Fall Fun, Lesson Plans, and Morning Baskets

A few weeks back, I posted a question on my Growing Kinders Facebook page about morning work.  I wanted to go away from a worksheet type thing every morning.  I felt like I was sending WAY too  many papers home, and the morning papers were simply busy work.  I needed something for the children to work on just for a few minutes while everyone was getting their jobs done. 

Worksheets were OK, but kids felt like they NEEDED to finish them, and I kind of did too.  While, really, the kids just needed something to work on until everyone was finished.  I don’t like to waste a lot of time – especially in the morning – so the worksheets were gone.  In place of them?

Morning Baskets.  Inside of these baskets are FUN activities for the kids to work on to get their brains ready for learning.  The kids are getting their morning jobs done a whole lot faster because they want to “play” with what is inside the morning baskets.  Now, these might evolve as the year goes on, but here is what they looked like last week and for a little bit this week (until I can change them!)

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Simple, right? Fun, right?  I challenge you this week to ditch the morning work worksheets and try something like this! Keep it developmental and fun in Kindergarten!

On to lesson plans…

You can download them by clicking {here}

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These are some of the units that I am working from this week:

It's Fall Y'all! {Seasonal Math and Literacy Activities} Where's Mr Crow? Interactive Fall Games Sticky Sight Words! Activities to Make Sight Words Stick! It's Calendar Time! Daily Calendar Book   Fix It Up! {AGAIN!} - Sentences for Grammar, Sight Words a   Pumpkinlicious Math and Literacy ActivitiesPumpkin Patch Palooza  {A Nonfiction unit} Apples and Pumpkins - Literacy and Math Activities Where's My Mummy? Response Activities

My family was able to break away for a bit this weekend for a little bit of fall fun….my husband is working on his MBA, so life has been nothing but busy.  With two girls in dance, and an active middle schooler,  I’m rarely home.   It was nice to have a little quality family time together! Here’s a little glimpse into our day:

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Have a great week!!!

14 comments:

  1. Nice morning basket idea. I do writing journals in the morning from a prompt, but the baskets seem like a great break. I am excited to hear how they work out!

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  2. Wow, you and I are thinking alike. I was just created my morning work tubs to use this week, too. I was feeling the same way you are about the worksheets and felt like they needed a better transition from home to school instead of a worksheet sitting at the table for them to complete.
    So glad to see someone else wanting to do something different!
    Jennifer, kindertrips

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    1. Can you share with me how your experience went with setting up the basket the first few weeks of school. I am considering doing this with my first graders. I would love advice and tips! Thank you. Colleen Carson colleencarson90@gmail.com

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  3. Soooo love this idea!! I've been on this same wave of thinking...wanting to break away from a morning table job(but keep the prep simple). Can you share where you got the wikki stix abc cards? Thanks again for your creative ideas!!!
    Smiles to you,
    Kim
    schneiderk@stillwater.k12.mn.us

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  4. I LOVE the basket idea for morning work! Why didn't I think of that!? I am so joining the challenge!!

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  5. @Kim - I believe I ordered the cards from Scholastic. I think they came in a book format, and I just cut them apart and laminated them. I know they also had Tangram ones too (in the same book format)

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  6. @Kim - here is a link to some on Amazon
    http://www.amazon.com/Wikki-Stix-Alphabet-Cards-Learning/dp/B001GIK6EU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382920674&sr=8-2&keywords=alphabet+wikki+stick+book

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  7. These baskets look great :0 I still like doing a worksheet first thing in the morning, because that is often the ONLY worksheet that they take home all day. In my class - more of the workstations/centers/Daily 5 activities are like your baskets, with no worksheets.

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  8. I love the format for your lesson plans all of them. any chance you could send blank copy so that i could input my own stuff or do you sell on TPT//
    thanks jshoemake@firstdallas.org

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  9. Love the basket in the morning idea....
    Tell me a little bit about how your management goes with the kids.
    My kids stagger in between 7:25 and 7:50. - I am usually checking planners for notes,etc.
    As well as greeting and welcoming.
    Thanks for all your wonderful ideas and suggestions

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  10. Can you share with me how your experience went with setting up the basket the first few weeks of school. I am considering doing this with my first graders. I would love advice and tips! Thank you. Colleen Carson colleencarson90@gmail.com

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  11. For the buckets, I can't really see what it is. I see chains. Can you provide description of materials and what the kids are to do ?
    I also want to know more on the basket with the letter E. are they looking for items that start with that letter ?

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    1. The basket with the chains is a fine motor and counting basket. The children attach the correct number of chains to the elephant that is in the basket. The "letter e" basket is a puzzle basket - the children use tangrams to make each letter. Hope that helps!

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  12. Where did you get the elephants that they count chains on?

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