It’s week 4 of kindergarten, so we’re officially in week 2 of centers, so we’re adding the light box and sensory bin to the mix! This week is still focused on routines and procedures as well. But mostly, our kindergarten lesson plans and activities are ABC BOOTCAMP and NUMBER BOOTCAMP!
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Kindergarten Lesson Plans And Activities: ABC BOOTCAMP
We’re continuing ABC BOOTCAMP this week, BUT we’re doing a pivot. For many years, we have followed the order of our curriculum, but it’s a very strange order that makes no sense. We were in our planning meeting with coaches and admin when we started discussing this, and our admin told us to change it to make it best for the kids. TRUTH. (This is one reason I chose this school. We do what’s BEST FOR KIDS!) So this week we’re doing: BFGHR.
We’re using our TKS BOOTCAMP Kit this year! That means new hats, new books, and we get to incorporate embedded mnemonics into ABC BOOTCAMP! We will be using our Letter Sound Cards and our Mnemonic Alphabet resource. Here’s the plan for each day of ABC BOOTCAMP:
Introduce the sound and letter using the letter sound card.
Introduce the mnemonic character with the story.
Circle chart (explicit instruction connecting sounds to known words and objects)
Handwriting
Hats
Our hats are: bee/butterfly, gorilla/garbage, fire/fish. hamburger/hammerhead, and rainbow/rocket. There is a cut-and-paste hat and an assembly-required hat. The kids will choose the hat they want to make.
We also do explicit handwriting instruction for each letter. After explicit modeling, students do independent practice as I support and guide.
Kindergarten Lesson Plans And Activities: Five Senses Activities
This week we continue with our required reading curriculum. The first module is the five senses. So we’re teaching the language and skill of the curriculum, but using our Five Senses Research Project to make it more kid-friendly and appropriate.
This week we’re doing evidence organizer and sensory jar activities.
This sensory jar activity is from the curriculum, BUT the curriculum uses like 5 pictures (all of our required curricula do this. They have good ideas/activities, but poor execution and not enough practice), so we make it better with real photographs. We identify the picture and discuss if we can use the senses for that object. This week is hear, touch and smell so we decide if we can taste it and we describe the taste!
Kindergarten Lesson Plans And Activities: Families
This week we’re continuing to get to know our students and their families with our Families Research Project. This is a great theme or unit for the start of the school year because it’s easy for kids to talk about their families and a great way to get to know the families! BUT REMEMBER TO BE INCLUSIVE. OF ALL FAMILY TYPES. READ BOOKS WITH ALL FAMILY TYPES. INCLUDE ALL TYPES OF HOMES, FOOD, ETC.
This week we make graphs about siblings, how many people are in our families and if we have a pet! We also talk about how families help!
We also make handprints!
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Numbers And Counting
This week, we continue Number Bootcamp, exploring manipulatives and starting our required curriclum unit on sorting and counting.
We start our sorting unit by sorting breakfast foods. True story. This is our required curriuclum. Of course, the curriculum is all slide-based, so we ARE SUPPOSED to look at the slides and sort. UMMM. No. So we made this into a hands-on lesson!
We do a shape sort where we find pictures in magazines, cut them out, and glue them on giant shape pictures!
We also do ” Would You Rather ” questions. The students move to the side of the room to show which one they choose, and we count how many and compare which is more or less.
Foodie Fun Friday: Popcorn Five Senses
This week for Foodie Fun Friday, we’re making popcorn and using our five senses to describe the popcorn!
Week 2 Resources
Here are some more first-week-of-school resources to make your planning and prep easier!
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