Check this out

Anyone teaching with the new Common Core Standards needs to check out this blog Kindergarten Kindergarten. I tried to use some of her problem solving activities with my students last year with fantastic results. The kids made these on their own during free play after this lesson.

Here is an anchor chart based off of one of her warm up ideas.

100 Days....A Little Late

So these were back in February here are a few things we did for the 100th day of school.

We finished our puzzle.

You'll notice it looks a little funky in the middle. I had a sub for a couple of days and I had trouble getting things to line up after that for a while. This is something that I will be doing again because the kids loved it.

We wrote 100 words. This was a good time filler for those early finishers. Many worked on and off throughout the day.

We found kisses hidden in the room and matched the numbers on the bottom to a hundreds chart. (Got this idea from mailbox magazine)

I know we made crowns but I have no pictures without kids faces :(

Painting with Bubble Wrap

Long time no see...Long time no blog?

 It's been hard for me to post here lately and read anything kindergarten related because I just needed a break from school. I left my job of six years, which was a lot harder then I thought it would be. I need to be working closer to home and so right now I'm in between jobs.

It's been very nerve wracking because the county I want to work on has posted ZERO jobs in elementary ed for the past two months. I know this because I have been checking every day (multiple times) I know it is partly due to the fact that they are still going through transfers and all that jazz, but waiting is hard. It's hard to go through Target and see the sale on glue sticks and not buy any.

But anyway, I've been keeping myself busy at home cleaning out some areas of my house that desperately needed it and I was cleaning up my computer and found some pictures of things that I did over the spring with my students.

This is from Valentine's Day, but you could do this project anytime. Last year our art teacher, who we only see 3 times a year :( , did this more free form with the kids. I adapted it for hearts for a valentine measuring project, but you could really do any shape you wanted to.

1. Collect different sized bubble wrap (large bubbles, small bubbles, etc.) and cut them down to individual pieces for the kids. Roughly the size of a piece of 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Tape the bubble wrap to the table.

2. Have the students paint the bubble wrap and then make a print. I let them switch for different colors and different sized bubbles.

3. Let the paper dry and then have them trace their shape on the back. Then they can cut it out their shape. I purposely gave students different sized hearts since this was going to be a measuring activity. (Look its differentiated!)

4. I had my students measure with nonstandard units. I ended up putting these on the bulletin board put I have no pictures of that. They glued them to a sentence frame that said "I used _____  cubes to measure my heart." Some of my more advanced students got to pick their unit of measurement so their frame looked like this " I used ____   _______ to measure my heart."

Thinking back now you could do this with a shapes unit so you could review 2D shapes (K.G.2) and have them use a paper big enough that they could trace two object and then compare (K.MD.2).

Patterns

This is a favorite unit of mine since the students really get it and there are always a few creative ones that surprise me.

We start our unit by asking what is a pattern and what makes it a pattern. Then we practice making patterns with manipulatives. Here are some of the patterns my students made using some fun Target Dollar Section and Dollar Tree finds...

Target Fall Table Scatter

Puff Balls from the Dollar Tree

Erasers from the Target Dollar Section

Sometimes they use things in ways you never thought about.

Other students put beads (Dollar Tree) onto pipe cleaners. This is great because you do not have to tie a knot and it is good fine motor practice (I actually moved it into my fine motor center because the kids loved it so much even over the oh so popular playdough)

 The next day we did the same centers only this time they had to record their pattern (which we later glued into their math journals).

Though it isn't all unicorns and roses. I still have a couple giving me this when they work independently...

To be continued....

The funnest game ever! - Graphing

We started our graphing unit this week. Here we are collecting data.

 Here is the graph we then made.

Later in the week, we played Shake and Spill ("The funnest game ever!" according to one of my students). I put 5 two color counters in a cup. They cover and shake it 3 times (The best part) and then spill onto a math mat. Their partner sort the counters by color and the cup holder asks "Which has more and which has fewer" after answering they put the counters back in the cup and the other person shakes and spills.I wish I had snapped some pictures of them playing, but we still need a lot of practice working with others and I was just too busy. (We play this game a lot and I try to make it a math center so hopefully I can get some pics then)

The next day we played again only this time they sorted onto a graph page that was in a sheet protector.

After playing on their own for a while they each got a graph page and their own counters to shake, spill, and record so I could assess some skills. I took some dictation to see where they were with the concept of more and fewer and as expected there are still a few that need practice with drawing graphs and many of my level 1 ELL students need more practice with the vocabulary.
 

 

Shoes Glorious Shoes

10 bagillion points to anyone that understands that reference to a musical.

So we started our sorting unit today and what better manipulatives then something the kids are intimately familiar with...their shoes!

I can't take the credit for this one because Mrs. Lochel over at Keeping Up with the Kindergarteners (awesome blog name) had it first.

Can you guess how they sorted them here? (The colors might be a little off but it's shoes with pink on the left and others on the right)

The kids thought the whole thing was hilarious! Can't wait to do more sorting tomorrow!