Glyphs

Do you use glyphs in your classroom?  I love to use glyphs in my classroom.  Why?  Well, glyphs are a great way to collect data about my class.  I ask kids some questions, and based on their answers they build a cute art project.  You display this art in your math center and go back to the art to collect and analyze the data.  Here is my view of what a glyph is in a nutshell...

I make seasonal glyphs:

I connect glyphs to my units of study.

I also love to make glyphs just for the fun of it.

My kindergartners always need more cutting activities to strengthen their fine motor muscles and glyphs are a great (and fun) way to do that.

Here is my latest glyph... a Teddy Bear Glyph.

It comes with all this and will be available for only $1 for the next 3 days.  

If you have never made a glyph before, this is the perfect opportunity to give one a try.  Kids love them, they make an adorable bulletin board, and the bulletin board is not static; you will revisit it time and time again to collect and analyze the data displayed.  Administrators love it!

Leave a Comment Bulletin Boards, Common Core, Fun Stuff, Glyphs, Math

Oh Snap! It's Almost November!

Oh Snap! It's Almost November!

It feels like it October just started, but when you look at the calendar, November is right around the corner so it's time to start planning.

I'm linking up today with the bloggers over at Teacher Deals and Dollar Steals for their fabulous monthly linky party.  I don't know about you, but I absolutely LOVE that blog.  It's a great place to get deals on some wonderful products.

Thinking ahead to November, here is one of my favorite bulletin boards.  It's my TURKEY GLYPH.

If you don't know what a glyph is, it's a pictorial way to collect and organize data

Kids answer questions and based upon those answers they build a turkey. The turkeys come out really cute and they make a beautiful bulletin board.  We like to decorate the front office with ours.  All the parents who come into the office get a chuckle from the signs the turkeys are holding.

The Turkey Glyph contains:

 directions and black line masters for making the turkeys, a glyph key, a glyph book, a poem, a literacy center idea, a data collection sheet, and photos of completed turkeys.

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I also have a fun Turkey Tail Patterning activity.  

In this activity, kids use pattern blocks to make a circular pattern around the turkey tail.  Then they glue the turkey body on top and add the beak, eyes and legs.  This also looks great on the wall and covers so many skills.  Kids have a lot of practice making patterns in a straight line, but can they transfer that knowledge to a circular shape?  You will be surprised at how this simple activity really stretches their thinking.

Aren't these cute?

Grab them now and get ready for November.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can click here to head back over to the link up.

Leave a Comment Bulletin Boards, Glyphs, Holidays, Math, Teacher Deals and Dollar Steals

Graduation

In my school district, we don't have graduation ceremonies, well, really we do, we just don't call them graduations.   Instead we call them promotion ceremonies.  

At my school we don't even call it a promotion ceremony,  we call it a "Celebration of Success."

I teach at an all Kindergarten school.  When kids promote from my school, they go off to their next school where they will stay from 1st through 5th grades.

It's a bittersweet time because we teachers grow so close to the kids and their families and unlike traditional schools, we won't see them as they grow.

That is the one thing that I really miss.  I miss saying hi to the kids and their parents and hearing about what things they are up to.

Here are photos of my Graduation Kids Glyph.  My kids robe color is determined by the school that they will be attending next year.  They are holding either a book or a pencil, depending on if they like reading or writing the best.  The shoes denote how they go home after school each day.  The tassel color tells if they are a boy or girl.

After we complete the glyph we analyze the data.  It's a lot of fun and the parents think it's super cute.  By doing this glyph the kids learn who will be going to the same school as them next year.

I have adapted the glyph to be used by any school.  Take a look at the preview.

Leave a Comment Art, Bulletin Boards, Fun Stuff, Glyphs, Math

Almost to 100 Followers on TpT!

Hi everyone,

I'm super duper close to reaching the 100 follower milestone on TpT.  I've just created a cute Snowman Glyph that could be used in grades K-6.  Really!  And I'm just dying to give it away as a FLASH FREEBIE!  Head on over to my TpT store and follow me (if you haven't already) and I'll make it FREE for the entire month when I reach 100 followers!  Now that's a great way to celebrate a milestone!!

1 comment Art, Glyphs, Holidays, Math

Making a Glyph

I love making glyphs with my Kindergartners.  It combines math and art all in one great project. Why make a glyph?

The glyph this month was a Jack-o-lantern.  I asked the kids different question and based on how they answered the questions, they build their Jack-o-lantern.

I ask kids a question and then have them line up in the room based on their answer.  This gives them a good visual of and is a great concrete graphing lesson.  Then they head back to their seats and cut and glue the shapes depending on how they answered the question.  Some of my little guys want specific shapes and don't like being told what shape to use, but we talk a lot about how we are collecting data and if they use the shape they want and not the shape that represents their answer, then our data will be invalid.  This is tough for the little ones, but it reinforces listening skills and following directions.  I tell them that they can make another Jack-o-lantern for fun in the art center later in the week.

Our Jack-o-lanterns always turn out really cute.  I put them on the bulletin board and I place the glyph key along side the artwork.  This was our first glyph of the year so I made the key really big so that the parents could learn about glyphs as well.

We spend the rest of the month going over the data collected on the glyph.   We look at different parts of the glyph and collect and analyze the data during math time.  Here are two ways that we look at the data.

 

2 comments Art, Common Core, Glyphs