I {heart} Pinterest! :)
I’ve decided to try something this year–since we’re still at the beginning of the year! 🙂 I’m going to see how many lessons I can create by getting inspiration from Pinterest. We all use the ideas from there! 🙂 It doesn’t mean that I won’t come up with my own ideas, but with the time crunch we are all in now as teachers, I thought it would be great to not reinvent the wheel too many times! 🙂
I’ve already got a button on my left sidebar so you can check out all the pins I have so far, but I’m going to link a few of my boards here:
Hope you can find some more great ideas! 🙂 Happy Pinning!
Let me know what great ideas you’ve found on Pinterest! 🙂
Posted on August 11, 2012, in Pinterest. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Kristen's Kindergarten 
I can’t decide if I like or dislike Pinterest! I love all the ideas I have come across, but I do NOT love the time it consumes!
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Another great idea Kristen!! Love it 😉
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This is a Great idea Kristen!
BTW…I just discovered a couple of new ( to me at least) Pinterest Apps for my iPad. Have you checked them out? There are actually a handful of different versions but I really like this one:
See you on Pinterest!
Julia DeWaal
Sent from my iPad!
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Hi Kristen, I was wondering how you teach the letters to your kiddos at the beginning of the year. I know a lot of teachers are getting away from the “letter of the week” but I like a concrete organized way to teach the letters. Any suggestions?? Thank you so much!!
Lisa Kindergarten Teacher
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:53:32 +0000 To: fickel68@hotmail.com
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Hi Lisa,
We do use the Imagine it!/Open Court/SRA basal for Phonemic Awareness. Having said that, we use a more integrated approach to teaching letters–introducing them as they come up in different situations (writing as a group, writing individually, reading as a group, reading individually, etc). For example, when we are creating a shared chart together, we will sound out the words together and write the letters that correspond with those sounds. A few weeks from now, when I am done assessing my students’ letter and sound knowledge, I will have a better idea of who needs a more targeted series of interventions that I will provide during a small group session daily.
We have not had a specific letter of the day for many years and I think using a more integrated approach is working just as well! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
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Kristen thank you for sharing your ideas on pinterest. I too, believe we should all share the wealth and not reinvent the wheel especially in the beginning of the year when we need to focus on too many other things. I look forward to sharing some ideas with you as well in the future.
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Kristen-
We are in the process of adding SRA Imagine It (I believe that is the title) to our core reading curriculum. We have 6 kindergarten classes with 18 students each. We are going to homogeneously group our students and have each teacher teach a different level. We just had our training today and are trying to figure out whether to have 6 groups or for each teacher to teach 2 groups. According to our trainer 18 (or so) students whole group is A LOT but can be done. We are trying to figure out what the other students will do if we do split our groups into two. I have been searching for info online and came across your blog so thought I would check with you.
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Hi Lisa,
When we split up our kids, we had 4 kinder classes, 4 teachers, and 4 assistants, plus one of our ELL assistants. We really liked having 10-12 kids in each of our small groups (we each had 1/2 of a class). They were grouped together in flexible groups, they were placed in the group based on their current DRA Word Analysis scores and then when retested at the end of each 9 weeks, they either remained in the same group or moved up to the next group–based on their new skill level.
The lowest group kept reviewing books 1-2 (Teacher’s Manual #’s) all year and each group stepped up a book from there up to the highest group (the one that I had–we did more activities related to small reading groups (things from reading a-z) and comprehension since they were readers and were ready for it!).
I hope this helps!
Let me know if you have any more questions about how we organized it!
Kristen 🙂
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