Monthly Archives: September 2010
Going to try something different this year…(Farms)
Those of you who know me well shouldn’t be surprised by that statement at all!! I’m constantly changing the way I do things to keep my self up to date and to keep up with the kids interests.
The something different I’m going to try in the next few weeks is developing a unit about the Farm and bringing in Nursery Rhymes. Thursday, I created Nursery Rhyme books for each of my students. It’s basically a booklet with a cover (8 1/2 x 11 sized) and then copies of all the Nursery Rhymes I could possibly tie into Farms. I don’t have it in front of me right now, but I think there were eight of them…lets see how good my memory is!! 🙂
Baa, Baa Black Sheep
Hey Diddle, Diddle
Mary Had a Little Lamb
This Little Piggy
The Three Little Kittens
Little Boy Blue
and two others I can’t remember right now! (If you have a suggestion about others I could use or some that you have enjoyed in your classroom, please leave me a comment!)
Anyway, my plan is to talk a bit about a specific animal each day (10 of them) and create anchor charts for each one, and then tie in a Nursery Rhyme when possible. It think I was able to find three rhymes about sheep, so we will know plenty about them!!
Nursery Rhymes are so critical to learn in Kindergarten! If you haven’t used them in your classroom before, I would suggest you try and fit them in. I’ll be tying others in later when we do our Gingerbread Man unit in December. We’ll be using more Fairy Tales then.
Let me know of any farm ideas you have…I’d love to hear suggestions!!
Kristen 🙂
Bulldog Buck Store
Here is a long awaited look at our Bulldog Buck Store. The children can earn Bulldog Bucks (our mascot is the Bulldog) and can spend them each Friday at our store. Families donate items (Happy Meal Toys, birthday party items, etc.) and the children “shop” for them.
More Work Stations (2010)
Here are some more pictures of Literacy Work Stations in action.
This is the Magnet Work Station. I have one large magnetic dry erase board and two bags (from the Target Dollar Spot). In each of the bags, there are a box of magnetic letters, a set of everyone’s names (laminated), and some sorting sheets and alphabet matching sheets.
Here’s a look inside.
Here it is in use…
This is what’s currently in the Games and Puzzles Work Station. I showed this one last year and you can get the Find It tubes at Target now. I made this sheet in Word and laminated it (actually I made two of them because I have two tubes like this one) and the children circle the letters as they find them and then just wipe it all off when they are done.
This is the ABC/Word Work Station (see last post for a description).
Using pointers to read Big Books. In all my other Big Books (except the Alphabet ones), I put post it notes or laminated task cards with words for the children to find.
This our new Pocket Chart poem for the week. I found it in the Interactive Charts book that goes along with the Building Blocks framework.
Here are a few closeups:
They are numbered so that the children can match a word with a number two to the second sentence, and a word with a number three to the third sentence, and so on.
This is one part of the transparency that I made for Cookie’s Week.
This is the other half. I imported a picture from Amazon.com of the front of the book so that the children would know book this sheet goes with. I then thought up some things that the children might have done (those are on the transparency above) and then drew little pictures in (for those who cannot read the words yet) on the ends of the strips. The children use their pictures (that I printed on transparencies also using iPhoto’s Contact Sheet setting, grayscale). Then they use the strips (that I’ve number as well) and fill in the sentences.
Here is a look at two of my students using the Pocket Chart Station, sorting the names by “Boys and Girls”.
Here is the Library Work Station, just the seating area.
Here are Hermit Crabs (they reside next to the meal worms). Their names are Red and Flip Flop.
Here is an updated picture of our meal worms.
These are our plants. Spidey is hanging from the ceiling (he’s a spider plant). The other two are Fred and Flossie. They are Philodendrons (sp?). We’ve practiced being really nice to them and saying nice things to them so they will grow big and strong.
That’s all for now! I’ll be posting more about our Bulldog Buck Store in just a minute! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
New Pictures
Here are some more new pictures from my classroom:
Our Meal worms…
Meal worms are really easy to keep and you get to watch the life cycle happen over and over again. I just put corn meal in the bottom and some apple slices and carrots. You also will need to add some water in a dish that the meal worms cannot get in to keep the humidity up.
I got the 2 tanks, lids, a gram scale (for weighing the meal worms), 2 microscopes, and a hand held microscope from a Donors Choose grant in May.
Here are some new pictures of my Literacy Work Stations.
This is the ABC/Word Work Station.
Right now, we have letter cards on a ring in the bag with Wikki Stix. The children make the letters with the Wikki Stix.
The children also have the opportunity to put Wikki Stix on each others names at the ABC/Word Work Station. These are laminated.
Here is our Listening Station. The black and white bags hold the books and CD. The headphones are stored in a cleaning tote. I am using the head headphones from my non-working leap pads.
I also have several books and their CD’s available on the ledge just above the books. I try to put the newest titles on the ledge and the older ones in the bags.
The is our Pocket Chart Station. Last year, I used a full size chart, but this year, I decided to make it more kid-sized and used these pocket charts from the Dollar Spot at Target.
I took all of my kids pictures and glued them on sentence strips next to their names and then laminated them. The children sort the names by “Boy/Girl” or Alphabetical order. I’ve also added a poem about Pets (you can find it in the Interactive Charts Book that goes along with Building Blocks).
This is my Drama Work Station with the Chicka Chicka Tree in the top bag. Two other bags also now hold the drama props for Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Mouse Paint (I got them all through a Donors Choose grant).
A look inside the Chicka Chicka Bag. There is the large tree, the velcro letters, and an copy of the book.
The Brown Bear, Brown Bear bag. The book is missing…! 😉
Overhead Work Station
These are the overhead transparencies I made to go along with Brown Bear and Chicka Chicka. The children use the pictures of them I printed on transparency sheets (see two posts ago) and put them in the blanks. They then read the words and then put a new child’s picture in.
I also made some to go along with Cookie’s Week and I’ll post those soon.
Big Book Work Station
I found these cute pointers in the Dollar Spot at Target and we use them for pointing to words in Big Books and for reading the names and words at Pocket Chart Station.
Now for a few random things! 🙂
I got these puzzles at Wal-Mart for $3.00 each. They show the life cycle of a frog and a butterfly. We’ll be using the butterfly puzzle next week, when we learn about Monarchs. I’ll have it in my Science Work Station.
I also found these cute signs in the Target Dollar Spot. They are great for using signals rather than trying to talk over all the children! 🙂 I use them as reminders when we are sitting on the floor. They work really well!
I had a few questions about the kind of hooks I use to hang all the bags up around my room in my Work Stations. Here is a picture of them.
Here’s a close up of them.
I’ll be updating with more pictures in a little while! Enjoy your Labor Day weekend! 😉
Kristen 🙂
Kristen's Kindergarten 