Winter Fun!

It's 57 degrees here today, so I'm not sure if naming this post "Winter Fun" is appropriate, but that's just too bad.  We've been doing some winter-themed stuff in my classroom the past few weeks, and my students have had a lot of fun!  I just wanted to fill you in on a few of the fun activities we've been doing!

We've been working on consonant digraphs, ending sounds, and medial vowel sounds.  We've been doing a whole lot of blending sounds together and segmenting sounds to write.  We've also been doing lots of sorting too.  These are a few of the sorts we've been doing.  We also sorted the "th" digraph and several other ending sounds.  

The kids loved helping me sort these pictures.  These are all available in my Winter Bundle.

We've been working really hard on our word wall (sight) words.  Our word work center one week required our students to practice their sight words.  They loved finding the letters to make the words they were trying to spell.  Each snowman head had a sight word we've been practicing written on its hat.  They had to pull the letters out of the cotton ball snow and build the word with the correct letters.  The kids LOVED this center! 

They built the words...  

There is a recording sheet as well, so they can write down the words they practiced.  

Both the Primer and Pre-Primer versions of this game are available in my store.

We also read some Jan Brett books, including The Mitten, The Hat, and The Three Snow Bears.  The kids really enjoyed reading her books!  We did some fun activities with these books, including writing and math!  I wish I had pictures of all of them!

This was one of our math centers.  The kids had to see how many animals would fit in a mitten.  I just bought some animal crackers from Kroger and we used those.  First, they had to estimate how many animals would fit in a mitten, and then they had to put the animals in the mitten to see if their estimate was correct.  

We also did a little hot chocolate math with marshmallows!  They rolled a die for the first number and a die for the second number.  Then they had to write an addition problem and show their work.  These look really cute hanging up in the hallway!   We finished up this day by making hot chocolate and eating some animal crackers!  

We also did a cute little Polar Bear positional words book.  The book came from The Mailbox magazine.  The kids added the finished book to their book boxes to read when they have free time!

So there's one week of winter fun!  What fun winter activities did you do with your students?  I'm hoping the winter fun isn't over yet- I want to make snow! 

Have a great week, everybody!

Centers, Kindergarten style

We've finally gotten into the "swing" of centers in Kindergarten.  It's definitely much different teaching Kindergarteners how to do centers than it is first graders!  First graders definitely have some experience with centers, while Kindergarteners do not!  I also gave my firsties a lot more freedom when it came to centers than I do my Kinders, not that it's a bad thing!

So I thought I'd share how I'm running my centers now that I'm back to teaching Kindergarten.

In first grade, I was basically forced to use homogeneous grouping (something I did NOT like), but in Kindergarten, we use heterogeneous grouping.  I arranged my center groups so that I have a high, medium, and struggling student in pretty much every group.  There are 3 kids per each center group, and there are 8 groups of students.  

Our center rotation chart tells the students where they are going.  I dismiss them to their centers, and then I call one of my reading groups to my table to work on reading.  This means that they do miss one of their center activities, but I feel it's more important that students are learning how to read with me than completing some work that they may complete incorrectly anyway.

 In word work, we have been doing a lot of different activities with books and our sight words.  We have made alphabet books, and now we're moving on to different sight word activities, such as sight word books, read/make/write boards, and Roll a Sight Word activities!  The kids love learning these new words and then finding them in the books we read.

Read/Write Around the Room is another activity the kids love!  So far, we've been doing different Write Around the Room themes, such as fall words, Thanksgiving words, etc...  The kids have to write the word and draw a small picture next to it.  If they finish, they can write a sentence on the back of their paper using one of the words.  Soon, we're going to alternate these vocabulary building Read Around the Room activities with sight words around the room.  :-)

In Phonics, we've done a ton of sorting activities.  We've sorted beginning sounds, rhyming words, syllables, even ending sounds.  We've differentiated some of the activities for different students, so some students may be working on rhyming words while others may be working on beginning sounds.   

These two alphabet sorts are from my Alphabet Printable Sorting Sheets available in my TPT store.

We also have two reading centers, since reading is so important!  We have "Read to Self" and "Buddy Reading" in our center rotation.  One important thing we need for these centers are our book boxes!  I buy the magazine holders from IKEA and allow my students to decorate them however they like.   

Inside their book boxes, they get to keep the books they borrow from me, as well as the books they've made in the classroom, and then any books I give them to keep in their book boxes.  We have these little bags to keep our "just right books" in.  These are the books they've made in the classroom and can pretty much read on their own.

We do Read to Self in our book nook.  I like to have lots of different places for the kids to sit down and read. 

We do Buddy Reading on the carpet.  Sometimes we have 2 students in a group, but usually we have 3, so it's usually "group reading" instead of buddy reading.  It usually works out. 

We also have a poetry center!  We put a new poem in our notebook every week!  The poems are all songs or poems we've sang or read in our classroom.  For example, this apple tree poem is something we did as a choral reading activity.  The kids glued it into their notebooks and drew a tree to match each part of the poem.  Then they practice reading their poems to an adult.

The other centers that we do are writing and computers.  Computers are pretty self-explanatory- the students get on Successmaker and complete that program.  For writing, we usually do a response to a book that we read, such as writing about our favorite character or telling what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of a story.

I have not added Listen to Reading (mostly because I'm lazy!), but someday, I plan on adding it as well.  I just really need to take the time to get all my CDs uploaded to iTunes and then have them synced to the iPods.  We may add that one after Christmas!

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my classroom!

Christmas Questionnaire Linky Party 2014

I decided to link up with Fabulous in First for her Christmas Questionnaire Linky Party!

1.  When do you decorate?
I usually decorate the week after Thanksgiving.  I usually refuse to decorate before Thanksgiving.  I broke my own rule this year and put up one of my trees before Thanksgiving because I knew I was having surgery in December and wanted to be sure I had enough time to get it all done!

This is my "big" Christmas tree and some ornaments I've made for it. 

 My mantel, front door, and side table in the living room.

Lots and lots of trees!  I love trees!

Decorations in the Dining Room.  

I tried putting lights on the tree outside.  Short people shouldn't put lights on trees. :-)

2.  Elf or no elf?
I don't have any children, and the dog doesn't care, so I just have an elf in my classroom.  Her name is Twinkle Snowflake, and I wrote about our adventures with her last year here and here.

This year was eventful for poor Twinkle!  One of my students decided to beat the pulp out of poor Twinkle Snowflake and she was pretty battered!

3.  Christmas Cookies or no baking for you?
My mom does tons of Christmas baking, so I usually don't do much.  In the past, I have made Peppermint Bark and Chocolate Covered Pretzels.  This year, I didn't do anything since I had surgery this month.

4. Favorite Holiday Tradition?
Staying home!  When I was a kid, we used to get up, eat breakfast, open gifts, and pack up and leave to sit in the car for 4 hours to go to my Grandparents.  It was horrible.  While I don't wake up in my own house, at least I don't have to sit in the car for 4 hours anymore!

I also like to make something for my home each year.  New ornaments, a decoration, something pretty and festive!  These are some things I've made in the last few years.

5. Favorite Christmas Movie?
I guess that would have to be The Grinch Who Stole Christmas!  :-)  We also have to watch Scrooged every year, because my dad loves it.

6.  Snow or no snow?
I hate snow, so I'll go with no snow!

7.  Favorite Christmas song?
I am so not a fan of Christmas music.  I am one of those people who hates hearing Christmas music before Thanksgiving!  I will only listen to it willingly if I am at work making Christmas crafts with the kids!  We do listen to The Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD on Christmas, and I don't mind that.  I'm just a bit of a Grinch when it comes to Christmas music!

8.  Favorite Gifts to Give and Get?
I like to give handmade gifts or gifts purchased from local shops or artists.  I got a few gifts that I'm giving to family this way!  I also like to find great gifts for people.  Sometimes I do a great job, and sometimes I don't!  I am making a wreath for my mom (once my wrist heals!), and I found a cute handmade hat for my sister. Shhhhh!!!!

These are some gifts I made for my coworkers this year.  I filled the mugs with homemade hot chocolate.  Some are regular, and some are peppermint.  Yum!

For Christmas, I wanted one of these. :-)  I know I won't get one, but I still asked Santa anyway!

I also asked for socks and a green sweater, which I got from my fabulous assistant!  She's a mind reader, I swear!

I want this for my dog Molly.  It was on tv earlier.  Isn't it cute?  :-)

Don't forget to go link up!

Working with Numbers

Graphics by Whimsy Workshop.

We've been working a whole lot on number sense!  Lots of counting, subitizing, ordering numbers, making numbers, etc...  

Our math program is Engage NY (don't ask me my opinion on THAT!), so we have a whole group lesson each morning that requires using a ton of manipulatives that my students love to lose.  :-)  We worked on building numbers and then figuring out different ways to make that number.  I do all my whole group lessons on the carpet.  We also supplement a LOT with center activities, because I'm sorry, but my Kinders can't sit through a 30 minute whole group lesson without being antsy, and I know they're not getting much out of it at that point.

We also use the problem sets and put them in our math journals.  Unfortunately, there are mistakes in the Engage NY materials and the directions don't always make sense, or the pictures are terrible, so sometimes we have to make our own versions of stuff.  Frustrating.  

One activity we did was a counting book.  The kids really enjoyed this, and it was good to see who was able to finish their counting book correctly and independently.  You can find this version of the counting book in my TPT store.

(I love her colorful stars!)

We played Memory with number cards.  They matched the number to the number of objects on another card. 

We also used my differentiated Number Clip Cards.  Counting a number, counting one more than a number, and counting one less than a number are included.   Plus, using the closepins forces them to strengthen their hands, and they love them!

We have also played lots of number games!  Roll and Color, Roll Count and Color, and Race to Trace are a few that we used.  I found these in various places around the internet, but they were all freebies. I know a few of them came from this freebie from The Moffatt Girls.  

We also did quite a bit of number ordering.  We ordered both pictures with a certain number of objects, as well as just the numbers themselves.

The kids loved being able to cut them out and put them in order, but they really loved being able to color them!  You could also make these into a hat.  (My kids LOVE hats!)  This activity can be found in my Fall Into Kindergarten pack, along with several other number activities.

This Skip Counting Freebie can be found in this post from Reagan Tunstall.  There are 4 different versions available!

We even used cubes to build towers that had "one more" with each consecutive cube.  

And when we finally figured out how to put our numbers in order, we expanded on that skill!

Here we are playing "What's Missing?" with a partner.  We put the number cards in order 0-10, one partner closes their eyes, and their partner hides one of the cards.  They have to figure out which number is missing.  Once they get better at that, we allow them to hide 2 cards.

We also played this with towers of cubes from 1-10.  The student hid a cube tower and the other student had to figure out which tower was missing.  (Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this.  Sorry!)

We also played "One More, One Fewer" to help reinforce this skill.  The students choose a card and count out that number on the ten frame.  Then they rolled a +/- dice to see if they added a number or took one away.  This game comes from our old math program, Math Investigations 2, but it would be super simple to play in your own classroom!

Bobbing for Apples was a hit as well!  The students chose a number 1-20, and they had to figure out where on the paper that number went and write it down with a pencil.  They had to check to make sure their number was in the right spot on their by counting from the first apple to the number they had and check that it was in the right place.  Some more sophisticated thinkers used the numbers that were already on their paper to figure out where a certain number went.  I am sure this game could be created for different seasons as well, especially now that we are beginning to hit our teen numbers and work on them.

I hope this post helped you with some great math ideas for your Kindergarteners!  We are now doing a brief unit on shapes, so I will hopefully be back with some fun ideas to share about those soon!