I heard something about a sale somewhere…
It’s time for a peek into the completely organized chaos of Mr. Greg’s classroom for week number 2 of the school year. Today’s game: how many more Kindergartners will come this week?
This week we really start to get into our schedule of reading and math blocks, we start to introduce centers and really begin some work with letters and numbers and counting! We also introduce our calendar time in Math!
Monday: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom introduction! Students will get to “dig” for letters in sand! After they find one letter, they name it and we stick it on the board! Then we read the book! During math, we introduce the dice and casino baskets (felt lined baskets for dice! Read more here!) We also introduce our favorite game: Roll and Color! I introduce these early because they are used in math centers all year long! They’re fun, engaging and the kids learn while doing something they love!
Tuesday: Coconuts! We will have a little science fun and make some observations about coconuts and watch as Mr. Greg attempted to break open the coconut! After Mr. Greg opens the coconut, we will taste the “meat”! We will create a bubble map to record our observations! Great introduction to the five senses, as a free bonus!
Wednesday: Our first predictable chart of the year! We will make a bubble map of things we see in our classroom. We will use those ideas to complete the sentence: I see…. We will also make mention of the word “I” as the first word we can read! And we will celebrate because we’re already learning to read! And more roll and cover in math with some number flippin’! Number flipping is where the kids wear their “magic math finger” and point to numbers as a random number song plays! The magic math fingers are finger puppets that I purchased in Peru and Ecuador! We will also create a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree out of sandpaper (trunk) and feathers (leaves) and decorate with letters!
Thursday: The famous arm and hand CCBB tree! We put brown paint on our arm and make the trunk of the tree and then we use green paint on hands to make the leaves. We decorate those with more letters! We will also be doing gummy bear counting! We have our work mat that contains bears that are programmed with numbers from 1-10. We count the correct number of gummy bears onto each bear. Then we eat the bears! YUM!
Friday: We do a quick letter assessment with Mr. Greg and we get letter stickers for all of the letters we know. We get to color a CCBB tree and put the letters we know on the tree! My team has decided that we are going to work smarter this year and to meet the requirement that we collect assessments this year, we’re just going to use activities we’re already doing and designate certain activities as assessments. I mean, come on folks, work smarter not harder. And finally, we will make a counting coconut book to assess our counting skills. Each child gets a book with a page from 1-5 and they place the correct number of coconuts on the tree! The coconuts are circle stickers! Another fun activity that becomes an assessment. Amazing how that happens!
And no week is complete without the snack of the week: We will use green apple slices, graham crackers and whoppers to make a Coconut tree!
As a grade level, we embark on a VERY ambitious project this week! We trace every child’s hands and feet. Yes, we’re that brave. We actually remove their shoes and socks. If you do not befriend the hand sanitizer before this post, you will now. I can’t even begin to describe some of the things living in those poor babies socks. Folks, I probably have seen cures for the common cold in there. But to be a great teacher and build a great classroom community, we must make sacrifices! So, trace the feet we must. All 70 of kindergarteners hands and feet transform into a beautiful CCBB tree with letters created by the students! I can’t wait to show you pictures!
That’s my week. Another exciting week of learning and fun to wow me some kindergarteners. The wow factor matters and it’s what I am thinking about as I write my plans each week!
Will you use any of these ideas in your classroom? Do you already do these in your classroom?
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