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!

Do you still do centers in your Kindergarten classroom?

I still call them Centers. I guess it is just stuck in my head. I know a lot of teachers call them rotations or stations. Some like them, some don't. I love centers! Centers keep my students moving and they are practicing what they have been taught. Centers free me up to work one on one or with small groups.

Centers also let students choose how they are going to complete their work. This is from a Daily Five, read to self rotation. I like the way he found a spot that he felt comfortable in. 

Sometimes an entire table is working on one center. This may not be their table, but I put the graphing on the RED table. I like the pencil boxes because all the tools students need for each center is in that box. (Please just overlook my messy room!)

This is from my American Symbols Unit on TPT. I have updated and added our new president, President Donald Trump!

This is from my American Symbols unit on TPT. We learn a lot about the USA and important symbols and why they are important.

Finally my Freebie! This is the 'at' family part of my CVC Word Work Collection. This freebie contains all the pages that have to do with the 'at' family. In the complete unit I have 27 Word Families represented and a little over 105 picture cards (I put some new ones up.) 

There are several reasons I like to make units like this... one is that they keep my students engaged and learning what I want them to learn. They are not boring. The main reason is selfish, I will not have to keep on telling my students what to do. I take the time with the first family to explain everything, and I help them fold and go over and over what to do. The next family I might have to go over a tad, but it is familiar to them. After that they are good to go and can do this all by themselves. What teacher doesn't like that!

Here are some videos that explain how to make the products included in this Unit. 

This video shows how to assemble the little 'hotdog' book.

This video shows how to make the Scrambled Letters book.

This video shows how students use the four square activity. My dear co-worker explains things so nicely! Her blog is Sugar~Spice & Everything Nice! Jodie's research projects are great. I use them all the time and I feel my students are learning more than just information about bears and all. They are using their brains to think! Try some of her freebies (you will be glad you did!)

THANKS! Hope these videos help! Pam

Scrambled Squares - Math Puzzles - Have Fun Learning!

Drill and Practice! Oh how students groaned and moaned when they were handed a worksheet with problems to work out. They needed the practice though, Practice Makes Perfect! Right? I use Math Puzzles in my room and my students never, ever turn them down! They are aligned to the Common Core Standard that we are working on at the time. I can use them as an assessment or just as practice. I love color and cute, and these are both, but they are also a meaningful activity that incorporates some higher level thinking by having students think about the numbers and move the puzzle pieces around until they all fit together. 

Math Puzzles CCSS Aligned 4.NBT.4

First I took the regular Magic Squares that we have all used for years and “fixed” them up a bit. My Math Puzzles are designed for groups of 4, with each student getting a different Puzzle Sheet. No more having to cut the pieces out yourself and paper clip together for each student. Also, every 4 students will have a different puzzle and you will have the answer sheet for a quick check. This is how it works for me.

Math Puzzles 4.NBT.4 

In the picture you see a Teacher Answer Sheet #1 and a Scrambled Squares for Students # 1. The fonts match on the TA Sheet 1-4 and the Scrambled Student Sheet 1-4. I put the 4 TA sheets on a Clipboard to carry with me so I can monitor my students working out the problems.

Students working in journals using Math Puzzles 4.NBT.4

The picture above shows two different students' work. After cutting out their squares, they get to work. The math problems align with the common core standard 4.NBT.4. They are working the math problems out in their journals (showing their work.) I ask them to write the answers on the math puzzle pieces because it makes putting the puzzle together easier. 

Notice one Student pasted the I Can Statement at the top of her puzzle page. This is required and is included in the Math Puzzle 4.NBT.4 packet. ( I always include PAM somewhere in the  puzzle.) They love it!

This student went to another page where she had some extra room (to save her paper) and starting working her problems out. The journals are graded every 9 weeks and kept to show students growth.

You can see where this student has written her answers in with pencil.

The 4 different fonts keep the students from glancing over at what someone else is doing. All students have the same 31 problems that match 4.NBT.6 but they are scrambled up!

Some students work methodically. 

These are finished squares from 5th grade.

After finishing, I check their work by just looking at my 4 clipboard pages. Then they glue the squares and color. Some students never get to the coloring part because they might work slower than others. To differentiate by giving some students less problems to work with, just take off the bottom 4 squares from your Teacher Answer Sheet. When the student has cut all of his out, take those bottom pieces away. It gives the same practice but with fewer problems to do which would be helpful with some students who cannot process so many at one time.

Hope this helps with your classroom activities. Email me with any questions for comments! Next time I'll show of the work we are doing with task cards.

Dodecahedron Frenzy!

I love group projects! Makes me feel so good to see my students all working together and having fun!
The Dodecahedrons are so fun and do not require writing a ton of copy or coloring for hours. My Kinders love them!

My Kinders are learning to color while they are learning CVC words. I think they are doing a better job than at the beginning of the year. They enjoy making the dodecahedrons.

My kinders pick which family they want to make. They trace the words first, since the pictures might be hard for some to figure out. (Like wed.) Then they color and write the word on the dodecahedron circle. When they cut them out, they place them on my desk for me to put together. They watch me, but it is really hard for me class to put the tabs exactly right.

If you would like to make some with your students, I have this for sale on my Teacher Pay Teacher store along with the Dodecahedron for Digraphs! 

Click on this link or the pictures below to check them out.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-Family-Dodecahedron-Cooperative-Learning-Project-1596326

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Digraph-Dodecahedron-Cooperative-Learning-Project-1604146

Hope those links work for you. I am still learning this blogging business, but it is fun! 

They are really pretty just like this, but look nice hanging from my window. I'll take a picture of my window this week and post it! Hope you are all ready for this coming week! Most of us will be out of school for our Winter Break. We are out Friday at 12:45 and then will meet in our Media center for a Staff lunch! Can't wait. Thanks for visiting! Pam

A Tad Behind, But Here Is Our Native American Writing!

We spent more time that I thought we would on our Native American unit. There was just so much to do and my students were really enjoying this! (And isn't that the whole purpose of teaching a unit!) By the way, most of what I used can be found in my Native American Writing Unit on TPT. There's a huge sale tomorrow and my entire store is 20% off, plus the 8% TPT gives you. So that is almost 30% off every item in every store on TPT that is participating! 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Native-American-Writing-and-Craft-Unit-Vocabulary-Graphic-Organizers-1544013

We made canoes and teepees. My students love using markers and I usually don't let them because the colors bleed through on paper. This activity was great. The idea came from Pinterest! The original idea just had a canoe and painted paper plate. We used the grass and a teepee to add a little more to the activity. I also used a blue paper plate instead of painting the plate. Gluing these with the glue gun was a difficult task! You  had to hold the canoe till the glue set or it would fall over.

After reading a few books and watching Scholastic news, I had my students use this anchor chart to show what they knew about Native Americans. I have to give my students background information at the beginning of a unit before they can start their Know/Wonder/Learned charts. They know a lot more than they think, but it has to be sparked a little!

I think my students loved the headbands the best. They spent a lot of time on these. I let them wear these headbands the entire week when they were writing or crafting! (Not on the carpet though, too many little ones couldn't see!) We also made paper vests and wrote sentences using the words in my Native American Writing Unit on TPT. In art students made patterned bracelets that were colored in using construction paper crayons. Love these!

We made our Anchor Chart. We had read many of the books and studied using Scholastic Online's Thanksgiving Unit with videos of Native Americans. I give my students post-it-notes and they write/draw and color what they are learning. They love this! 

We used the writing from my Native American Writing Unit on TPT to complete our writing about Native Americans. 

These were hung outside our room for all to see! We try and hang up writing samples from our classroom since we are focusing on writing and academic vocabulary this year. 

There's a lot more included in my Native American Writing Unit. I didn't take pictures of the Emergent reader and Teacher Read Aloud. There are vocabulary picture cards and so much more included. It would take two weeks of instruction time to go through everything included. I think with first graders, who already know how to read and write sentences, this unit could be completed in one week.

My students are working on writing what they are saying. This takes a while. We are doing a great job on coloring which is also an important part of being a Kindergarten student!

Well, now comes the Holidays! Hold on tight for this fast ride!

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!