Growing Kinders: February 2013

28 February 2013

Sorting! {and a little Give away!!}

Sorting is an activity that you can incorporate into your classroom tomorrow! You just need a few basic things to sort! Through sorting, children realize that things are alike and different and can belong and be organized in different groups.
Sorting helps children begin to think logically about objects and mathematical concepts. Depending on the type of sorts you do and the attributes the children are sorting the sort can be basic or challenging.
There are 2 types of sorts children can do:

One of the choices my kiddos can do when they finish their math centers is to grab a bucket and do some sorts. They will usually team up with a partner and play “Guess my Sort.” They LOVE this. I’m amazed at how engaged they are when doing this and how they love to try to outsmart their partner!

Sometimes the kiddos will grab these plates to do their sorts on, other times they will just sort right on the carpet.

Here are some pictures of what is in the sorting buckets right now.

What is great about sorting is that you can gather many different types of items (free or no cost!) for the children to sort.
You could sort:

buttons
keys
bottle caps
environmental print
letters
fonts
pens, markers, pencils
pattern blocks
shells
seeds
socks
shoes
beads
coins
stamps
nuts and bolts
rubber bands
noodles (dyed and not dyed)
pipe cleaners
rocks
leaves

Can you think of more!?!?

You don’t need any fancy sorting sheets – just let children do what they do best! EXPLORE!

Encourage children to engage in some “friendly controversy” and encourage them to DEFEND their sorts! This will help them build their problem solving skills and also be confident in their sorting rules.
Here’s some more great ideas for sorting…
My sweet friend Anna, has some great ideas for teaching Attributes on her blog…

She has tons of great ideas! (and some free downloads!) Click on her banner above to go there.

Kathryn from Kindergarten, Kindergarten also has some AMAZING activities for sorts.

I LOVE her ball bucket!

and her mystery sorting box

Be sure to check {this post} as well for more ideas from Kathryn.

Lots of great ideas {here} as well!

Love these little people from Lakeshore!

and check out Cara’s blog

for this awesome anchor chart and a free download of a sorting song!

My super smart friend Kim also has a few sorting ideas on her newly remodeled website. Stop over and take a peek!

One of the fun goodies in my baskets are these super fun attribute apples from Learning Resources: Product Image

With this bucket ‘o fun, children can sort and classify apples by 5 attributes, including size, color and physical features (stem, leaf, worm)
There are 27 apples and and an Activity Guide featuring suggested uses of Venn diagrams for higher-order thinking skills
The children love to sort these and try to challenge each other to “guess their sort!”
The apples are $21.99 and are available {here}
There are a TON of resources that children can use for sorting if you’re willing to spend a dollar or two :) Check out this link for more!
But, hold on to your wallet, Learning Resources wants to give away one of these Attribute apples to one lucky Growing Kinders reader! {Phew, thanks for hanging on until the end!}
Just enter in the Rafflecopter below and leave a comment about your favorite way to teach sorting and attributes.
a Rafflecopter giveaway You can find Learning Resources on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Youtube.

27 February 2013

Happy Birthday Dr. S!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I was out of town Thursday-Sunday last week with my daughter for a dance competition. It was a crazy weekend, but we have a lot of fun! However, my hotel didn’t have free WiFi – boo. Of course, I could have paid, but I would have much rather spend the $13 per night on cute dance outfits for my girl :)

So, this week, we are celebrating the silly doctor. I have had so many requests for my Dr. S. centers. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I can’t offer these exact centers to you. Boo.

But, I am going to show you what my kiddos are working on:

Still working on ten frames and tallies. My kiddos are getting so good at this!

Addition fun! Anything is more fun with dice and spinners, right?!

This center is a bit of a challenge for some kids. But once they get the hang of it they’re good to go!

Here we are practicing counting coins by 1s, 5s, and 10s.

Practicing with subtraction

Stretching out sounds and rhyming

Rolling, writing, and reading real and nonsense words

For our listening center, the children listened to Fox in Socks and then drew and labeled pictures that rhyme.

Working on blends!

Reading, stamping, and writing sight words.

So, here is what I did for you…..I have re-worked this packet…it is TOTALLY usable for Dr. S. week. I just didn’t want to remake all of my center activities! (Yes, lazy!) All of the activities are the same as above, but the clipart is Seuss approved (they won’t let us use any clipart that resembles Seuss art). I know it’s been hard to find activities to use. You can see the previews of all of the activities below. If you have any questions about it, feel free to contact me!