I give my students a 100 chart, and a pile of Fruit Loops, they have to count out 100 Fruit Loops and placing one in each box on the 100 chart helps them keep track. Once they are done they put the cereal on a string and I tie it. Then they get to wear it and eat it throughout the day like a candy necklace.
So I saw on Pinterest that a 2nd grade teacher brings in 100 cups and allows her students to build structures with them. I let broke my students into 4 groups and gave them each 25 cups. They were allowed to build together whatever they wanted, but I told them at the end of 10 minutes I would come around and measure which group had the highest structure. The kids all had their own idea of what should be done, but they really had to work together to put build their creations. It was a great team building exercise! Then after I crowned the winners with their stickers we brought all the cups together and talked about what worked and what didn’t work. The kids decided we needed the use a lot of the cups on the bottom, and I explained how this gave it a sturdy base. I started by giving one student 4 cups and telling him to start, then I allowed him to pick a friend to do the next 4 cups. They really had to talk to each other about where to put the cups, and I helped them by thinking out-loud (“If we start stacking up now we will not be able to use all the cups”). I really tried to let them do a lot of it, but of course they are only 5-7 and needed some coaching. This was our final masterpiece and the kids were so proud!
Well today was our 100th day of kindergarten, and I have to say of all of the parties we have, this one is my favorite! There are so many fun activities out there to do for the number 100! I took a few of those activities and made a book for the students to do as a math lesson on our 100th day. The book includes pages on What will I look like in 100 years, where do I think 100 steps will take me, what I’ve learned in 100 days, etc. I have it for sale at my TPT store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/100-Day-of-School-Book
Hope you guys can use it, and stay tuned for more of our 100th Day Festivities!
This week our school is celebrating Literacy Week, one of the contests was to decorate the door to go along with a book you read. Since our theme is weather, we decided to do our door from the water cycle pages in “Oh Say Can You Say, What’s the Weather Today?”. My kids created all of the decor, and I typed up the words explaining the water cycle in true P.D. Eastman style. We put it all up on Monday, and judging isn’t until tomorrow, so every time we walk in the room my students want me to read it to them. They’ve even started writing about it and talking about it, and correcting each other if they don’t have it right (“No, no first the sun heats the water up, and THEN it makes the clouds). Hopefully that will kick off our Water Cycle lesson next week where we make the bracelets. Other kids come by and talk about it too, I am close to the front office, and I’ve even had to shoo some kids along that were talking about it on their way to the clinic. Judging is tomorrow, wish us luck!
Every Friday, when my students have made good choices all week, I like to reward them with a Fun Friday. Today we decided to have a school Snow Day for our Fun Friday. It went along with our theme weather, and was full of fun engaging games that helped us review our high frequency words/sight words. We started the day by covering our desks with shaving cream. I let the students play with the shaving cream for a little while first then I put up on the big screen a PowerPoint I made called, “It’s Snowing Sight Words!”. (Freebie Available at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snowing-Sight-Words ) Each time a new snowflake fell the students had to write their word in the snow (Top right picture). We reviewed all of the words we have covered this year, and introduced our new words for next week. The kids couldn’t believe I let them make a mess, (usually I’m pretty OCD aboout keeping our students and room clean) and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the shaving cream actually cleans our tables! Once we got our Snowing Sight Words activity all cleaned up we made our snowman snack (top left). This was something I adapted from a Pinterest picture I saw. The store was out of regular sized powdered donuts so I improvised. I bought Sour Creme Glazed Donuts from Walmart and a can of whipped cream for the snowman’s head, chocolate chips for his eyes and mouth, and a cheeseball for the nose. The whipped cream was actually fun because it kind of melted if they touched it so we talked about our body heat melting the snowman. After snack, it was time for our main event, our Snowball Fight! I wrote all of our sight words on a scrap of white paper and crumpled it up. I gave each student a snowball and told them while the music was playing they could nicely throw the snowballs at each other. When the music stopped, they grabbed the closest snowball and ice skated (walked) to their seat. I went around table to table and told the kids to to open up their snowball and read the word, if they could read the word they crumpled it back up and were still in the game. If they could not read their word they gave me their snowball and helped me referee the game from their seat. The final person who could read their word won, and we started all over again.
Since the snowball fight was so engaging, and the kids did such a great job following the rules, I told them we would have a snowball fight for math too. I got the idea from http://goldengangkindergarten.blogspot.com/ to have 10 snowballs and do combinations to 10. I divided my class in half and let them throw the snowballs back and forth until the music stopped. When it stopped we counted how many snowballs each team had, and recorded it. We went until all of the combinations to 10 had been made.
All in all it was a pretty awesome Friday! :o)
We started our weather unit this week, and I decided to start with winter. Winter seemed like the logical choice to flow right off of the holiday season. Today we read the book Snow by P.D. Eastman and Roy McKie. I made a graphic organizer for the kids to do as a prewriting instrument (top right). I told them to imagine they woke up tomorrow and it had snowed, now draw a picture of a snowy day in the big box, then draw 3 activities you want to do in the snow. They brainstormed a lot of the activities in the book, but then came up with some of their own, like snowboarding, and ice skating. When it was writing time, I told the students to pick the one activity they wanted to do the most and write. In my example I used the words, One snowy day, to start them off. This helps move them out of their I like…. or I can…. or I see…. sentences that they seem to be stuck on. As you can see, the writing came out adorable, and even my lower kids were really engaged during the whole lesson! Here’s the graphic organizer for free from my TPT store:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/One-Snowy-Day-Graphic-Organizer
Tomorrow we are having a real snow day, so stay tuned for more pictures!
Today I introduced a new game to my students. My plan is to put this at one of their reading centers next week, so I like to introduce it whole group the week before to ensure things go smoothly. I found a game on the wonderful Pinterest (how the heck did we ever teach before this website?!) and adapted it to be a little easier for my kindergarteners. I picked 6 word families we have covered this year and wrote them on a sticker in the bottom of the pan. This pan has the: at, et, op, ap, og, and am family. The students would throw the foam dice (I wrote a different letter on each side) and they would use that letter for the first sound to blend it with the word family. Then the students had to decide if it was a real word, or a nonsense word. This is a picture of one of my students who blended the word nop and was deciding where she should write the word. I am going to put a paper rather than the whiteboard at the center next week, but this worked better for a whole group activity. Recording sheet can be found:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Cupcake-Blending-Recording-Sheet
So today was the dreaded first day back from break, and I was really not looking forward to it! I got another new student (my 5th already this year), and decided it would be best to review all of our class rules and expectations. I gave my kids this big speech about how now they need to start showing me how they are ready for first grade. We discussed how first graders are independent, mature, and what that looks like in the classroom setting. So we decided to set New Year’s Resolution: Classroom Edition and we made a circle map with some ideas on how to improve as a student in 2013. Here’s a picture of their finished product on our bulletin board. I was surprised by how cute they came out! We used a paper plate for the head, googly eyes and construction paper for everything else. Here is a template Freebie on my TPT store:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/New-Years-Resolution-Classroom-Edition
We did this a few months ago but I wanted to share so others could use it to target our Common Core Standards. This was a great class project, we did one shape a day. I made a large shape and the students were given their own magazines. The students were challenged to find a real life example of that shape in the magazine. They had so much fun, and through a lot of trial and error got to be very good at it. We talked a lot about the characteristics of each shape as well. I now have these displayed in my classroom as a reference for my students to look at throughout the year!
Buzzing Through Our Sight Words! Nothing like a little competition to motivate your students to practice their high frequency words daily. Students get to track their growth, every time they master 5 more words they get to buzz their bee to the next flower. I check high frequency words every Friday, and let the students know how many words they knew last time, and what flower they are trying to reach this time. I have found it is a great motivator, and many parents come in saying, “My kid keeps saying we need to practice our words so he can buzz his bee?” When a student gets to buzz to the next flower I announce to the whole class, ” So and so is buzzing to the # flower let’s give them a cheer!” and my whole class claps and celebrates this improvement for their friend!
My Very Own Circus 