Growing Kinders

The Kids on the Bus

I have another quick number game to share!

I love this one, and the kids had a blast with it. These little Lakeshore figurines made all of the difference.

See the bus windows? It’s like a mini 5 frame!

We practiced taking kids on and off the bus and playing with number combinations of 5. I wish I could say they could all add and subtract fluently within 5 already, but sadly, that’s not the case.

But, we have a start, right! Later, we’ll do this activity again with whiteboards and write out our equations.

Do you want to try this activity tomorrow? Click the image to download! I’m keeping it simple leaving it in black line – so go copy it on colored construction paper!

There is NOTHING cute and fancy about this game folks. We played this game the first week of school. I wanted to get the kids used to playing games in partners, and I just needed to watch how they interacted with each other, and also if they had any basic math skills.

So this roll and cover game spilled out of my printer. There is really nothing to it, and it’s not any brilliant new idea. I just made a 1x6 table and added the numbers. Ran through the copier on colored paper and printed. Literally a 5 minute prep time. Shh….they’re not even laminated!

The children take turns rolling the dice and covering the number they rolled with the markers. When their board is full, they just start over again. No winner, here – just keep going and going and going!

I’m going to add this game to my sub tub – it’s simple and easy a caveman can do it. If you need a minute to catch your breath during the day – pull this game out. Your kids will love it.

Lesson Plans–September 9-13

Here we go! It’s our first official 5 day week. We were *supposed* to have a full week, but we closed school early because of extreme temperatures in our classroom. It’s no fun teaching (and it’s not safe!) when you’re classroom is hovering around the 90 degree mark!

So…this week is it. I posted last week about my literacy center rotations. Well….after reading Marsha’s post about her rotations, I changed it again. I do have some help in my room for literacy rotations, and I wanted to truly take advantage of that. We will give it a go this week and see it we can make it work!

You can download a PDF of my plans by clicking {here} or on any of the images!

Have a great week!

PS – Want to see more great plans? Click below!

Week in Review: Calendar and Centers

This week was only a three day week for us, but it felt like a month! Last week we had shortened days because of the heat (and non-air conditioned buildings), so going for full days this week was tough on my little babies! Not to mention back to school germs are spreading rapidly! Unfortunately, they’ve also made their way into my body! Here’s hoping for a relaxing weekend to kick this summer cold!

This week was all about getting used to centers. I have a larger (25) class this year, so I had to do a little bit of rethinking on how I am running my centers. I knew that having 5 kids working at 5 centers would be too much to handle!

So, here’s what I do:

One chart is for math centers, and one if for literacy centers. They both have the same kids in each group, but I know that I will not always be able to get to both math and literacy centers in one day, so I wanted to keep them separate.

I divided my class in half. So, during math centers, half of the children will be working at centers (with a max of three per group), and the other half will be at the carpet during a whole group lesson with me.

The kids are also divided in half for literacy centers, but instead of a whole group lesson, they will be writing. I learned this strategy from my super smart friend Traci – it works so well in her classroom, I wanted to try it in mine. It’s still a work in progress, but I think we’ll get there! My literacy centers are scheduled for the same time as my RTI support time, so eventually more kids will be pulled for intervention at this time, so I may need to slightly rework it when that starts.

So, these centers are all about getting used to working quietly in partnerships (or small groups), working the whole time, cleaning up centers, and switching groups. So, the items in my center drawers are pretty basic.

Here’s a peek inside:

From left to right:

1. Exploring with geoboards

2.Trace a Shape from Julie Lee

3.Simple roll and cover game

4. Pattern block puzzles

5. Unifix patterns

1. Letter hunt from Shari Sloane

2. Alphabet writing from Lakeshore

3. Alphabet Puzzles

4. Pete the cat roll and write from Jamie Chamblee. (I don’t think this is available anymore!)

On to Calendar…..

I was just slightly nervous to start our calendar binders with such a large group of young kinders this year. But, I am so happy to say that it is going FABULOUS! I start off very, very slow!!

I know quite a few of you were concerned with the amount of paper for my calendar pages (bummer that some of you have such a tight budget!), so I wanted to test another version that you can use that uses less paper. So, here goes:

I use 1/2” clear view calendar binders that I buy from Sam’s club. I like the clear view so I can slide in my calendar songs (sorry this unit is taking SO long!) and alphabet song. I label the spine of the binders with a different color of electrical tape (I use this stuff for everything!). I train the kids to put them away with their name up and with their color, so they can easily grab it when they come in in the morning.

The first month, we always sing the Alphabet Sounds song by Barbara Milne. The children love it, but it drives me a bit batty. It is about 4 minutes long, so it gives me just a couple of minutes to enter in my lunch count, and do any quick morning jobs I need to do.

I teach the children to use their pointer to track the pictures and letters as they sing the song. I LOVE seeing them do this!

Remember that smart friend that I mentioned above? She also created this original version – I recreated it an uploaded it so you can use it too! Just click the image below to download it for your calendar binders.

After we sing our monthly song, we fill in the pages of our daily calendar. Good news! I’ve updated my Daily Calendar packs to included the versions you see below – and more! I’ll continue to update the calendar pack until all of the skills are included. If you already own the pack, go ahead and download again to get the additions!

I hope you enjoy the additional pages/options. As I complete each new page, I will upload it to the file, so keep checking back each month for more skill pages!

If you are interested in purchasing this pack for your daily calendar, you can purchase it by clicking the image below:

You can find other posts about my calendar book by clicking the calendar and calendar book labels on the sidebar of my blog.

I’ll try to be back again tomorrow with my plans for the week!

Lesson Plans – September 4-6

Okay, here goes! Here are my plans for this week. They are not “visual” plans and there are no links on them this time around. I didn’t have the time this week to add links. I hope that I will be able to eventually, but I’m not making any promises! If you want to check out lots of great “visual” plans, check out Mrs. Wills Blog

They are still a work in progress as I try out a few things this week. I think I play with my schedule every week the first few weeks of school. I’m *hoping* this one sticks! I just changed my game plan today after visiting with a friend at our district PD, so we’ll see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Just click the image to download the plans!

Rules and Routines: Lunch Choice

One of the morning jobs my kiddos have to do when they come in in the morning is to make their lunch choice. We have 4 options at our school – 2 “warm” lunch choices, soy butter and jelly, and lunch from home.

I have been using these cute little sandwich containers for a few years now – they work just perfectly. I’ve found them at both Target and Wal-Mart.

Each child has a “popcorn” piece with their name on it. Our district is nice enough to provide primary classrooms with a picture lunch menu, so the children look at the choice, and place their popcorn piece into the lunch of their choice.

I’ve also used apple pieces too – here is another picture…

When we line up to go to lunch we line up by our lunch number choice. I train my kiddos to hold up a 1,2, or 3 with their fingers to let the lunch ladies know what their choice is. The first person in each group gets to hold the lunch number card, so the ladies will know when a new group is starting. I just use colored construction paper labeled with 1,2, or 3. Nothing fancy!

Children in our district also have a six digit number they have to learn. Luckily, our kitchen staff understands that kindergarten kiddos need to take it slow and first learn the routine of the lunch room before they start entering their lunch numbers!

This week we will start working hard on learning our numbers. We love to use these to practice entering our lunch numbers (they have to enter them in a keypad).

The kids think it’s pretty awesome.

The children all wear their nametag with their lunch number on it for the first few times they enter their number, but I’m always amazed at how quickly they learn it!

Here are a couple more activities that I use. Grab them if you can use them! (Sorry, but I can’t make any changes to them).

PS – We use PowerSchool to enter in our student’s lunch choices, so we don’t have to keep to write it down and send it to the office. Makes life in the morning a bit easier :) We try to count each choice as a class and enter it in, but sometimes I just quickly enter it while they are doing their morning jobs.

Here are some more ideas for lunch choices….click on each image to go to the original post.