Mother’s Day Craft

I had the kids bring in puzzles that were missing pieces and we made frames for our Mother's Day craft. The frame is just four popsicle sticks glued together and painted. I glued a piece of construction paper to the back and they painted one large puzzle piece for the picture to go on in the middle of the frame. I printed off the wording "I just love you to pieces." Then we made envelopes for the frames to go in and decorated them with this flower. The envelope is just a folded large sheet of pink construction paper with the sides glued and the top folded down. What kind of Mother's Day crafts do you have your kids make?

    

                                       

                                         

Kindergarten Graduation

We are preparing for the big day Kindergarten Graduation!  We have three Kindergarten classes, each class recites a poem, and we sing three songs.  The songs we sing are The Kindergarten Class, First Grade, First Grade, and You're a Grand Old School.  Then we call each students' name and they walk across the stage and tell everyone what they want to be when they grow up. 

Click on the picture above for a link to all of the words to the poems, words to songs and motions to go with them, diploma, invitation, and teacher poem to students.  This also gives the details of the program that we put on.  I would love to hear ideas of what you do for Kindergarten Graduation. 

                          This is the video I made so my students can practice singing the songs each day.

                             

Jeopardy (K.RFS.3b)

Short and Long Vowel Jeopardy

                   

My kids have so much fun playing jeopardy and it gives me a wealth of knowledge of the words they know how to spell. I strive to teach lessons where every kids is engaged and no one needs to "go to the bathroom." We play jeopardy once a week, I have all the kids bring their dry-erase board to the carpet and we sit in front of the whiteboard. We play boys vs. girls, I call on a student and everyone writes the answer on their board. I can easily see who understands the concept and who needs more practice. Try out my short and long vowel jeopardy for $1.00 by pressing the highlighted link.

Fluently Add Within 5 (K.OA.5)

We have been working on our fact fluency for the past few weeks.  I was trying to come up with a catchy song to practice the facts each day.  I wish I was more musically inclined, here is what I came up with...

                                            

I created timed test that the kids take each week if they pass the zero's then the next week they take the one's test and so on.  When they pass a test they get to color part of their ice cream paper.  We are working towards an ice cream party when we have a at least 80% of the class pass 0-5.  This is a picture of their ice cream papers. They color the spoon for passing the zero's, bowl for one's, ice cream for 2's, and start to add toppings of their choice for 3-5.

                                                    

We also make french fries to practice each week by putting the problems on popsicle sticks. I just used a library pocket to hold the sticks as the fry container.  They take them out and practice their facts every day.

                                                        

    Here is a packet of all of the tests and everything you need to make the classroom display

                                       

                                       

Dr. Seuss (K.RFS.2a)

In celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday we have been doing a special activity at the end of each day.  If students are good all day and keep their stamp they can participate in the 10-15 minute activity.  I read a Dr. Seuss book earlier in the day and then we do the related activity at the end of the day.  Here are a few activities.

I read  The Cat in the Hat and then we came up with a list of rhyming words and made our own hats.

                                          

We read One Fish, Two, Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and then graphed goldfish crackers.  Here is the worksheet we used to graph on.  It's a freebie on Teacher's Pay Teacher's, click on the link at the bottom of the picture.

                                         

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/One-Fish-Two-Fish-Graphing

We read Green Egg's and Ham and partnered up to play Tic-Tac-Toe.  One person was the green eggs and the other was the ham.  Click on the link for the printable.  This website has lots of cute Dr. Seuss games and activities.

http://www.seussville.com/activities/GREEN_TicTacToe_2.pdf

I would love to hear other ideas for Dr. Seuss activities!

                                   

Poems (K.RFS.3b, K.RFS.3c, K.RL.5)

Reading: Foundational Skills 3 b c

Each week my students get a new poem to add to their poetry notebook.  We sing the poem/song throughout the week as they are transitioning to the carpet.  We circle all the sight words in the poem and highlight any chunks or vowel patterns that we find.  They each have a folder with prongs in the middle, I put 5 page protector sleeves in each folder at the beginning of the year.  Every Friday the kids insert their poem into their sheet protector and it is stored in their book box.  They love reading/singing old poems during partner reading and even during read to self time.  After the kids get ten poems in their folder I have them take them out and I make them into a book by stapling them inside a large piece of construction paper folded in half.  Then they have some poems they can take home and continue to practice reading and some at school to enjoy.  Here is an example of one of our poems.  I try to pick songs or poems that go with topics/things we are celebrating in class or songs they sing in Music class.

                                                   

                                     

                                         

Sight Words (K.RFS.3c)

Update: I currently have a circus theme in my classroom, I have been calling sight words popcorn words and explaining how they pop up all the time in books that we read.  We highlight or "butter" popcorn words that we see on worksheets.  I made class visuals for a bulletin board, resources to send home, and resources to create the individual words for students to practice.  Click here to get your set. 

I also created a video to go with thse words

                                                        

My kindergarten students know on average close to 100 sight words.  My district uses the Teacher College lists of sight words.  I cut a list of words in half and staple them into a book.  Every time a student learns and gets all 25 words highlighted in their book they move up to the next colored book.  We have a student in class that is on the black book (the last book of sight words) they think that is so cool.  This is very motivational for my kids and they can see their growth.  They love when they move on to the next colored book.  I also send a note home so parents are aware of the new words their child is currently working on.

                                                         

I put this hangman game into a sleeve and the kids flip to a page in their sight word book and play hangman sightword to review words too.  The creater of this sight word sheet is listed at the bottom of the picture.

                                                

Check out this song to help kids learn Teacher College List A of Sight Words