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.

Apples!

It's been a whirlwind so far this year teaching Kindergarten. Most of the pictures I'll be posting come from ClassDojo, so they have kids in them. I'll block out faces best I can.

During our unit on seasons, we spent a week bringing in apples. We used them as math manipulatives all week, and then on Friday we made apple pies! In addition to sorting and graphing by color, you can graph by taste, count the seeds, read about 1,000 books, cut them up and paint with them, discuss fractions, and of course measurement when making the pie. 

Our favorite book was Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie by Herman Parish. In addition to a great story, it also has a diagram that shows what different kinds of apples look like. My kids were OBSESSED. FOR. DAYS. 

Kindergarten

This year I'm teaching Kindergarten, so I'll likely be super busy and not create a lot of my own stuff. I hope to blog some... (maybe catch up at Christmas?) but I really don't know what to expect. Here we go!

St. Patrick's Day Activity Booklets

A couple of years ago I made a point to purchase books for St. Patrick's Day. The kiddos love this holiday, in part because of the magical feeling of wearing green (as if we're all part of a secret club!) and the whimsical mischief of leprechauns and rainbows.

A popular (and free!) resource I've been using for years is my Clever Tom and the Leprechaun Cause and Effect activity. 

Over the last few weeks I've been working on more activities for my St. Patrick's Day books. I decided to create a cover page for each book and post them as "activity booklets." Of course, the pages can be used individually, but I plan on making small booklets using the pages (all things we've done in class) as a review during our small-group reading the week of March 13. 

I love the way I can differentiate the booklets for each child, so after reading the story aloud my students can work independently on whatever skill I feel they need some review with. Here are the ones I've created so far:

The Luckiest St. Patrick's Day Ever

Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk

The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow

And then to kick the month off I'll be sending home this awesome Create a Leprechaun Trap project home for students to complete. The Book How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace is a perfect read to introduce this. On Friday (March 17) we'll test out the traps. I created a brainstorming page in which students must plan 2 traps, create a pros/cons list for each, then determine the best way to succeed before building. Nothing like a little engineering thrown in for good measure!

A few other ideas I'm planning for March include keeping a class record of the leprechaun-themed books we read and graphing if they're good/neutral/mischievous creatures. I also plan to do a ton of writing this month (it always amazes me to see how far they come from August as far as writing goes) and since it's Reading Month our school will be participating in D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read). We also have a few surprise readers coming (including a police officer and our school secretary!) which I know will thrill the kids.