was kind enough to agree to join us now, if I could just help her get this particular post launched. So I have had the great good fortune to go digging thru her 14 month old blog in search of material of an introductory nature. That's her on the right above, giving a hug to her para-professional, who created the 50's style car for their 50th day of school celebrations. (Click here for more on those festivities.) They are obviously an amazing team!

Combing through Deanna's blog posts, its apparent that she places a high value on family. I know that she is treasuring this day of Thanksgiving by relishing in all things family. After all that's what Thanksgiving is for.  

You only have to scroll down just a tad here in our collective blog to read fellow kindergarten teacher Carie's post here yesterday of the heroic nature of Carie's own service in the US Army and her reflections on the effect of that service upon her own family.  

When I saw this picture in Deanna's blog it seemed a fitting follow-up to yesterday's post. I thought you'd like to meet Deanna's son-in-law upon his return home to the States from his service in Afghanistan surrounded by his adoring family. Look at Deanna's two delightful grand-daughters! Blessings indeed!! You can read the post Deanna wrote last year about Veteran's Day by clicking here. I'll let Deanna tell us about the rest of her family in time.

As I have scoured Mrs.Jump's class blog I have learned quite a lot myself. I honestly had to do a little research to make certain that I understood all about glyphs, because Mrs. Jump uses this form frequently in her classroom with her young mathematicians-in-the-making. Here's an example: Turkey glyph from last year's Nov post, click here to read more. By the way, a glyph is a graphic representation, as in hieroGHYPHic. So each child's turkey project will have personalized details based on their own specifics of liking turkey or not, their age at the time, and the story they preferred. Genius. No?

As a former elementary Art teacher I never tire of seeing creativity expressed by the entire family. From the same post mentioned above, here's a peak at the homework assignments created by Mrs. Jump's kindergarten families.

                                    I could go on:

Pilgrim Project

and on:

Click here to read about this year's Pilgrim project

But I have to say that I truly admire a woman who has a pumpkin decaying in her classroom in a salute to combining science and great literature. You'll have to click right here to read more of that process.

We all look forward to hearing directly from this Master-Teacher.

Please leave comments & questions for Deanna's welcome to our midst!!

**Please visit Deanna Jump's own blog at Mrs.Jump's Class to see her gazillions of ideas combining the Arts, Science, Math and reading direction of all sorts. Deanna writes original stories and poems and creates original teacher materials which are available through her Teachers Pay Teachers store.