Linky Party!

Learning Center Materials

I stayed at school until 4:45 today!  I have needed to organize and clean up my Learning Center materials for some time, and decided to do it today.  I snapped a few pictures of some of the things that I have made over the years to share with you.

Bean Sticks to teach number sense.  I made these to help my students to understand numbers above ten.  They enjoyed the tactile quality of the shiny black beans, and counting out the "ones" provided small motor practice. 

Haunted Numbers.  Students chose a ghost, read the number, and counted out the appropriate number of "creatures" to place onto the house.  These materials can be used for a variety of number sense activities.  The creatures are little Halloween erasers from Target's Dollar Spot.

Super simple, and super popular.  This is something my students never seem to tire of.  All I did was write the numbers 1 - 10 onto sturdy paper plates to make this number sense activity.  I try to change out the manipulatives to match the season.  I found the little heart erasers at Target.  (You will need 55 items total for ten plates.)

Paint stirring stick flowers.  I found the flowers on The Mailbox's website, glued them onto paint sticks (free from Walmart), and cut out 55 foam leaves.  Students enjoy arranging the flowers in order and putting the appropriate number of leaves onto each stem.

Another super easy thing to make that packs a lot of appeal.  These toothy aligators are pages from a shaped note pad.  I wrote short a word families on them (there actually many more than this), and laminated them for duribility.  These are in one of my Skill Tubs, and my students enjoy reading and sorting the words.  The themed papers (I have many different sets) make word reading practice fun!

Another freebie from the paint department!  Paint chips are free, plentiful, and colorful!  These word family cards are inluded in a couple of my skill tubs.  Students simply move the large card down the multicolored card to make words.  (The single color cards were perforated with the perfect little circle - I just punched them out to make a window.)

I tried to color code the cards to help the kids figure out which cards go together.  Additionally, I wrote the word family on the backs of the letter strips.

Sentence practice pocket chart.  This repurposed table pocket chart holds cut up sentence strips.  My Kinders enjoy making and reading these color coded sentences.

Caterpillar sentences!  Simply cut circles from different colors of construction paper (one color per sentence), draw a cute face on one of the circles.  Students arrange the circles to make a sentence.  They can write their sentences in their journals.  Click below for a freebie to make this activity.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9azY2WEdTOFRSOUNtVGhNRnhuMHRuZw

Literacy Stations for the week of 3/12/12

Here's what we will be working on this week:

Listening Station.  Sure, it's a Thanksgiving book... but the kids love it!  (Who said you can't read books out of season anyway?)

Writing Station.  This week our Kinders will be will be working on words to use in their writing.  The main activity is this cute clothesline.  (This is from the book two pictures down.)  After assembling their clotheslines, they will write a sentence telling what day of the week it is.  At the end of the week we will have enough days of the week clotheslines to include in our calendar work!

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Use clothespins to help organize your materials.  They are so much more kid-friendly than paper clips!

A great resource for easy to make activities.

Writing Station early finishers activity.  One of my partners had this,

so I'm not sure where it came from.

Reading Station.  This week the kiddos will work on vowel sounds.  We have covered all of the vowel sounds in our Reading series, so they will make this cute truck book from the book below.

Math Literacy Station.  I made these little abacuses to help students to practice skip counting by twos.  They are super easy to make:  String twenty pony beads onto a pipe cleaner, slide the ends into 1/2 cuts on the ends of the cardboard base.  Fold and secure with tape.

See the bottom of this post for a Freebie to go with this station!

Collections of assorted items ready to be counted by twos!

I found these plates on clearance at Walmart (50 cents for a package of 4!).  They make great trays to help keep small items corralled.  I have also used paper plates to help students keep their manipulatives in one place while working.

Literacy Station.  Students will work on these Phonemic Awareness file folder activites from Lakeshore, and then do the worksheet pictured below.

Skip Counting Freebie

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9WVpXMFNUUFpSZFNLTkkxMEc2cGR5dw

Pots of Gold Bulletin Board

We made our Pots of Gold today.  Each pot contains five very sparkly gold coins.  In order to make them festive for St. Patrick's Day, we added shamrocks made from three green hearts glued at the points and taped to a pipe cleaner.  I love how they look on the bulletin board.

I made this using my Cricut.

Lucky pots of gold!

I like the hearts on the coins.

Pots Of Gold

Here are some pictures of the pots, coins, and work mats for Activities 1, 2, and 3 of my Pots of Gold skip counting unit.

"Snow" Math Center Activity

My Kinders really enjoyed this book, and really liked making their "villages" snow-covered!

This book has simple text, but it sparks some good discussions.

After reading the book to my students, they worked with their Skills Partners to work on addition. 

 

 I found the picture on Word, and printed it in grey scale. The pages of the book are very monochromatic, so I wanted something that was mostly grey, black, and white. Each student in the pairs selected, at random, a playing card (I removed face cards), and put that number of white pompon "snow" onto the picture. Once the "snow" was placed, the students found the sum, writing the number sentence they created onto a record sheet. (Not pictured.)

Skill Totes

When I want my students to work in pairs or small groups on the same skill, I use "Skill Totes."  I really like to have my Kinders work in pair or small groups and needed a way to get the materials into their hands quickly and efficiently.  These totes are from Michaels ($2.00 each - bought with my Box Top money).  I used them today to pass out materials for Activity 3 from my Pots of Gold freebie.

Skill Totes are stored on a ring that is hooked onto the Skill Tub storage shelf.

I took photos of the areas where students are to go when working with Skill Totes. 

Student pairs (usually the same Skills Partners - see Skill Tubs post) know where they are to work by simply looking at the attached picture tag.

Materials needed to work on Activity 3 of the Pots of Gold freebie.

 

 The "die shaker" is made from a Gerber baby food container.  It doesn't make rolling dice any quieter, but it does keep them from being flung across the room, rolling under tables, etc.