digital three ring binder {instant organization!}

In today's kindergarten {the modern first grade} we are reaching to keep things real, hands-on and kinesthetic as possible. As teachers we know this is what we NEED to do. Yet, often the more we try to create or use manipulative based materials, the more we realize they don't often meet the requirements we have to adhere to for documentation purposes.

Well no longer do I think this will be an issue! As I was scoping out some new tools I found threering.com and I am super excited that this tool will allow me to document all of the wonderful things my kinders do without needing to run to a copy machine, or to capture the things that can't be shown on paper! I'm not being compensated for sharing - I just found it and love it's possibilities!

 

Its an app I plan on using in my classroom. Here's how I forsee using it the most:

Students work hard.
Students choose their name and activity/tag and take a picture.

{computer screen shot}

Student work is uploaded into their own individual binder section by clicking on their name and the activity. (I call them activities because that's how we roll, even though Three Ring calls them "classes" which would be more for the traditional class or upper grades.)

I can search by student name, tags, or titles. Which means I can pull up exactly what I'm looking for in no time. Do I think a kinder could use it completely by them self? I think many kinders could learn to use it if I kept the number of places they can upload it to at a minimum (the number of activities/classes). I can use a computer or my phone to access the content anytime. This could really be beneficial when it comes to testing time and report cards!

   

{phone screen shots}

Currently I plan on using it for our recording and practice zone in math as well as literacy centers. And because I know that I want to document a red note before it goes home in the backpack (to sometimes be lost forever), I'll be sure to snap a photo before it gets sent home. Classroom management documentation goes digital. I never was a portfolio kind of teacher, but I think now I can be since it'll all be organized when it's uploaded! I use Evernote for keeping digital copies of everything I do for blogging and business, so I can see this being like Evernote for the classroom! I love that I can select multiple students and even upload audio recordings, videos or files. Can you see yourself using something like this? Its free! I'd love to hear how you could use it!

Update: Although I like this concept, I have chosen not to use it. I found it was still too early in the creation phrase to work as quickly and efficiently as I needed it to.

This review was my own opinion and was just because I found this new tool and thought it might be helpful.
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.

playdough word work - substituting sounds in CVC words

Beginning sounds, rhyming and CVC segmenting and blending are key skills when learning how to read and write. But where do we grow from there? How can we keep a literacy center the same and yet build on those skills already mastered?

This was something I faced for the first time this year with making adjustments to the new Common Core Standards since creating my centers. Previously my word work literacy center was meeting my students' needs. But we really condensed the amount of time we taught all of our reading skills into three quarters, and now I had an entire quarter left of school and a new set of standards that needed practice. What to do?

My word work center is nicknamed the playdough center by the students. They L-O-V-E it! We use it to grow from forming letters, identifying them, and basic skills to... I had to come up with something! So, ta-daah! I created an extension set of activities that I tried out on my kinders this spring and summer. 

The new activities and sight words helped allow those ready for a challenge to get it, and those on target to make their skills super smooth!

We can now use what we know about sounds to change them, add them and create our own words by manipulating ending and medial sounds! I am happy that these include both real and nonsense words since we do utilize Dibels.

They work with manipulatives like magnetic letters and dry erase markers too.

And I've added 88 sight words to the mix! This covers all of the Pre-Primer Dolch words list and the first 100 Fry high frequency words when combined with the original Playdough Word Work Pack. I've also included number words 1-10. 

Of course we've got to keep it all organized, so it lives in the same location just with the new materials all set to go!

New Playdough Word Work Extension Pack

Original Word Work Pack

More on Playdough

7 Playdough Recipes
Playdough Literacy Center
Ten Frame Number Mats

More on Word Work

Kindergarten Word Work Manipulative Ideas

Rhyming and Blending Onsets and Rime

Is this something your class could use too? It's designed to build on the original pack - so be sure to grab that first!

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.

detective literacy center - read and write the room

Sometimes allure is in a name. When I read books on how to create literacy centers and run guided reading groups my first year of teaching, I liked a lot of what I read. But I wanted to find a "hook" to get my kinders into their activities and get them learning! Like I shared in my puppet center, the puppet is the hook I use to get my kinders engrossed in reading leveled texts independently.

One of the centers I read about but wanted to give my own twist was a "read the room" or "write the room" literacy center. I felt as if I could easily combine these and give them fun feeling materials to help keep them going all year long.

My kinders can have choice in deciding which activity they'd like to do and they are instantly letter and word detectives. As I said, allure is in a name... hence our detective center. They can read the room using a phonics phone and a pointer. We have lots of pointers to offer choice and some of our favorites are the Dollar Tree water blasters (minus the h2o) because they can reach our charts up high.

  

This center is organized simply with buckets holding all of our materials. Open top plastic containers are used everywhere in my room to contain the madness! These were a score from the Dollar Tree and always seem to show up in the spring. I snag a new, fresh set to replace any broken ones since they don't hold up so great after a lot of wear and tear. But... the handles, the size (and admittingly - the colors) make the replenishment worth it!

The other favorite activities are using cheap-o cameras (minus the film or batteries) to take photos of focus letters, sounds or words around the room.

And this one they grow into but it quickly becomes the preferred activity. Students can sneak effortlessly around the room using their mini-clipboards and handy dandy detective notebooks to write the room. I love the first moment when they can read the words they write and its not just about finding focus sounds!

Did I mention the sunglasses? What detective wouldn't need such a tool to go unnoticed? My kinders like this small touch of whimsy and we have instant allure! 

Meeting Common Core Standards:

• K.RF.1.c-1. Isolate words within printed text.
• K.RF.1.c-2. Point to individual words using one-to-one correspondence.
• K.RF.1.c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
• K.RF.1.d-3. Identify orally all uppercase letters in random order.
• K.RF.1.d-4. Identify orally all lowercase letters in random order.
• K.RL.4.e-2. Break words into sounds to read unknown words.
• K.RL.4.e-3. Chunk unknown words into parts to read unknown words.
• K.RL.5. Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).
• K.L.1.a-3. Print all uppercase letters.
• K.L.1.a-4. Print all lowercase letters.
• K.L.1.f-2. Write by moving left to right and from top to bottom.

Detective Read & Write the Room Literacy Center Activities

More Literacy Centers

playdough word work - substituting sounds in CVC words
puzzles - have on hand?
puppets - reading appropriate leveled texts in kindergarten
non-fiction literacy center
the write stuff

This detective center has allure and lasts all year long! How do you give your literacy centers a bit of flair?

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.

kindergarten puzzle literacy center

Visual discrimination is huge for young developing and emergent readers! One of the centers I first developed was our puzzle center. It does feature puzzles of all varieties: floor, wooden, regular. But it also features alphabet building and word building puzzles. I have enough puzzles that each of the nine weeks, we rotate out puzzles.

I begin with the most simple and we increase the difficulty as the year goes on... building on the visual discrimination foundational skill that some kinders don't come in with is key in order to grow their reading skills.

Here are a few tips on having a puzzle center: our puzzles that didn't come with a box worth the cardboard I bought it in, gets put into a tupperware container and I use clear book tape or packing tape to adhere the picture (cut from the lid) onto the inside of the lid facing outwards.

You'll also see that we have a little clear jar labeled, "lost!" for those pieces that seem to have made their way onto the floor. That is bound to happen, but now students can be independent in looking for a missing piece or have a place to put the random piece they find.

Our rules for all of our centers is to get learning, have quiet voices and to ask three other students before asking me. This also applies to our puzzle center. Most often students will work in pairs, but they will sometimes opt to work independently. I see this most frequently when they choose one of the skill building puzzle/games in pink tote baskets. We use these to also hold sets of puzzles that go together (like word family or rhyming puzzles).

When I developed the core of my literacy centers my first year of teaching, like this one, I worked to create them based on standards. I still do that today whenever I tweak one, and I post the standards on my center posters. My admins never asked me to do this, but I figured if someone didn't understand what appeared as play had value... I am prepared!

Literacy Center Posters

We have one basket that features a syllable clapping game and the magic gloves (that magically quiet your clap so you can follow rule #2). Students use our name cards in addition to a variety of object cards that they can choose. Later in the year, they can challenge themselves to sort the cards by number of syllables.

I found many puzzles at garage sales or thrift stores, but hopefully these can give you a picture of the tools we have on hand.

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.

puppets - reading appropriate leveled texts in kindergarten

Has it been short of forever since I shared about our literacy centers? Working smart is what I like to think I'm doing, when I share with you that my philosophy on bringing learning and playing together happens during literacy centers. I like to create centers that offer choice and keep repeating the same standards with different materials so each center feels unique. Each literacy center has a poster explaining the choices available to students and Common Core standards listed.

In addition to my other reading centers: big book center, library center, poetry center, and listening center... we have the puppet center. No, my students aren't performing plays. They are using the puppets to practice reading leveled books that are on their independent reading levels. This center doesn't get introduced until a bit into the year and we are actually modeling reading behaviors.

Notice, I didn't say reading...but many of us are solid level 1/A's at the point in the year when we begin. Wouldn't you know, that having a puppet on one hand does wonders for helping the body to focus on the task at hand!

The puppets act as a reading buddy and offer the feeling of choice. Many of the books are ones they have read with me in guided reading groups but I also place books that they haven't read. I do not use individual book baskets. Honestly, this goes back to my teaching half-day experiences and how I couldn't figure out storage for 50 kinders! 

By simply having book baskets with a variety of books all grouped by their level and with some baskets showing a bit of range in levels, my kinders can challenge themselves without going into a frustration level.

This puppet center helps meet Common Core Standards:

• K.RF.1 - Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
• K.RF.3 - Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• K.RF.4 - Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.
• K.RL.5 - Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).
• K.RL.7.b - Explain that illustrations support and extend the story

I've learned that by grouping books by level and not by only what they've read offers more choice in content and therefore we have higher levels of interest. They can read anywhere in the room. Take a puppet, your basket and go! It all goes back where it came from as soon as the clean up song comes on!

The kinders know where it all comes from since they can use the picture labels and labeled baskets to figure it out! This center's poster, workboard icon and puppet labels are available in our Literacy Center Poster set.

Just one more way of tying learning and playing together in the name of increasing the time my kinders spend reading and giving them focus while doing it! 

More Literacy Centers

playdough word work - substituting sounds in CVC words
detective literacy center - read and write the room
kindergarten puzzle literacy center
non-fiction literacy center
22 Famous Story Retelling Ideas {+Printables}

Integrating appropriate leveled texts into independent reading time? Check!

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.

getting rid of my teacher desk

Before the last three weeks of school, I spent almost an entire weekend in my classroom... with a plan.

The plan was to be brave, be bold and try something different. The last two years, I really hadn't changed much in layout with my classroom because it was working well and in general, very smoothly.

This year.. it wasn't bad, but with change comes sometimes the need to optimize. Since I began teaching math in small groups, I really found myself spending a lot of energy being creative in the placement of my materials. I really had to have everything from math put away in order to make guided reading groups function without manipulatives around. Having told you this, know that this draining creativity squeeze was just the beginning of the thinking, "There has to be a better way to do this everyday."

Enter the thought, thanks to reading wonderful teacher articles on organizing, rearranging and classroom decor, "What if I got rid of my teacher desk?" {Silent scream!} I wanted to. I wanted to give more space to what we really do - which is learn all day long. My desk is the place for me to plan, prepare, answer notes and keep it all together... but I am only ever there during specials or before and after school.

I wanted to... but I had no idea what it would look like and what patterns of habit I'd have to change in order to accept what else would take its place. I thought and thought and drew sketches. I began to feel energizing creative juices flow and began to design... I could create more alternative seating placements and get rid of having one traditional "seat" for every child.

Moving things around with a few weeks left of school gave me the opportunity to see if my sketches could come to life. The results?

I love it! Love it, love it, love it!

My favorite aspect of the new room layout, which was brought on by having additional space now that my traditional desk is gone, is that there are more open spaces. I used to think that open spaces were terrifying {insert picture of kinders wrestling} but that doesn't hold true for me any more. I will tell you, that because I have a teacher computer on a shelf, I am using space next to it to hold my "teachery" things. But everything that was in my desk either found a new home, or it got pitched. {Throwing things away felt soooo good} So, I'm not without a teacher space that I will still use for planning and prepping.

There was nothing wrong with my teacher desk. In fact it gave me a perfect working triangle. But, my room now looks at least 1/3 bigger since, visually, the big black box of my desk was cutting it off. It feels more spacious, relaxed and inviting. And, having tried it for three weeks with kinders... its fully functional and very kinder friendly. It lends itself to whole group, small group and independent work.

Remember I said this desire for change was brought on by the thought that I needed to change something since I now teach math in small groups? We found a kidney shaped table to bring in, and had plenty of room since two large rectangle tables went out.

My guided reading will now happen at a regular height table and guided math will be at the floor height kidney table.

And you can see that, I can easily turn around and use my guided reading space for spreading out to do projects if needed during my plan times. The organized part of me likes that that I can't leave teacher stuff out since we use it daily for student use. So, my new rule for what stays in my teacher area? If I use it on a daily or weekly basis, it can stay. If not... it finds a new home in a cupboard, filing cabinet or closet.

All tables, chairs, floor spaces {minus the sunken area and closet}, and shelves will be used as student spaces. I will have limits of how many kinders can be at a table during independent work to limit the noise levels. And I have clipboards and lapboards for students who choose to work on the floor.

These are just some of the snapshots to give you a glimpse of how our room feels and looks now. How did I make the ball chair? Would you believe a Walmart $1.50 bouncy ball {yes - it held up!} and a $17 yoga ring to keep it in place. The new seat was very successful - so I added a second one at the other large rectangular table. I also have a stool in place of a chair at one table to offer variety.

More on Teacher Organization

Organizing digital teacher files
Organizing teacher materials for the week and quarter
Organizing a teacher planning binder
Organizing behind my teacher easel
Organizing for a substitute teacher

A lot came from the idea, but I hope sharing some photos can give you some ideas 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.

creating ten frame manipulatives

Speaking of planning, I am sketching out the next nine weeks of math instruction. We are beginning work over the next nine weeks of really identifying, writing and composing/decomposing numbers 11-19 using tens and ones. As I was at the Dollar Tree today, I grabbed three sets of foam sheets. I was thinking of a way to make simple groups of tens and ones (simple on myself) and these fit the bill. I will draw a complete group of ten using a sharpie and bingo daubers, and then cut singles using a paper cutter. Having different colors will allow me to have sets that are easy to use in small groups and for easy clean up. I wanted to make some ten frames that felt manipulative, and this will work nicely for my small group work!

Any chance to help kinders "see" numbers in an organized fashion greatly helps them to improve their math skills, just like we teach number formation on a dice. Now, you can have your kinders seeing numbers to 10 - and it will help with the standard K.OA.2 (knowing how many more to make 10). Bring on the algebra in Kindergarten!

More on Ten Frames

Creating Ten Frame Manipulatives
Teen Numbers in Kindergarten
Ten Frame Teacher Font
Why Does 10+6=16?
Composing & Decomposing: a Guided Math Lesson Plan Flow
Teen Frame Decomposing Game
Ten Frame Flash Cards

Based on what I've learned, tried and continue to see in my kinders... Now that I'm here, there's no turning back!How else can you make manipulative-feeling ten frames? I tried laminated paper, but it just wasn't substantial enough and was too hard for kinder fingers to grab... Share your ideas!
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.