Beginning of the Year in Kindergarten!

This was my post last year about this time.... not much has changed except I have 20 sweet Kinders this year!!!
Well my time this school year has definitely been spent having a great time getting to know my Kinders! I love Kindergarten! I started out teaching K and now I am hoping to stay with this grade until *****Retirement Time.*****

The best thing about Kindergarten is having 27 little darlings who absolutely LOVE their teacher. They hug me and tell me they love me constantly... even when I am asking them to move their color. The second best thing about Kindergarten is seeing students LEARN! You can actually see the progress day by day. How rewarding is that! Some people get their rewards making money, teachers get their rewards by knowing they are helping little people!

One thing we are doing every minute is Letter Recognition. This is a Standard:

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.1d Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

Having fun with Letter Recognition is what my students love to do best. We play games, we use flash cards, we do all kinds of things. One of the best ways I have found to help students with letter recognition AND know their color names are my "Letter Recognition Practice - 8 Mystery Pictures To Color!"

My students love doing these. At the beginning of the year I gave these out, but I had to color in each 'crayon' for them so they would begin recognizing their colors. Now that 2 months have gone by, (well almost 2) I printed these out again and they have to look at the color words to figure out the colors.

There are 8 different pictures in this set and by this time most students had completed about 6 of them at various times during the month. They are great when someone finishes up their work or as morning work. I kept all of the completed pictures in their folders and had them pick their best work to put up!

Thanks for reading my Blog! 

If you have any questions about anything posted, please just let me know. My email is pamjmmes@gmail.com.

The Mystery Pictures are in my TPT store. . I have two sets, one is the Letter Recognition pictured here and the other is Sight Word Practice. Both are fun for students and they really do LEARN while having fun!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Practice-Mystery-Pictures-to-Color-Centers-Activities-K-1031695

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-Recognition-8-Mystery-Pictures-to-Color-1031156#show-price-update

Thanks for reading!

Centers ~ Love 'em or Hate 'em - What's A Teacher To Do!

I've read quite a few blog posts about centers and how a few teachers dislike them intensely. I can understand what they are saying because I would really dislike working with a small group of children and my other students were playing and making all kinds of noise in another area of my room. I wouldn't like that either. In fact, I couldn't teach with that going on.

I can teach with noise, the kind of noise where you can walk around and hear students talking about their work and what they are learning. I can't teaching with what I call "Noise Pollution." Nope. I will stop my class in a second if I hear talk that isn't related to learning.

There are times when talk is fun and students are just happy murmuring away about whatever strikes their fancy. Those times are usually at recess, the cafeteria or free time during the day. I hear this sometimes when students are reading to a stuffed animal in the room. They are retelling a story and getting sidetracked about their experiences. I usually let this just happily end with the story.  I expect centers and carpet time to be learning time. They can talk, but I tell them it has to be "Academic Talk." Yes, Kinders know what that means if you explain it.

I enjoy centers. I like the whole process. Finding center work that is engaging and meaningful, which means my students are having fun learning, is not easy. Once you have your centers in place, and the students know what to do, it is really not work at all. I don't add everything at once. Especially since I started the Daily 5. Word Work is next for my class and I am looking forward to this.

One of my centers for Word Work is my Sight Word Cut And Paste. I have this for Pre-Primer, Primer, and First Grade Words. I also have the 100 Fry Sight Word Word Work product  that was requested by a teacher. This does not have as many graphics and the students can focus more on the academics. Either way, all the work is done for you. It is easy for students to understand after the first few days of instruction.

           

As usual, thanks for visiting my blog! Leave a comment and the link to your blog so I can pay you a visit!