Injecting Rhyming into Your Day

One of the little quips I use to help students remember specific people's names like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and different authors that we feature like Eric Carle... I simply inject a rhyming name while I'm talking during our discussion. This works wonders with kinders and really keeps their listening ears engaged.

They love catching me saying, "...and so that's why we'll be painting like Teric Garle today" and before I've finished saying "today" they are immediately interjecting, "No, Eric Carle!" So, looking back to October when we were studying the art work, love of insects and concept of pattern stories found in many Eric Carle books... here's a portion of our class mural and summary of the beloved Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The tail end photo didn't turn out so clearly. This year, I made the caterpillar body and laminated it (so I won't have to remake every year). We simply wrote the summary using a vis-a-vis marker. More pattern stories we love and use as reference points...

Rhyming injected into what we do to keep kinders ears tuned? Yep! Tiny change to keep everyone on the same page!

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Instant Homework - Vacation Memory Book

One of my kinders is taking a family trip to Disney soon and I asked if there was anyway I could go with. Well, my request was denied but it sparked an idea (with additional thanks to the prodding of wonderful discussion on proteacher) for me to create a memory book designed for our kinders. Searching the web failed to reveal one that was kinder-friendly and age appropriate. 

So, ta-daah, I whipped up a little magic and now my students can keep learning while creating memories away from the classroom. Satisfies the parent request for gathering homework ahead of time - in my mind that's a big phew (sigh of mental checklist relief)!

 

"You're going on vacation and you'll be missing that many days of school? Oh, how exciting. Here, I have a present for you. It's a brand new book that's never been written in. I'll let you take it with you if you promise to keep track of your memories and bring this back to share!" 

 

Now at least we can have some wonderful experiences captured to share with the class and I have instant homework ready to go the next time too. Perhaps I can convince the next student of mine to let me go to Disney with them {wink}

{Vacation Memory Book}

More Writing

the write stuff
No David... Revisited
creating a writer's workshop folder in kindergarten
Who'll Believe It Really Happened?

Do you keep a secret stash or printable like these for such occasions? Do tell about it!

If you like what I do here on KindergartenWorks, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly.
- Leslie

*Free downloadable Thank You Gift included when you subscribe via email or RSS.

The Real 12 Days of Christmas

There is a fun song about the 12 Days of Christmas I heard this season by Reliant K and part of it goes, "What's a partridge? In a pear tree?" (I love Christmas music btw). We read this story a few times before break. It made me chuckle to think - we were also questioning those beloved gifts and decided that soooo much poultry really didn't get us into the Christmas spirit.


So, having said that we created our own list of Christmas-y things...

 

...and I am always amazed with what adjectives they come up with to describe their things. We did this as a shared writing/reading activity. Then, what took place is what we call "shrink-a-dinkle-doo" (what I tell my kinders whenever I shrink something or put it into the computer)... Okay, so if you don't teach kindergarten, you may not see my made up words as anything but a little wacky and that's ok with me.

 I use a kinder-friendly font similar to this free one and enlarge it to legal sized).

They work in pairs to add specific sight words and to illustrate. We are really working on using a pencil first to get details, so its a must!

I love seeing the ideas the come up with shone in their best kindergarten light.

I will also record our class reading the book, and each pair is responsible for their own page. The ownership in this project is fantastic.

I made a few paper copies to stick into all of our reading centers and sent one home too. I like to think of this as an early Christmas present for my kinders.

The Real 12 Days of Christmas - Editable Version

Our first audio book is definitely going into listening center - they are going to love it! I think parents will all want a copy too!

If you like what I do here on KindergartenWorks, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly.
- Leslie

*Free downloadable Thank You Gift included when you subscribe via email or RSS.

Gingerbread Adventures

We embarked on a two-week adventure that sucked us right into the story of "The Gingerbread Man."

Carefully orchestrated, it went off without a hitch and true learning blossomed as students engaged themselves in authentic reading and writing situations. After delivering our cookies, we return to find out that someone peeked! The adventure begins...

Our adventures took us through trying one solution each day: writing lost posters and hanging them around the school, visiting classrooms and reading a letter and answering questions about the lost cookies, sneaking stocking-footedly through the hallways, freezing like statues in the hallway, trying to sound like gingerbread men and calling out, "Run, run as fast as you can..." All to no avail.

Last on our list of ideas was making gingerbread houses to catch our cookies, inspired by Gingerbread Baby. We placed our houses throughout the school in places that would be perfect for catching 3" tall cookies. We return to school the next day to find.... no cookies. But what should someone notice as we come out of the room to take a restroom break later that day? The look on the first child's face when our long-lost gingerfriends had finally found their way home to the "gingerly" constructed gingerbread houses festooned with candies and frosting galore - priceless and a look that reminds me why I choose to do what I do!

I've wrapped it up for you to create your own Gingerbread Adventures! Everything you need to make a learning-filled unit that will capture the hearts of your kinders. It's a 70 page unit that will make your adventure a breeze! With lots of extra goodies to help your readers and writers grow - click here. Happy Adventuring!

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First Time for Everything!

Well, there have been many teachers who've gone before me and created awesome blogs that are helpful, creative, witty and inspiring. I'm not necessarily expecting this blog to be all-inclusive or take your blog experience to "the next level," but I'm excited to share from our kindergarten classroom to yours!

Let me start by saying Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. I hope you're having a wonderful, well-deserved break from your kinders.

Update: This post was revisited on TBA as a Blast from the Past! Click the image below to read more!

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