Pumpkin Centers

Here is what we have been working on during centers!

They LOVE using spinners!  This one is from Julie Lee.

Practicing some patterns!

Still working on numbers and number words.

This is a great activity to introduce the complete 100s grid.  It is a free app called Counting Board.  The children simply tap a square, find the corresponding number on their number grid and color it in.  This keeps them SO engaged!!

A little bit of non-standard measuring.

This is a game that I adapted from my daughter’s Kindergarten teacher last year.  The children roll the dice and create towers with with the correct number of cubes.  When they have created all 6 towers, they get to color in one pumpkin.

This kids are writing the room with this fun activity from Julie.

Last year, I used the Promethean board for this center.  This year, I used an old fashioned pocket chart!

This page from Julie’s unit was originally intended to be used in a different way.  I adapted it to use my beginning sound stamps from Lakeshore.  I love how we can use each other’s units and make them fit our needs in our classroom!

This is from Julie’s pumpkin unit as well.  This is one of my most challenging centers this week! I love making them THINK!

This activity is from my It’s Fall Y’all pack.  I’ve recently updated some of the pages in this unit, so if you’ve purchased it, go back and download the updates!

Last year, I did this activity with this particular recording sheet.

This year, I wanted to incorporate my IWB with this sheet. I found this super simple flipchart on Promethean planet (if you search for it, you’ll find it!). 

The children simply count the pumpkins on the page, circle it (they love to choose the color!) and then fill in the ten frame on their recording sheet.

If you head back to {this post} you’ll be able to find a few of these in a free download!

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!)

  

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}

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

           

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:

 

  

Have a great week!!!

Pumpkins! Math and Literacy Centers!

Here is what we are doing during center time this week!

This is an oldie, but a goodie! I made this set of pumpkins about 5 years ago when I saw it in my friend Leslie’s classroom. I updated the response sheet this year though! The kids are doing great with this center!

This is another that I pulled out from the closet! There are numbers 1-10 written on the pumpkins. The kids use the tweezers to put the pumpkin erasers into the correct pumpkin cup. They then write the number on the pumpkin and fill in the ten frame. They are really enjoying this one!

Sequencing numbers.

At this game, the children roll the dice and put that many cubes on a pumpkin. When they’ve covered all of their pumpkins, they link all the towers together and spin the spinner to see who won! The longest tower or the shortest tower.

This is a center that I adapted from Kim Jordano. It’s hard to see in the picture on the left, but there are tiny die cut pumpkins with color words on them. The children search for the pumpkins, write the color word, and color the pumpkin the correct color.

We’re beginning to work with CVC words! The children matched the pictures to the words and then filled in the beginning and ending sounds on their paper.

This center is adapted from Julie Lee – the children pull a miniature from the box and write the beginning sound.

Each week, we listen to a story. The children then respond to the story in the Listening Center Journal. I got this idea from my friend Traci! The pages are just plain printer paper, and we add a label each week that tells what the children were looking or listening for. We have really been working hard on identifying the setting and characters and drawing and writing about them in our books.

This is our IWB center for the week.  SUPER simple – nothing fancy! The words are mixed up underneath the pumpkin and the children put them in the correct order and read it. They LOVE working at the IWB!

Here is another idea for the IWB. We did this center last week. The children pulled the letters out of the pumpkin and put them in the correct order to build the sight word. The click on the mouse, and the word “magically” appears! They LOVED this one. Definitely one to do again!

(Sorry guys, I can’t share these flip charts, the clipart isn’t secured and it’s against the artists terms of use to share!)

If you’re interested in these activities, you can download them {here} {here} {here} and {here!}

PS – Would love a comment if you download!  oh, and click that little “join this site” button for me, will ya?