From our kindergarten class to yours... Free downloads, common core standard activities and classroom organization tips too!
Friday, December 28, 2012
After Christmas Giveaway {now closed}
Did you have a holly jolly Christmas? I do hope that you did! I am continuing with our after Christmas specials by throwing a celebratory giveaway! I do hope you'll join in the fun and win an excellent prize out of it all! Afterall, I do want you to save time and money as you prepare for the second half of the school year.
Mastering the standard of composing and decomposing numbers 11-19 in kindergarten is possible! Designed to help students receive the practice and repetition needed to gain mastery.
Features:
Includes small group and independent work
Two 24 pg. booklets for students to practice composing/decomposing with words and equations
Memory game cards
Two 'seek, find and compose' workmats and recording sheets.
Teen and ten frame flash cards (includes larger teacher set)
Perfect for use with a guided math approach or for use in math centers
*Includes a set of materials to compose/decompose numbers 21-99 for higher-level students Click to purchase
Did you read yesterday's news that we are having a sale until the end of December? Click here to read about the 60+ products that are now 20% off! Hope you can score some fantastic items to add to your teaching arsenal. Nothing like going into the new year feeling like you've got excellent tools to help your kinders attack those common core standards!
Want computer lab lessons that meet your kindergartners needs? Need standards-based activities for students to complete using the computer? Now you have access to a year's worth of kindergarten computer lesson plans already set to go!
Features:
Designed to use in the computer lab or in your classroom during centers
Websites are kindergarten-friendly
Practice a wide variety of concepts in fun, interactive ways!
Perfect for modeling or use with a SmartBoard!
Students can effectively work at their own pace!
4 Quarterly bundles to = One Entire Year of standards-based curriculum
While you are on your break, I hope you are enjoying many memories with your family and friends! If you are in the mood to shop, now is the time since I am having an after Christmas sale! Each of my items will be 20% off until December 31st. Its my hope that with this sale, I can save you time and money.
With this sale, you can save 20% on each item purchased starting now until the end of December and find what you need to help start your new year off great! Thanks for purchasing from a fellow teacher and I hope you find everything you fill your cart with exceptionally helpful just as this latest comment set from mtermine who says, "Thank you again! I'm getting these ready for over break. The Bingo shapes were a big hit with the kids that even the non struggling kids wanted to play! lol. And another colleague wanted to know where I got such a great game. I directed her to your shop and all your awesomeness!" I LOVE hearing from you guys! Click to read more feedback on my products to see what other teachers are saying.
I appreciate each of you and wish sending digital thank you cards was totally possible! My best selling item and one that continues to be a favorite is our Playdough Word Work Pack, so I highly recommend starting with that in addition to any free items!
Since I don't know each of you by name, and only know some of you by usernames, I'll just have to send you Christmas wishes by posting here! Merry Christmas to each of you and may your break be full of fantastic family memories!
From our family to yours,
Leslie, Mei Mei, Mr. KindergartenWorks and Link
As you can see we totally take ourselves seriously! Ha!
Welcome to my office. Here is a sneak peek into a corner of it anyway. Do you think of your entire classroom as your office? I like to... because then I can flaunt {well, to just my own self really} that I have an executive sized space with large windows! Ha! I have two easels in my classroom, but I wanted to show you what lays behind the one I use the most for my language arts instruction. It has to serve four parts of our day. It holds writing charts on the front for interactive writing... and I use the white board surface all the time for our phonics and word work.
The back is organized using baskets and plastics {my first classroom love} in order to help me be able to grab things quickly. Now, as often as I use the baskets, I do find it hard to keep organized! It seems that when in the teaching moment, I'm not very good at putting random things away. I use a pen holder velcro-ed down to hold my pointers that we use during shared reading and phonics work and the white basket holds our read alouds.
I use pencil caddies to hold crayons, markers and other tools needed for modeling projects and the green mini-caddy (pictured in the back) holds expo markers and tools for use during shared reading to bring attention to focus patterns. I use the pink pencil caddy to organize any writing that I do to model writer's workshop. These photos were taken at the beginning of the school year, so obviously there is a lot more in there now...
Behind my easel was always wasted space. I used to have it butted up against the wall, but found that with my new classroom layout, I could find a use for the backside. We pull this green pocket chart out for shared reading (poetry) and the small table behind helps hold it into place. This pocket chart also holds big books or our writing tablets on it's backside since it comes with deep pockets on the back. Is there a reason I chose to switch out the colored bins that came with the easel? Honestly, I did it because the colors were too strong and primary for my aesthetic tastes. Plus, not even having a bin in the top rung allows me to easily store taller things and reach them while sitting in the rocking chair.
Now do tell...What tips do you have for keeping things organized behind your easel? What do you love or hate about your easel? 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.
Recently I shared that I use hand motions often when teaching to not only help keep my kinders engaged both mentally and physically but that I use them to help five year olds recall which skill I am asking them to practice. I shared my tips for teaching rhyming which actually involves concepts of beginning sounds, onset and rime.
When it comes to growing readers and writers, and growing up writers who will attempt to sound out words... without you right next to them, sometimes we face a challenge.
Here is how I've attempted to implement a set of hand motions and a simple tool to face that challenge head on. When working whole group or even in small group reading sessions, we use hands that almost appear to be "praying hands," to give you a visual. Then for each phoneme, or sound, we move our hands out away from each other.
When we are ready to blend them back together, then the hands are using a clapping motion. Out and in. Simple, yet very functional! In order to make students actually feel the separate phonemes, I introduced the world's best tool!
Ta daah!
Yes, it is just a rubber band. But they think it's totally cool because this is a tool they can have and keep in their tool box. Why?
Because you just may need to sound out or put words together when I'm not with you. This tool will help you do it. {Insert kinder smiles}
There you go.
I have just empowered each of my kinders to try, practice, improve and grow on their own. And for the one who wants to call me over everyday to help them sound words out... Well, you really don't need me anymore. You've got the rubberband to help you.
I've always got a rubberband lying around and it travels with me while conferencing with students... Practicing CVC games during a small group session? Rubber bands are at hand!
How to grow this for higher readers?
Using these same hand motions, I model the concept of segmenting a 7-10 letter word from the books my students are reading. They enjoy watching me squirm as I frustratingly try to blend a word that is just to long to remember the phoneme sequence. I use this as a teaching point and discussion to model using segmenting and blending bits we know (blends, digraphs and vowel patterns). Blending the word SHOUTED for example, is much easier when it's segmented as SH-OU-T-ED or even SH-OUT-ED. Three to four bits are definitely easier to manage than seven!
As with anything we do, we've practiced whole class and set expectations for using these. Hopefully these motions or the use of a rubber band can be a tool to help you grow your kinders...
Helps practice Common Core Standards:
K.RF.2.e-1. Blend at least three phonemes together to state one-syllable words.
K.RF.2.e-2. Segment one-syllable (3 phonemes) words into phonemes.
I hope you catch a kinder out of the corner of your eye repeating these motions on their own as you see them practicing what you teach! 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.
retell literacy center activity - The Gingerbread Man
Do you love your literacy center time? I do! We have active literacy centers in our classroom like the retell center. This is how I created a 'The Gingerbread Man' retell activity to go in our retell center as an option for my kindergarten students. It was a combination of printing and collecting! My kinders get to choose the book(s) they want to retell while they are at this literacy center. They read, the act, they use lots or great vocabulary and are developing fantastic reading habits all while continuing to build their love of reading.
The Gingerbread Man Retell (Literacy Center Activity)
It's one of my favorite literacy centers and we usually introduce The Gingerbread Man just before Christmas. It plays a big role in creating the idea for our Gingerbread Adventures, which carries us all the way to Christmas break. I have so many versions of this story and my kinders love comparing and contrasting the characters and seeing which stories have a growing list (or not).
Here are the props I gathered rather inexpensively (and you can too) to bring the book alive once we knew it by heart. I found a printable online and simply colored it with marker and added Popsicle sticks. I had this gingerbread man in my stash of decorations, so he has permanently relocated.
When I first thought about teaching, I knew I wanted to teach younger students, but admittedly never wanted to teach first grade because I did not want to be responsible for teaching children how to read. So, I think that's why I first had my mind set on kindergarten... they learn to read in first grade!
Boy, was I mistaken! In today's kindergarten we lay some of the most important reading foundations and develop some pretty awesome readers if I may say so. Kudos to each of you who does your best to meet each of your kinders' individual reading needs, because it is a lot to undertake. Not without reward, however, as we see tons of growth throughout the months and over the school year... so there is immediate gratification (well, almost) for being a kindergarten teacher.
With the numerous skills required to lay a strong foundation for reading and for kinders being able to manipulate phonemes (letter sounds) fluidly, there is an underlying question that I found myself asking. I find that the majority of what we teach is done orally, especially to begin with. Teaching vocabulary like "onset/rime" can be done, but is that the most efficient way to get kinders to understand what you're asking for when practicing one of the many foundational skills? I think not.
So, the question I found myself asking was, "How can I make a visual cue or kinesthetic tie to help them recall what I'm asking them to do?" Now mind you, I wasn't sitting at home asking this... but it was in that split second moment as I desperately realized they couldn't honestly remember if I was trying to have them to practice beginning sounds, ending sounds, blending, segmenting, rhyming... you get the point. Vocabulary comes with time even if you use kinder-friendly terms like "stretching it out." When you need to teach multiple things to reach all readers and grow them, you can't just wait until January to teach and practice segmenting so they can all just do segmenting in isolation. They're all connected.
I have a set of hand motions that came in that split second moment and it now is my visual, kinesthetic teaching tool and works great even when you have those odd 45 seconds of transition time. Let me preface with the fact that I do teach why words rhyme. I used to teach this later on in the year when my kinders were more proficient and segmenting and blending. Now I teach it as soon as I begin to focus on rhyming words in the first quarter of school. You'll see from the video that it will lend itself to teaching onset/rime and beginning sounds. So, in teaching why words rhyme, we use the hand motions and apply the notion of replacing the beginning sound with a new one while keeping the ending intact.
Have you ever found yourself in that kind of moment? If you have, or find yourself there someday, I hope this little tool will work with your kinders time after time!
Just as I tell my kinders emphatically... the more we practice, the better get! 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.
