Morning Baskets and Sight Words

It’s been a whirlwind these past few weeks! We had our first big dance competition this weekend, and I also had report cards due, so life was a bit…crazy!

I thought I would share with you what’s been in my  morning baskets lately.

The children complete the activities in these baskets after they finish their morning jobs.  We will only work in them for about 10-15 minutes, so the activities are quick and highly engaging!

I pulled out a lot of Lakeshore activities that I had on my shelves this time…

While the children are working in their morning baskets, I am finishing up reminding kids to make lunch choices, children are bringing library books down, I am entering attendance/lunch choices, etc.  We will work with the activities for about 10-15 minutes – some children work longer if they complete their morning jobs quickly.  We go straight into our daily calendar right after morning baskets!

I also wanted to share with you how I am tracking our sight words this year! 

Last year, each child had individual ice cream scoops like these

As they mastered each set of 10 words, they got another set of a different color and added a scoop to their ice cream cone.  They LOVED watching their ice cream scoops grow!

Because I have a larger class, I decided I wanted to do a big giant scoop!  The scoop that is in my room now has pictures of each child on the scoop that designates which set of cards they are working on.  As they master a set of cards, they move their picture up one scoop!  The children LOVE it!  They are so excited to learn their sight words!

I use these packets for my sight word work: (just click on the image to go to see more)

 

I still have 2 days left of work this week!  I will be back tomorrow to share what we did for centers over the last 2 weeks!

PS – Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a Sihouette Portrait! It will be ending soon!

Click {here!} to go to that post!

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!!!

Breakfast Baskets

I decided to try something new this year for my morning work.  The idea had been spinning around in my head for a while, and then the fabulous Michelle Oakes from Fabulous in First (also my Vegas roomie!) came up with the name for me!

She created a fantastic product for her firsties:

I wanted morning work to be something that could be done quickly, and wasn’t a big deal if it wasn’t finished.  Our breakfast goes a bit late and sometimes I have lots of stragglers coming in! I needed something to keep the kiddos engaged while I checked folders, counted lunch, did attendance, and so on. 

Michelle’s morning menu activities are too tricky for my kiddos right now, but I know around January this one will fit the bill.

So, in order to get my kiddos ready for the idea of Breakfast Baskets, I have put together baskets for 5 day rotations.    They are really simple, hands-on activities that the kids really enjoy! 

They will later morph to more paper and pencil tasks, books, and eventually to Michelle’s Morning Menu’s.

This is what the kids worked on for the first 5 days of school:

I got these cards from a scholastic book order once, and there are wikki sticks in the container.

Pattern blocks and pattern block mats (I got these from a friend, sorry I don’t have them!)

These are the Lakeshore lowercase letter builders.

Lakeshore number puzzles

Bear counters and patterning cards.  (I believe these came from Jessica Meacham’s site)

Here is how I manage the rotations:

Each table has an animal icon – and the squares are just the colors of the baskets.  This is really just for me to remember which table gets which basket!  It’s just in a small Target $1 section pocket chart. (It’s hanging on the blinds – that’s why it looks like it’s glowing!)

I’ll be back with the next 5 days of rotations soon!