And... it's June!

Oops. The last 6 months got away from me and I haven't posted anything new in all that time! I am excited to be moving up to 1st grade this upcoming year (Yep, I had to pack up my classroom again to move to a different room in the building). I am super looking forward to it, though, as I'll be co-teaching a Nest class, which is a special inclusion program for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I'm going to learn so much this year, I can already feel it! The main goal of summer is to do all of the basic prep I can (I've already typed and printed spelling and robust vocabulary words for each work's display board!) so I won't have quite so many day-to-day tasks to complete the first few weeks of school.

Elves

Our district went to school through December 22, so we were desperate for fun and engaging activities to keep our kiddos occupied this week. One lesson I did was on Elf Day. (By assigning a Christmas symbol to each day it narrowed down the crazy a teensy bit, I think). We read Elf Memoirs by Devin Scillian and Elf Elementary by Edward Miller. We talked about some of the Christmas traditions mentioned in the book and I led them to a discussion about Christmas cards. ("It's sooo boring when we have to get our picture taken for our card.") Then each kiddo got to choose a card and someone in their life they'd like to send it to. We then used our sight words to write a sentence in the card, and signed our name using our best handwriting. One of my lovelies wrote her card for me! 

PS- We also made Elf Selfies to go with the new book, The Christmas Selfie Contest by Rosie Greening!

Reindeer

'Twas the week before Christmas and Kindergarten was crazy! To keep kids focused this week but still in the holiday spirit, we've been reading tons of books. 

One of my favorites to read each aloud (I know I always say that!) is a nonfiction book called Reindeer by Mary Ann McDonald. I'm not sure if it's still available, but it's super informational and at a level even little kids can understand. On Reindeer Day we read the book and created this chart recalling facts about reindeer. The next day, as I pointed to each part of the picture, even though most of my kids can't read they were able to tell me what they knew about reindeer. Then of course we pretended to be reindeer and had to line up by name in order for lunch. Rudolph was first, of course! 

Birdseed Ornaments

One of my favorite Christmas stories is The Night Tree by Eve Bunting. After reading the story, my kiddos made their own birdseed ornaments using gelatin, birdseed, boiling water (electric kettle for the win!) straws, and cookie cutters. There are tons of recipes online but my favorite is from Debbie at One Little Project. They took a day to dry but the kids loved them! 

I pulled up the materials needed as we measured each ingredient into bowls (pairs shared) and then we followed directions step-by-step. Our PALs tutor came in to help so that was fabulous! 

Indian Math

To teach comparing sets of numbers and Indians simultaneously, each pair of kids got an Indian workmat, number cards to 10 (or dice), and their own cup of popcorn kernels. (Yes, being kindergarten there was a lecture about not eating them or putting them where they don't belong.) They each rolled a number and counted out their corn, then used the velcro greater-than/less-than/equal-to cards to determine who had the greater amount. For kids that found this a breeze, it turned into a game: the person with the greater amount got to keep the kernels, and play continued until one player no longer had enough kernels to play. 

Leaf Man

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert is one of my favorite fall stories. We read the book, and then went outside on a leaf hunt. Each kiddo counted out 10 leaves from the playground in their baggie. When we came inside we glued our leaves onto construction paper making our own leaf creatures. 

Counter-Pillars

I've seen this idea several times on Pinterest, so I made a cute little activity mat for my lovelies to practice making sets up to 10. Each kiddo gets a container of play-doh and they use their fine motor skills to roll out little balls to make each caterpillar's body parts.