It is a cloudy drizzly dreary Sunday here in Music City. A great day to curl up on the couch and watch movies and eat junk. Oh wait, I’m a teacher. I have lesson plans to write and a week to plan. And minds to mold and lives to change and five year old’s to wow and impress!! And I’m OK with that! Actually, I’m a teaching dork and I love the planning and creating and putting together activities and strategies! So Sunday’s are a good day since I spend the day planning! And now I get to share our week with you because it’s time for SCHEDULIN’ SUNDAY!
This week we are doing snow, the Super Bowl and Groundhog Day! Another wild assortment of fun! Here are my plans for the week! If you want a copy, just click the picture! If you love the template, visit my friend Melissa at A Teacher’s Plan to see all of her amazing templates! And yes, this one is named THE GREG! Yep. My own.
Monday
We kick off our week with a perennial favorite The Mitten. Let me be brutally honest, I am not a fan of the author of this book. It’s just something about the illustrations that rub me the wrongs way. I know…I know…how dare I? Please don’t un-follow me and bash me…I don’t like it but the monsters always seem to enjoy it and it’s a great story for sequencing so I read it. After reading the story the monsters will complete a flow map of the animals going into the mitten.
(The picture takes you to Amazon!)
This week we are not learning the letter “u” so we will not make an umbrella hat! Of course, silly hats!!
We will also be using The Mitten as our writing inspiration this week. The monsters will brainstorm things that might go into their mitten!
In math this week we are learning about greater than and less than. We have been doing this concept during our calendar time for a while so this is a review skill for the monsters. I always start this skill with a group activity. I have a large alligator mouth created from poster-board I have one person be the alligator and I pick students to form two groups. The alligator “eats” the bigger group! Everyone gets a turn to be the alligator! The monsters always have fun doing this activity and it’s a great way to introduce this skill!
To celebrate The Mitten, we will make mittens for our craftivity. The monsters cut out two mittens (one purple and one blue) and they decorate the mittens with tissue paper squares. They make a cuff of cotton balls on the bottom! We might…MIGHT…even add glitter!
Tuesday
Tuesday we will be reading The Hat. After reading the hat, we will complete a flow map so the monsters can build their sequencing and re-telling skills. We will also introduce compound words today. Some of the monsters have been using a compound word puzzle in centers and are doing well with it so we will introduce it to the group today. Let’s see how it goes!
We will do our predictable chart: “A _______ went into my mitten!” and we will work on our word study!
In math, we will play a card game to build our greater than/less than skills. Yep, it’s an oldie but goody! It used to be a favorite of mine back in the olden days (cuz I’m old!)! I know there is probably a more politically correct name, but I know the game by one name and that’s what we call it! We’re going to play WAR! I have sets of playing cards sorted out with the A to 10. The A is the 1. The monsters play war until there is a winner! Be prepared for lots of laughter. Wait, what?! Laughter while learning?! TRUE STORY! Who says math isn’t fun? (Uh yeah, me…hate math. Math gets ANGRY ARMS!)
Today’s craftivity has nothing to do with a hat, but it does wear a helmet! We will be making a football player! It is Super Bowl week after all so we have to have some football!
The template is available in my new Super Bowl creation! Check it out!
Wednesday
Happy hump day! We made it to the halfway mark!!
Today we review our stories The Mitten and The Hat and we will compare and contrast the stories. We will complete a double bubble map. After the whole group double bubble map, the monsters will do their own double bubble map as an assessment piece.
The monsters will publish their mitten writing and illustrate their writing.
In math, we are continuing our greater than/less than skills with small group work. The monsters who have mastered this skill will be completing some independent practice pages as assessment pieces. Those who need more practice will be working with me using these hand print work mats. Yes, those would be short, stubby fat fingers!
I created a recording sheet for this activity. You can get it on the freebies page.
We will kick off Groundhog fun with a toilet paper roll groundhog! I know that some people have a revulsion to the tp rolls…for some obvious reasons, but, we still use them. Nothing a little hanitizer won’t fix.
Thursday
Today we kick off our reading time by creating a KWL chart about groundhogs. After we do the KW part of the KWL chart, we will read Groundhog Gets A Say. After reading and discussing, we will add what we learned to our KWL chart.
The monsters will work on writing about groundhogs. We will do a predictable chart about having a pet groundhog. “If I had a pet groundhog…”
In math, we will switch gears from greater than/less than to measurement. We will be doing a wintry mix of measurement. The monsters will use snowflakes to measure wintry pictures. We will record our results on a class chart and the monsters will complete their own recording sheets.
Our craftivity today is one of my favorites! Um, aren’t they all my favorites?! Can ya tell I love the craftivities! This is one is special. I remember doing these when I was in kindergarten. In fact, I still have mine! True story. It is hanging in my classroom. What is this amazing project I speak of?!
SILHOUETTES! We talk about light and shadows. And each monster has a silhouette made. I use the old school overhead projector to create the shadow and trace around the monster’s head. Then I spend a few days cutting them out. We display them on the bulletin board! It’s so much fun to see the parents try to figure out their child! After a week I laminate them and send them home!
I will post a picture of my silhouette tomorrow!
Friday!!
YES! We made it to Friday! Today we will celebrate Groundhog Day! IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY! Does anyone remember that movie?! ANNOYING! Anyways, here’s our big Groundhog Day celebration!
We will read Go To Sleep Groundhog. After reading, we will complete a story map and add to our KWL chart! The monsters will publish their sentence about their pet groundhog.
The rest of the day will be spend with groundhogs. The first thing we must do is make a hat. It’s a holiday so a hat is required. It’s my rule. Follow it.
And guess what?! You can have the template for the hat! FREEBIE! I expect to see lots of groundhog hat pictures!
We will also do a prediction chart about whether the groundhog will or will not see his shadow.
We will play a fun “heads or tails” game. The monsters will slip a coin and record the results. The “coin” has a shadow side and now shadow side!
We will play a spin and graph game and roll and color!
It’s an afternoon of groundhog learnin’!
Click the picture to get your groundhog day freebie pack!
And of course, it’s Friday, so it’s Foodie Fun Friday! And it’s a groundhog themed snack!
To make the snack you need: pudding cups, Oreos, Vanilla Wafers and a little tube of black gel icing.
The students crumble the Oreo on top of the pudding. The student (or teacher) can add eyes and a nose to the vanilla wafer and stick in the dirt. Super fun and yummy!
Of course, we will be doing our word study all week and working on our blending. That is a big focus for us right now. We will be doing a number chart to review numbers. The chart is a laminated poster with the name of the number, tally marks, ten frame, the number before and after. We will use this daily to 1-20 as our math review.
This week our centers come from my new Super Bowl creation! This creation includes addition, subtraction, ten frames, numbers, write the room, CVC words, beginning, middle and ending sounds, writing and art! Are you ready for some football!??
And that is our kindergarten smorgasboard of common core learning week! Shew! Here we go!
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