Fine Motor + A Giveaway

So many of our little kinders come in to our classroom with weak fingers and hands.  Our school OT says part of it has to do with fewer babies spending time on their tummies and/or crawling. With the invention of exersaucers our kiddos are sitting upright more often.

It’s important to do lots of activities to encourage fine motor growth and hand strength.

Here are some ideas:

• Making play dough balls with the forefinger and thumb
• Tongs, tweezers, and clothes pin activities
• Clipping paperclips on paper
• Picking up small items like buttons, gems, and pom poms
• Threading beads on pipe cleaners
• Placing small stickers on paper

Here are more fantastic ideas for fine motor development:

One of the centers that my kiddos enjoy is this sorting center:

These little tweezers, aka “Gator Grabbers” are from Learning Resources.  They are sized just perfectly for little hands and have just enough resistance for the kids.

Here are the “specs” from the Learning Resources website:

Helps develop the pincer grasp needed for writing and fine motor skills needed for daily living: e.g. buttoning, zipping a zipper, holding a toothbrush, picking up finger foods etc.

Great for children who are hypersensitive to textures: they can participate in tactile play using tweezers to hold and move objects

Assists in development of eye-hand coordination (visual-motor integration)

Incorporate puppet-like conversations to enhance communication and social interactions (Gator can speak to or try to gobble up the other person, increasing direct contact with another)

These adorable tweezers look like little alligators and come 12 to a pack (2 each of red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and purple).  You can purchase here {HERE} for $10.99 (what a steal!) or you can win a set!!

Simple do the following:

1. Find Learning Resources on Facebook and “like” them

2. Leave a comment below telling me your favorite fine motor activity! Be sure to leave your e-mail!

PS- This giveaway will end on Friday, October 5, 2012

Apple Centers

Here is my line-up of centers for this week!

The children are SO excited to be starting 10 frames – or 10 picture frames as one child called it! ha! At this center, they will make little apples with the apple scented play dough and fill in the ten frame – then copy that over to their recording sheet.

Here, they are using the Lakeshore letter stampers to stamp the beginning sound of the picture.

At this center, they are shaking the dice, counting the dots and dobbing the number.

Still working hard at that instant identification of the dot formation! We are also really trying hard to make numbers the correct way.

This is just a simple number sequencing activity.  They will color in a pattern when they are finished. (This is the only one that is not in my Apples unit – it is in the It’s Fall Y’All unit.

The children will use the IWB for this center.  They will count the apples on each tree and write it under the apple tree. 

(Cards are included in the unit – sorry I can’t include the flipchart in the unit because the clip art is not secured and it is against the artists terms of use)

  

At this center, the children will find their sight words around the room and trace them.  Eventually they will write the words themselves, but this is their first center with letter boxes!

This center will also be one on the IWB – they will spin a spinner with beginning sound pictures and dob the correct letter.

(The spinner is included in the unit – sorry I can’t include the flipchart in the unit because the clip art is not secured and it is against the artists terms of use)

At this center, the children will pull an apple from the basket, say the letter and stamp the matching lowercase letter.  I am using apple cards that I had from a previous activity, but cards are included in the unit.

I’m super excited for this last literacy center!  I was awarded 5 iPads from a district grant for our Kindergarten classroom! The children don’t know yet, but they will be exploring literacy apps during center time this week! FUN!

All of these activities (except for one) are included in my Apples unit.

Here is a little activity that I used last year – hope you can use it!

Some Chicka Chicka Fun!

I only have a few pictures from the fun of our Chicka Chicka week! I’m having a hard time remembering to snap pictures!

We made this fun snack ala Kim Jordano! She is awesome.  Have you stopped by her blog yet?  She is working on a fantastic book of fun recipes! She gave me a sneak peek! I can’t wait until they are all done – what a fun way to end a week.  Stop by her TpT store too – she has lots of fun stuff! I can’t wait to start making her Alphabet Poem Cards!

This super fun project was created by Kacey from Doodle Bugs! The children worked on these when we did our universal screen.  It was a great project when kids were coming and going from our classroom.

And our Chicka trees! LOVE this project!

And I have to tell you about the most fantastic pencil sharper there ever was.  I, like many of you, fight a losing battle with the pencil sharpener every year.  I gave up on the electric ones years ago – they frustrate me, and they are expensive.

Enter this bad boy…

Isn’t he beautiful!?  It is a manual sharpener – which I totally don’t mind. I’ve been using en el cheapo manual sharpener from office max for a few years now.  I usually went through 2 a year.  This baby makes pencils SO sharp, and sharpens them so fast. {My hubby said he grew up in Norway with a pencil sharpener like this one!}

(You can find the cute bucket labels HERE!)

It is a different way to sharpen pencils, but it works!  The best part is that you can get replacement parts! How cool is that?!

So, do you want one of these bad boys?  Click on over to Classroom Friendly Supplies to check them out.  They are only $25 with FREE shipping!

Oh, PS – My apple unit is FINALLY done! Not all of the exact same activities from my post last year are included, but there are similar activities with the same skills! Just ask if you have questions!

September Centers

Our math and literacy centers have been going great! We are mainly practicing working in a group, taking turns, and doing our best work.  I’ve kept the centers very basic so we can accomplish these goals.  The kiddos are doing fantastic!

Here is a peek at some of the activities we’ve been doing during math and literacy centers:

Super simple cutting and sequencing practice.

Super simple patterning practice.

These shakers are from Lakeshore.  I don’t think they make them anymore :(

Roll and write the letter.

We used the Lakeshore letter play dough stampers for this center.   We used orange Kool-Aid play dough! Fun!

Roll and trace the beginning sound.

Sweet and simple!

I’m trying to get my Apple unit done, friends.  Somehow I managed to slip a disc in my neck  – which resulted in my doing absolutely nothing for the past 2 weeks!  The weekends consisted of sitting on the couch in pain.  My pain is better now, but I’ve lost feeling in my thumb and part of my arm, which makes it hard to work! I’m trying hard to get it done for you though – hang in there!

Daily News–Beginning of the Year

I snapped a couple of pictures of some my daily news charts from the beginning of the year …

What skills are you working on during daily news – any new ideas?  Post up below!

Calendar Fun!

We started our calendar book this week! I always like to wait until September to start, since we usually only have a few days in August. I use those days to really model the sequence of the calendar, and to get students up and moving and trying out the whiteboard.

I truly thought I would be able to keep up with both the calendar wall and the whiteboard, but I was over-estimating myself!

This is the progression of my calendar wall…

I started off with everything I would need on the wall.

I soon realized that after doing my calendar on my interactive white board for the past 3 years, I wouldn’t be able to switch to using the wall.  So, I thinned out my wall a bit…

Quite drastic, huh?  I change this out every day at the end of the school day, and we do the rest on my IWB.  This is just what works for me because this is how I’ve always done it!

However, the children are still working away on their calendar books!

This is what they look like:

I added colored dots to each binder so the children will be able to easily find their book in the correct basket.

Here is what they look like on this inside:

We always start off calendar with an alphabet song.  This one is from the Sounds Like Fun CD from Discovery Toys. The children enjoy it, and I love how they point to the picture and letter as they follow along with the song.

We then sing our September song! Click {HERE} to download a copy of the song.

          

The children keep their pencil and 4 crayons in a pencil pouch. (I ordered a case of these from The Dollar Tree and split it with a friend!)

Right now, calendar is taking about 15-20 minutes, but I anticipate it will start going faster and faster when the children are more familiar with the activities on each page.

If you are interested in the format I use for calendar book, you can purchase it {here}.

I’ve also uploaded 2 new products to my store…take a peek if you are interested!