My kids want to read to the class

After breakfast these two girls sat in my rocker together and picked up one our class' favorite books- "llama llama mad at mama" and "The Tattle Tongue." They told all the boys to finish up cause they were going to read a story. The boys quickly finished their breakfast and sat at the carpet. The girls told them to be respectful and sit cross cross with their hands still while they read. The girls proceeded to "read" the book aloud to the class. Mind you they could not yet read all the words but the definitely retold the story very well! I just sat back for a minute while I wrote field trip receipts and said to myself "they really enjoy reading... This is why I teach. " 

Autumn/acorn Manipulatives

Ok Friday, we were out on the playground and a few of my girls collected acorns. As I was swinging I got an idea! We should collect acorns and use them to "count how many" in our math centers. So, my kids loved the idea and I sent one to fetch a bucket for our collection. 

We used them in our math centers as manipulatives and today I used them to fill in sight words. I got one of these from a co worker and then made the rest (blue) on my own. If you made these or know who did, let me know.  

This is week two of sight words. So far we have done I, am, a, and little. We've been reading sentences like "I am a little dog" and "Am I little?"  The kids of have been doing pretty good so far.  After they made the word they wrote them down. They got to practice their words and fine motor skills...winning! 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Well, week one is in the books!

We read Chicka Chicka boom boom and Chicka Chicka 123. Here are some of the fun things we did this week... Many of these came from Greg as medley at thekindergartensmorgasboard.com and Elizabeth Hall at kickinitinkindergarten.com. Both are fabulous kinder teachers with great Ideas! 

We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and practiced making our names and writing them on white boards. 

We spelled our names out and counting the letters in them. 

This activity doubled for the story Chrysanthemum. We talked about bullying and being respectful. After we practiced making our names and counting the letters we posted them on a big flower on my door. The center reads "How many letters are in your name?"

I put all of the letters of the alphabet in an orange bucket with sand. (Coconut--> beach--> sand) each kid pulled out a letter and we identified that letter and they found it on a large mat with the whole alphabet on it. 

We made coconut trees with our rainbow names in them. 

My wonderful husband brought in two coconuts and we used our five senses to describe them. He even brought a chisel and hammer for them to help crack it open! 

We used our sense of taste and ate a bit of coconut then made a graph to tell whether or not we liked it. If you do these, make sure you don't have anybody allergic to coconut. 

On Thursday we made Chicka Chicka boom boom hats! They were so cute! We wrote our names with rainbow letters and attached long fluffy green leaves to the sentence strips to hang off. I got the leaf cut out from Teachers Pay Teachers. Get your FREE copy of it here. 

I introduced write the room with shapes (vertical lines, horizontal lane, circle, diagonal line, etc) then I found a coconut tree with all of the letters on coconuts. I only did a few at a time but they walked about the room and as they found the letters they colored that coconut on their sheet.

You can get a copy of it by searching on Pinterest... I downloaded a long time ago. Here is a copy for you!!! Click here to download it.

Introducing centers For kindergarten

Teachers who are preparing to do centers with your kids-- I highly suggest introducing your center work in a whole group setting first. It may not be the exact activity they do in the center but something similar will allow you to demonstrate, answer questions and hopefully dispel imany misconceptions they have before you start center rotations. This will help your kids be more comfortable and able to focus on the actual task rather than figuring out how to do it. 

All that being said....

 Recently out kinder team bought the math centers bundle-B. U. I. L. D. Math bundle from Elizabeth Hall over at Kickin It in Kindergarten! It's available in Teachers Pay teachers. If you are familiar with Daily five it's like that for math. Kind of. 

At the start of the year I introduce our centers as a whole group first then do them in small groups. There are five math tubs I use with B. U. I. L. D. so it worked out perfect to do one a day for a week.  In our reading centers we did not have to do all of them whole group because two of them are small groups with me or my teacher assistant. We did write the room this week with shapes and letters in the alphabet. I gave each child a sheet with the letters of the alphabet on a coconut tree (we read chicka chicka boom boom) and as they found the letters they colored them in. This was really simple and just got them introduced to it. We practice walking around the room, not yelling "I found it!" Every time they found a letter to the person across the room and continually walking. The next one we did was listening to reading. I played the three little pigs for them and they all drew pictures about the story they listened to.  I even had a few write about it. It was only a string of letters but it is something and for the first week of kindergarten I was proud of them. 

My kids did pretty good with them and next week I will split them up and have them do the centers on their own. They will only do one a day for now and we will progress to more as time goes on. Starting centers and getting them running in my class takes some time but after about two (maybe three, depending on my group) we are in a pretty good routine that sets us up for success for the rest of the year (mostly). 

I go over the rules of working in groups each day, before we split up. I do this every day, even in January and February. It goes a lot quicker then but we review it as a reminder. Here they are... 

G- get along

R- respect each other 

O- on task

U- use quiet voices 

P- participate

S- stay with your group 

Here are a few pictures of my kids working on B. U. I. L. D. MATH centers this past week