Building Number Sense

Working on number sense is very important.  We do daily number talks to help us understand how others understand math concepts and to expand our own thinking.

I also like to give my kids many opportunities to build number sense.  Here we are playing a favorite game called "Bears in Caves".  It's from the Math Their Way curriculum and I've been using it for years and years and years.  It is a fantastic activity for working on composing and decomposing numbers.

To play the game: Each child gets 5 bears, a bowl to serve as the cave, and a wall to shield the players as they set up their caves.  One student holds up the wall and they each player chooses an amount of bears to put inside the cave and to leave outside.  I have my kids put the bears on top of the bowl so they can see them easier.  When both players are ready, the wall gets removed and the students study the other player's cave deciding how many bears are hiding inside the cave based on how many they see outside.  They ask each other, "How many bears are in the cave?" and lift the cave showing the amount after the other player answers the question.

My kids could play this for hours.  In kindergarten we expect number sense mastery to five so this game really helps build that for my kiddos.  

After they have a firm grasp of number concept to five, then I will add 5 more bears and we will work on composing and decomposing numbers to 10.  You can take this simple activity and adapt it for centers or add a recording sheet, but I like to keep it pure.  I always have the bears and caves materials in a handy location and I will deploy this game if we have a few extra minutes in our busy schedules.  It's a great sponge activity with tons of learning packed inside.

Leave a Comment Common Core, Fun Stuff, Math

April Fools Fun

I love fun jokes.  Every year I go for the classic "I made you a pan of brownies," joke.  It's old, but since I teach kindergarten, it's new for my audience.  That's one of the perks of teaching kindergarten.  They were so excited to get brownies after recess.  

What are these?!...

"Brown E's just like I told you,"  I said sweetly.  "They aren't what you expected?  April Fools!"

After the initial disappointment, I got the smiles and laughter that I was looking for.  

Tomorrow is April Fools so we made fun duck/bunny April Fools jokes for our families.  

The kids loved making them, and they laughed so much (kindergarten humor) when I flipped one from the duck to the bunny and said, "April Fools" and then switched it back again.  I know they will all go home and "trick" their parents tonight instead of waiting for the actual April Fools Day to play the prank.  

Leave a Comment Fun Stuff

Butterfly Release

Each year I get caterpillars for my classroom.  The students watch as they grow from tiny little caterpillars, morph into a chrysalis, and then finally emerge as butterflies.

The whole metamorphosis process is absolutely amazing to the kids (me as well) and they eagerly rush over to the enclosure each morning to take a look at the progress.

When all of the butterflies have emerged and we have completed our observations, it's time to set them free.

I've been doing this for a number of year (too many to count) and it's always a bit disappointing for the kids who desperately want to hold one, only to have them flutter away before getting a chance.  

That's usually what happens.

(The kids are eagerly hoping that the butterfly won't fly away before at least one child gets a chance to hold it on their finger)

Well, this year it was different!

One of our butterflies had a folded wing and couldn't fly.  I used this to our advantage.

This little butterfly made our day!  

I sat all my kiddos in a circle on the grass and we gently passed this little guy around one at a time.

All of my kiddos got a turn holding our new butterfly friend.  

They were so gentle (even though they were incredibly excited) and they noticed things about the butterfly that they hadn't mentioned when we were looking at them in the enclosure.

After everyone got a chance to meet our special butterfly, we took him over to our garden and set him loose on a flower.

He immediately settled in and my kids looked for him every time we walked past.

The whole process of METAMORPHOSIS is really amazing to watch.

Now whenever my kids see a butterfly fluttering around our campus they immediately think it's one of our butterflies and they squeal with joy.

I love the joy of kindergarten!

Leave a Comment Fun Stuff, Science

Fun End of the Year Activity That Keeps Kids Active During the Long Summer Break

As the school year draws to an end,  I'm always looking for fun activities to do with my class.  

Here is a really cute project made by my good friend Tracy Geisinger.  

She has created these fun and engaging  Summer Fun Count-Down Rings.  

These rings are filled with fun and creative tasks for kids to do during the summer. 

I love these activities because they get kids outside doing something, or they involve creative endeavors like drawing,  building or making something.   I've just shared a small sampling of the activities you get.  There are also blank rings to write your own ideas.  You could add some academic tasks or visits to your local parks or museums.  Put a date on one and meet your kids somewhere for a picnic or afternoon of reading your favorite books.  Be creative and personalize these.

Parents will love these because it battles the inevitable "I'm bored" phenomenon that happens.  (There is nothing more frustrating to hear as a parent.)  I include a ring with a beach day where I invite all my kids to meet me at the beach (with their families of course) and we spend the day frolicking in the waves and building sand castles.

I made these with my class last year and parents told me they had so much fun completing the tasks over the summer with their kids.  The activities got the whole family engaged in the fun.

These are super easy to prep and kids love making them. 

They really are perfect for those last few days of school.

Click on any of the photos 

or click here

to get your own copy.

Happy end of the school year!

Leave a Comment End of the Year, Fun Stuff, Holidays

Building Letter/Sound Fluency

As you know by now, I'm teaching EAK- Early Admission Kindergarten to the kiddos in my district that turn 5 between December and March.  We are working very hard on learning our letters and sounds and believe it or not, a handful of my little ones are just beginning to decode simple CVC words!

Kindergarten is such an exciting grade.  I LOVE teaching kids how to read and write!

Here is a fun game that I play with my small groups to help everyone learn their letters and sounds.

You can play it multiple ways, depending on what skills your kids need.  Usually we do it looking for the names of the letters, but sometimes we will play it saying the letter's sound.  By mixing it up, it keeps it new and exciting- AND- versatile!

Just click here or on either of the photos to grab your FREE copy of this game.

There will be a big Teacher Appreciation Sale on TpT this week so stop by and grab the things on your wish list.  All of my items will be 20% off along with the TpT additional 10% discount.  Use the promo code: CELEBRATE to get all your discounts!

Thanks for stopping by!

Leave a Comment Back to School, Common Core, Fun Stuff, Literacy Actvities

Outer Space Adventures in Kindergarten

We've been learning about the Solar System in my classroom.  We began by studying the planets and singing this song...

I originally found the song on the Smithsonian website, but I changed the words for a few verses to accommodate my needs.  You can click on the song to go to the original site and find the original words.

Then we made these adorable astronaut helmets so we could take our own journey into space.

We did this by taking a brown paper grocery bag and rolling the bottoms.  We then cut out the hole for the face and painted the bags white.  The kids had a blast making them.  We put them on each time we travel to our Space Lab.

Here is our Space Lab.  This is a Project Based Learning Environment.  These are the current activities, but they will be changing as we delve deeper into our Space Exploration.

We explore how craters are made on the moon.

To make the "cloud dough" I added baby oil to flour and mixed it until it was soft, silky and the flour didn't puff when a rock was dropped into it.  The kids wear the "safety goggles" for added effect.  Be careful though as the flour/oil mixture becomes extremely slippery on tile. 

 We use "space sand" to write letters, numbers and words.

The kids are sure that the red sand has come from Mars and Jupiter.  They think the white is from either the moon or Mercury and of course, the blue sand is from Neptune (even though it's a big ball of gas).  Love it!

 We have an International Space Station where the astronauts live while they are in space.

The kids are having fun pretending to be astronauts living in the Space Station.

 We have a Space Travel Agency that gives potential space travelers tickets to different planets.

This is a popular center with everyone wanting a turn as the Travel Agent.  I have an old keyboard that they use to type out the tickets.

 We have a Robotics Center where we learn coding and program the robots to do different things.

We have Bee Bots that are perfect for kindergartners.  We set up mazes with tape or blocks and the kids program the robots to go through the maze.  This is great for problem solving and writing simple code.

 We have a Spatial Reasoning Center where we complete puzzles and do different tasks.

The kids enjoy the challenges of these puzzles.  I inherited them from a teacher who retired 10 years ago.

We conduct experiments on "Moon Rocks".

I made "Moon Rocks" by adding glitter and black paint to baking soda.  I used just enough water to form rocky balls.  The kids put their "Moon Rocks" into cups and added vinegar one drop at a time.  The results were fizzy fun!  We recorded the results of our experiment on the sheet.

Click here to get the directions for this FREE on my TpT Store!

 We use toothpicks and play dough to make different shapes.

This center develops fine motor muscles and helps the kids work on shape identification.  

The kids are working on making a Mission Control so we can launch rockets into space.

This week we will be making rockets and learning about the forces needed to launch them.

We are also creating a BioSphere area where we learn about the plants and animals that inhabit the Earth (perfect for Earth Day!)

I am following the lead of my students and the activities and areas in our Space Lab are constantly changing and adapting to our needs.  I will make another post about our Space Lab before the school year ends so you can see some of the other activities that we are doing.

There are a lot of great resources on Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest for space activities.  Many of the things that I did in my classroom were inspired by things that I found on both.

Leave a Comment Fun Stuff, Science

Rhyming Fun with Green Eggs and Ham

Rhyming is so important as a pre-reading skill so we work on it a lot in my classroom.  I love March because I love Dr. Seuss.  His books are so engaging for young kids and I love the messages within.  They touch on so many deep concepts and really get discussions flowing.  But that's not the reason for this post (stay focused Cheryl).  

I want to share with you one of my kiddos favorite literacy center activities- my Green Eggs and Ham Rhyming Center.  I call it a center because kids can work independently if they can decode CVC words, but you can also do it as a small group activity (which is what I'm going to do this year with my TK kiddos as many of them aren't decoding yet).  

It's a ton of fun.  Kids use a real spatula to scoop up an egg and place it into a small frying pan.  (I use a small plastic frypan from my kitchen housekeeping center).  They read the word on the egg then look for the ham that rhymes with it.  When they find that, they scoop that ham up with the spatula and place it into the frying pan to "cook."  When the eggs and ham are done cooking, the kids remove them and write the words on the recording sheet.  They can then put those two rhymes aside and start again on a new egg/ham match.

This activity is awesome because they are reading simple CVC words, listening for rhymes (phonemic awareness), and writing!    You can grab this at my TpT store.  It's simple to prep and easy to store.  I keep mine in a gallon ziplock bag.

This is a great activity to have set up when you are cooking green eggs and ham with your class.

Leave a Comment Common Core, Fun Stuff, Literacy Actvities, Literacy Centers, Writing

Mouse Paint Fun

My kids are wonderful artists!  I love it when they just let loose and let the art flow.  No preconceived notions of what art needs to look like.   (Kids are wonderful that way)

Here is a fun color mixing lesson that isn't anything new, but I wanted to share how I do it with my kiddos.

We read the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh and then we use cotton balls to represent the mice.  

I squirt red, blue and yellow paint onto a 12x12 sheet of white paper and let the kids use 3 cotton balls as the 3 mice in the story.  We spread the colors around and mix the edges together  making the colors or orange, purple, and green when they meet.  The kids have so much fun working on the big paper and the cotton balls make perfect mice (and they keep the kids relatively clean).

Here is what our finished paintings look like.  I drew 3 mice on white paper and the kids cut those out and put them onto their papers.  They used Sharpies to draw the tails and whiskers.  

Here is our classroom bulletin board. 

You can see how some kids loved to fill the paper with the paint and how some kids were more reserved.  I gave them a large canvas (12x12) to work with.   I think it's important to give the artist choice and to let them make their own interpretation of the assignment.

So, there you go.  Get out your paints and cotton balls and let your kids mix some colors.  It's fun and the results are so beautiful.  (I liked them even without the mice.)

Happy painting!

1 comment Art, Bulletin Boards, Fun Stuff