Station for this Week

We finished last week's stations yesterday, and began a new round of stations today.  The lovely four day weekend we just had has thrown us off our usual Monday - Friday schedule.  It took a while, but last year we realized that it is nice to begin our stations on any day but Monday.  The reason being that we don't have to stay as long on Friday setting things up for the following week.  I usually don't leave school on weekdays until 4:30ish, so I don't mind staying a little longer (on any day but Friday...).

Word Work Station.  I found these word sliders at Make Take Teach blog.  There are more word families available, but I only printed up the families with short a.

I created this record sheet so the kids can write the words they read.  I always like to include some sort of record sheet in my stations.  They not only give the kids practice, but allow me to monitor their independent work, and lets parents see what their children are doing in class.

 

Writing Station.  As I have mentioned before, we often include letter practice, and fine motor activities in our writing stations.  This letter sorting activity is from a 2010 issue of The Mailbox.

Once they are finished sorting their letters, they can do this page from an older issue of Teacher's Helper.

Mrs. S. will be listening to the Kinders read these decodable and leveled books.

My station.  (Math Literacy)  We will be working with numbers to 5 using this Pumpkin Patch Number Bonds activity, my very first Teachers pay Teachers offering.

This record sheet is included in the activity set.

Learning Stations

My Kinders have been doing such a great job working in our Learning Stations!  I really think that the time spent "building stamina" was worth it!  This wonderful practice of giving students time to practice proper behavior came from The Daily Five.  We (my teaching partners & I) don't really do a full-fledged version of The Daily Five, but more of a mix.. Our Learning Stations combine a weekly four and one math station.  (Yep, we sneak a little math into our Literacy Block - there is, after all, literacy included in all content areas.)  The four skills we focus on are: Listen to reading (Listening Station - usually not pictured), Writing (we often include some sort of fine motor activity such as cutting or tracing at the beginning of the year), Word Work/Literacy Skills, Reading Skills (including working on skills that lead to becoming a good reader), and finally Math Literacy.  Mrs. S. usually heads up the Reading Station, and I do the Math Station.  I am fortunate to have volunteers on most days - an eighth grader comes in on Tuesday & Thursday, an some moms come in on Wednesday and Friday.  These volunteers help out as needed in the remaining three stations.

Here are some recent Learning Stations:

Sort picture cards by the first sound.  Draw pictures on the record sheet that begin with the letter sounds. 

Sorting Sandwiches.  Sort out "sandwiches" onto letter or number "napkins.  I have found that color-coding materials by simply drawing a line around the cards helps Kinders to keep materials organized.  Each student in this station had his/her own sack lunch to sort out.  Each bag had color-coded pieces, which happily ended up put away in the correct bag.  A modified worksheet from Teacher's Helper (not pictured) was used for a record sheet.

 Playdough letters.  I didn't have time to laminate the cards - so I popped them (two - back to back) into page protectors. 

Shape ID & graphing.  The blue tub is a mushroom container.  We eat lots of mushrooms at my house, and I save the containers.  They make perfect tubs for handing out manipulatives and little pieces for craft projects.  I also give them to my kids when cutting out pieces that need to be glued onto a page (such as the one below).  They can place the pieces into their tubs as they cut.  This really helps to prevent pieces from becoming lost or mixed up with a neighbor's pieces!

After sorting and graphing the shapes, students sorted and glued shapes.  This page from Teacher's Helper also gave them the opportunity to read and spell the names of the shapes.

Word Sort.  The sight words were sorted by the number of letters, and then written onto the record sheet.

Two part station: Cut out and sort pictures by initial sound, and then trace and write letters and words.

Write the room.  Oh my, how the Kinders love to do this!  There is nothing cooler than wearing groovy star glasses (I popped the tinted lenses out) and writing with a sparkly pencil.  In this installment, the kiddos searched for words beginning with P & S. 

Read, Spell, Write!  I wrote sight words and -ap & -am word family words onto laminated fall leaves (use a Sharpie - wipe off with rubbing alcohol).  The kids read, spelled, and wrote the words.

Making 10.  In this Math Station, the Kinders used two colored counters to give the ladybugs various combinations of ten spots.  They then practiced writing number sentences.

BOO!

 I've been BOOED - that's a good thing - by:

You've probably all played the popular game BOO at school where you leave a ghost on someone's desk or mailbox along with a treat. Let's do the same by sharing some love from our stores...

Here's how to play. Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, another that has about the SAME number of followers, and last, someone that has LESS followers.

Highlight their blogs with links to encourage others to check them out. Don't forget to let your fellow bloggers know that you shared about them.
Lastly, leave them some love by offering them a goody from your store as their "treat." 

Here are the blogs I am sending a friendly BOO! to.  I don't have a TPT store *yet* but I do have lots of freebies available on my blog.  I hope they can find something they can use.  Happy  Haunting!

http://acupcakefortheteacher.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

http://acupcakefortheteacher.blogspot.com/
 

 

http://whoooloveskindergarten.blogspot.com/

 

Autumn Leaves Syllable Sort

Fall is in the air!  It's hard to believe how quickly the leaves have changed.  It doesn't look as if this summer's drought will affect the fall colors too much.  (I hope.)  Thinking fallish thoughts, I created a little syllable sorting activity for my Kinders.  They enjoyed naming their leaf pictures and clapping out the beats.

My students liked sticking their leaves onto the appropriate tree. 

Our current focus wall clotheslines.  I like to write the sight words we are learning on cute shaped notepads.  I have gourds, apples, and pumpkins ready to go for our next unit.

Here is a freebie for a syllable sorting activity.

Linky Parties and a Blog Hop

Number Sense Linky Party

 

Check out these blogs for some great ideas!

My Linky Party is part of the Ultimate Linky Party.  Be sure to go there for more great ideas!

                                                       

 

Learning Stations

Sorry about two posts on the same day.  I never seem to have enough time to get everything done that I want to do.  (Sounds familiar, huh?)  So I figured I should get this posted while I still have time...
My kinders have been working so hard to be able to work in small groups and pairs, and they have really done a great job!  Last week we did a trial run, and now we are all set for the real deal next week.  I am lucky to have some helpers on most days - an eighth grader comes in on Tuesday and Thursday (we are a K-12 building), and two  moms have promised to come in on Wednesday & Friday.  That just leaves Monday without extra help.  Even so, I am very happy to have help four days a week!

We (my two fabulous teaching partners & I) plan our Learning Stations together.  Usually we try to do the same activities, but sometimes we trade off - rotating three activities.  We allot a half hour for Stations, and our shared aide comes into each of our rooms to help run an activity.

Mrs. S's Station.  Read, Write, Stamp!  Sight word practice.

Word Word Station.  Spelling their, and classmates', names with magnets. 

Writing Station.  Rainbow names - roll the color coded cube and write your name using that color crayon.  Simple, but a great way to help them to practice writing their names!

Listening Station.  I got my new jackbox and headphones!  Yay!  Now everyone will hear the story well.

My station.  We will arrange these little (Saxon) number cards in order, and place the appropriate amount of counters below the cards.  I do have some leveled practice pages to use after working with the manipulatives, but I forgot to photograph them - sorry!

My nifty new stacking counters from Nasco.  I was looking for something *cheap* and fun to use instead of always using teddies, linking cubes, or foam counters.  We've used them once so far, and the kids like them.  I did let them play with them for a while - they had to get the sticking them on the end of their fingers out of their system before being able to get to work.  In fact, I usually do allow the Kinders to play with manipulatives before asking them to work.  I've found that by giving them even two - three minutes to play helps them to focus when I need them to work.

Apples

Yesterday we rounded out our Apple themed week with a word family apple tree and some apple math.  Even our Let's Find Out weekly lesson had apples in it!

We made -am words by picking an apple from the tree and placing it on the trunk.  I wrote on the trunk with a Sharpie.  Because the tree is laminated, the ink will easily come off with rubbing alcohol.

Making 8.  First, we used two sided counters to make 8 in different ways.  I put my apple basket work mat on my Elmo (how did I ever teach without it??) so the kids could "Match Me!"  Match Me is a favorite math game this year - I arrange a number or pattern on the Elmo for the Kinder to match.  They love it!  Anyway, after they matched my arrangement, we counted the yellow and red "apples" and I filled in the blanks on the white board.

Our Making 8 bulletin board!  After playing Match Me, the kids were instructed to make 8 any way they wanted.  They then wrote their numbers in the number sentence and traded the foam counters for paper apples.  Not only was this a math lesson, but an arts and crafts activity, too!

The apple baskets are super cute with the addition of stems and leaves!