Picnic Number Bond Freebie

I made this activity to keep my Kinders interested on these last few days.  They really enjoyed making numbers with ants!  We used the number cards from our old Saxon materials, but some number cards are included in the freebie.

 Picnic Number Bonds Freebie

Final Stations for the Year

We are in the home stretch, and needed something sort of simple for our Literacy Stations.  We each selected quick to set up activities for our Stations.  Yesterday at PLC our principal asked us to reflect on our year.  Each team shared some success stories.  One of ours was our Literacy Stations.  By working in small groups our students were able to practice five different skills each week through fun and engaging activities.  These small groups also allowed us to differentiate lessons for our various learners.  Each week at our Team Planning Meeting, we discussed what skills were coming up, and which skills needed to be retaught.  Using this information, we worked together to create and share some wonderful activities.  I want to say THANK YOU! to my wonderful team.  It has been a great year!

Reading Station.  This is a Plural Noun game from a Mailbox book (I don't remember the title, but it had ten different game boards and ten different games.) 

The students did this page after playing the game.

Literacy Station.  I absolutley love The Mailbox!  There are so many wonderful ready to use activites in each issue.  This sorting activity is a great follow up to the past few weeks' color and number word activites.

Writing Station.  This sentence writing activity was pulled out of a Mailbox magazine and laminated. 

Once the Kinders worked together to put the sentences in order, they wrote them onto lined paper.

Math Literacy.  This is one of the nifty Lakeshore activities we have.  Students used realistic looking ladybugs to act out simple addition story problems.

After completing the activity above, the kids did this addition page from Teacher's Helper.

Listening Station.  For a change, the Kinders listened to a phonemic awareness CD from Lakeshore.  See the box below.

Spring Linky Party!

I found this great Linky Party that features Spring ideas. http://littleblogfish.blogspot.com/2012/03/spring-education-linky-party-and-spring.html

Around the World Freebie

My Kinders love to play Around the World with both sight words and number bond flash cards.  I usually just use the cards that came with the reading series, but I wanted to have them practice all of the other words we have learned all year - not just those featured in our series.  This set of cards includes many Dolch words that kindergartners read as well as several blank cards for your own words.  Click on the link below for your copy.  Have fun!



I printed this set on colored card stock.  The document is in color, so you can also print it on white.  Cut apart the cards before using.  These cards can also be used for alphabetizing.

Around the World Freebie

Skill Spots and a Math Game

Happy Monday!  We just finished day number 169!  Tomorrow we will "bundle,"  leaving only ten days to go!  I still cannot believe how fast this year has flown by.  One of my teaching partners and I were talking after school about the amazing growth our Kinders have made.  Really, it's sobering when you think that some of them had only been potty trained for a couple of years when we first met them, and now they are on their way to becoming independent readers, can tell you which number is in the hundreds column, and spell words!  Amazing!

Because we are finished with our reading series (thanks to NO snow days!), we have time for other pursuits.  Today the kids got to go to their "Skill Spots."  These are areas around the room that house various activities not regularly included in our daily work.  The kiddos really enjoy visiting these spots with their Learning Partners.

This is our Skills Partners Chart.  The combos change daily, with the left side moving down, and the right side moving up.  This way, the kids have a different partner each day.  (I can also control who works with whom - the kids who cannot successfully work together are in the same column, so they don't ever get each other.  I do sometimes swap out some students from left to right if they work well with others .)

Teddy Bear Numbers game in the "Cart Spot."

Spelling sight words with letter beads and pipe cleaners in the "Red Tub Spot."

Listening to a story in the "CD Spot."

Retelling a story (or two...) in the "Learning Boards Spot."

Catching fish and spelling words in the "Magnet Spot."

Computer Spot

Retelling a story with picture cards in the "Popcorn Table Spot."

Reading sentences in the "Pocket Chart Spot."

Here's a freebie for a game that we will be playing tomorrow.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9bWZYNHJjRi1mWlU

Literacy Stations for this Week

It's hard to believe that the end of the school year is near!  We have only two more weeks of Literacy Stations!  There will be a few days left after we complete these next two rounds of stations, but we will be busy with other activities.  I like to wrap up my year with some nice closing activities and crafts.  The kids always enjoy helping to clean up and put away things on our final day.  Kinders love to help clean up and tidy the classroom for the "little kids" who will call our classroom home next fall!

Reading Station.  Popcorn flip-over game.  Students take turns pulling a card from the popcorn container.  If they read the word correctly, they "pop" the word over and replace the card.  Click on the link below for this activity.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9MDNKX0hULWprS2c

This is the record sheet for the activity above.

Literacy Station.  Groovy Short Vowel Word Sort from www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/kidsrcute

Record sheet for above activity.

Writing Station.  One of my wonderful partners came up with this fun activity. After creating a flower, students choose sight words to write onto them.  The cards are two sided - one side has the correct spelling, and the other is wrong.  They must decide upon the correct spelling before writing the word onto their flower.   I chose some of the more frequently misspelled words for my cards.

Math Literacy.  Dominos again!  This time they are being "parked" according to their sum.  This parking lot was included in a recent link, below is an updated link that includes the record sheet below.  https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9QmF3bG1hYjRwb00

This Week's Literacy Stations

As promised, I am getting caught up with my Literacy Stations.  It's hard to believe that we only have a few weeks left - this year has just flown by!  I know that I say that every year... The end of year activities are ramping up - there are tons of things left to do, and not much time in which to do them.  We are finished with our Reading series - just the unit test remains to be given.  I like having the structure of our regular literacy routine, but I am looking forward to having time to do some projects and activities that I just couldn't squeeze in before.

Writing Station.  This activity comes straight out of Treasures reading series.  Students choose a color and write a poem, illustrating it when they are finished.  Writing poetry is challenging, but some of the kids are coming up with cute verses!

I made this sheet to go with the activity above.  I also simply wrote the color words onto index cards instead of making cards as shown in the activity flip chart.  I wrote the words in color coded ink.  (I used a black marker to write white because,  well you know...)

Reading Station.  Another one of our wonderful Lakeshore.

"Crossword Puzzle" to go with the above file folder activity.

Literacy Station.  One more Lakeshore file folder activity to practice color words.

Color the jelly beans page to go with the above activity.

Listening Station.  A Bad Case of Stripes.  I think my antique boom box has just about had it.  I was hoping that it would last until the end of the year, but it was very temperamental today.

 

 Math Literacy.  I found this nifty number bracelet worksheet online, but I can't remember where.  If it's yours, please claim it!  We used our trusty number bracelets to make ten (and 9) different ways.

Literacy Stations

I am sooo behind in posting my Literacy Stations!  We got off track with our schedule way back when we had a four day weekend, and now I'm even more off track!  Here are the Literacy Stations from last week.  I promise to get the new activites posted soon!

Writing Station.  This is something I found on Pinterest from ofprimaryimportance.blogspot.com
It was designed to be a "Read the Room" activity, but I chose to simply use them as cards.  My Kinders really enjoyed the fact that they colud spell a variety of words!

Reading Station.  Another one of those great Lakeshore ready to go file folder activites.  This one features reading CVC words.

One of my amazing partners made this sheet to go with the activity above.

Literacy Station.  Students practiced reading number words with this activity from Lakeshore. 
A page from Teacher's Helper extended the learning from the activity above.

Math Literacy.  Students used dominos to create and write number sentences.  Click the link below for a FREEBIE of this page.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9NzZkR2RZVmN3WDA

Teacher Appreciation Week

It has been a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week at our school!  Our PTO went all out to show how much they appreciate us teachers and school staff!  They provided us with a lavish breakfast, an unbelievable lunch, desserts, prize drawings, and daily treats.  I really feel humbled by their kindness.  I went into the field of education because I love children and value education, but it does feel good to be appreciated!  Today we were greeted by these fun favors! 

Ultimate Linky Party!

<center><a href="http://www.teachingblogaddict.com/2011/05/ultimate-linky-party.html" target="_blank"><img alt="TBA's Ultimate Linky Party" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq7NvVbhPZdj6wOtikHiYUUTiJAOI2XeVb8dY4et-Ur0NCSmS6FcPmGmegRF8q1FYRTyYsE9kbh7BXn6jWdNoM6QcR1-K2jQBdTIntPj4PBr5lJ2MLE3fttJHO21JxbaDmIUiLUhZHt-f3/s1600/ultimate+linky+partybutton.jpg"/></a></center> http://kindergartendoodles.blogspot.com/search/label/Freebie

Happy Mother's Day!

I want to wish all of you a very Happy Mother's Day!  As a mother myself, I know the joy of seeing the delight of a child presenting a carefully handcrafted gift.  It has been so much fun these past few days helping my Kinders to write letters to their moms and to make gifts and cards.  The gifts turned out so cute!  **Spoiler Alert** If you are the mother of one of my students, please don't go any further!  :)

Card making.

Everyone designed a special card for his/her mother.

Flowers!  The theme for this year is Flowers for Mom.

The finished cards.  They are as individual and unique as the children who made them.  They were given free rein with the scrap box, and I think the cards turned out pretty special!

Gift bags. 

Ta da!  I think there will be some pretty happy moms on Sunday (or most likely tomorrow afternoon - the kids cannot wait to give Mom her gift!).  Using some simple materials, we created flower pot photo holders.  Most of the materials came from Michaels (teachers get a discount everyday!):  small terra cotta pots decorated with foam stick on flowers, skinny craft stick stems and wooden flowers that were decorated with crayon, and moss.  The sticks are stuck into packing foam that I had saved from a recent mail order purchase. 

Here's a close-up of one of the flower pots (that lil 'cutie' is me in second grade!)

 Teeny clothes pins make wonderful photo clips!  I have an eighth grade student helper (my corporation is very small - all grades are in one building) who comes into my room two mornings a week.  She glued all of the little clips onto the sticks, and stuck the foam into the pots.  I cut the foam at home last night, making a huge mess in my kitchen.  Even after vacuuming extensively, there are still bits of foam clinging to things.  But, these cute little flower pots were certainly worth the mess.  Now, I'm not sure if our custodian, Miss Sandy, will agree that the mess was worth it!

http://kindercraze.blogspot.com/2012/04/its-mothers-day-linky-party.html

<center><a href="http://lilcountrykindergarten.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Lil' Country Kindergarten" src="http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s55/marlanajill/Blogging/MothersDayLinkyParty.jpg" /></a></center> <br>