I seem to have math on my mind this week, so a lot of this week’s blog is dedicated to that topic! I have finally figured out some creative ways for the children to practice this skill in small groups, and I do think that they are really getting the hang of it! Also, I have not been listing the numbered weeks of the Kindergarten Pacing Guide I shared at the start of the year, due to holiday delays and such, but my class is tracking at week 20 if you are following along.
1. Bean Toss Addition and Number Combinations
Bean Toss Addition is an old favorite addition activity of mine that I use faithfully each year. It can be used to help children remember the number combinations for any given number, such as four is the same as three plus one or two plus two, etc. To do this, all you need are some lima beans and some spray paint. You paint one side red (or any color, and leave the other side white, and let dry.
To begin, you give each child a cup and just four beans. Then after that, each child spills out his or her beans and colors in the amount of colored beans that came up. The rest are left white. Then the child writes the appropriate matching equation under their colored beans on their worksheet. For example, if the child spills out two colored beans and two white beans, then he colors two beans, and leaves two beans white on his paper. Then he would write the equation, “2 + 2 = 4.” The worksheets get progressively harder, since the beans increase in number.
I know that bean toss addition worksheets are available to download free on the internet. I found my first ones by doing a search, and I regret that I do not know where I found them. But I've never seen them with a space for an equation on them, so that's why I started making my own. But I have only finished making four's and fives so far. I'm attaching these two worksheets that I made up to go with them. Other than that, I just downloaded mine from the internet and printed out blank equations and cut them out with scissors. I glued the equations down, and that’s how I got the copies that I use in the classroom. (Sorry! I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to finish up the rest of them, so if you like this activity, you may want to search online for a complete set.) I give my kids a packet of worksheets stapled together so that they can go at their own pace with it, picking up where they left off from the day before. Some children make it all the way up to the tens, and others do not.
This year, I decided to spray paint new beans with lots of different colors and let the children choose what colors they wanted to work with. That way, it wouldn't always have to be just red, and maybe the children wouldn't complain about this being "boring" as much. So I bought ten different colors of spray paint at Michael's, took them outside after school one day and laid the beans out on a layer or two of old newspaper. Once I started spraying, one of the K teachers on my team came out to see what I was doing, and we noticed how beautiful the beans were while they were still wet. Then she suggested that I spray the dry ones with a clear gloss spray paint to make them shine- and she even had some in her classroom! What a GREAT idea! The beans turned out so shiny that they look good enough to eat. (This turned out to be a slight problem for a special needs child in another K classroom because she wanted to eat them, so be aware of this issue.) I let my kids choose a variety of colors for their equations if they wanted, or they could stick to just one color if they preferred that instead. They seem to really like this better than just one color. Plus, we have now dubbed it "Jelly Bean Addition" rather than just "Bean Toss Addition." Well that sounds a bit more fun now, doesn't it?
2. Coin Toss Addition or Subtraction
Last year, my kids got VERY tired of tossing beans, so I started looking for a way to throw some more fun into this same basic activity. So I came up with the idea of making it a coin toss addition or subtraction game rather than a bean toss activity. I wanted it to have a nice spring theme, so I decided that I would find some spring or insect themed stickers and put them on those shiny gold toy coins that are sold as party favors. I made up some worksheets to go with them, and voilá! I had a new activity! The only problem was that it took a while to find the right kinds of stickers and so forth that would stay on those gold coins. I figured out that those foam stickers that they sell at craft stores like Michaels will stay on well, unless you actively try to peel them off. So I went looking and found some heart shaped stickers and some oval shaped Easter Egg stickers. After a bit of experimenting, I figured out a way to turn these shapes into bees, bunnies, butterflies, chicks, flowers, frogs, and ladybugs! I really had a blast making them over Spring Break last year with my daughters! I got most of them done myself, and then had volunteers at school finish up what was left.
So basically, the coins have a spring themed object on one side, and nothing on the back. The children put them into a brightly colored spring party cup and then proceed to complete the worksheets the same as they do with the Bean Toss Addition. I give them the whole packet stapled together and they each can work at their own pace. I do not ask them to do it every day, but we usually do it about every other day for a while. If it is a subtraction activity, then the children color the objects that came up colored, and cross out the objects that came up blank on the coins. Then they write a subtraction problem rather than an addition problem. For example, if the child tosses three coins with the bee side up and three coins with the bee side down, then he would color in three bees, and cross out three. Then he would need to count all of the bees and write that number first, which would be six. Then he writes the number of bees that are crossed out, which is three, and then the number of bees that are left, which is three: 6 - 3 = 3.
Since I made this game up last year, it is all now completed and posted for sale on my website! It includes both addition and subtraction worksheets that have number combintations from four to ten. I also included some patterns for dice that you can print and fold up for the kids if you would rather not make the coins. So, if the child rolls a three, then he crosses out three bees. He colors the rest of them. Then he writes 6 - 3 = 3. There is a die pattern included for each of the number combinations, so that you have a die that doesn’t include a number larger than four, and one that does not go larger than five, and one that doesn’t include numbers larger than six, etc. I think you could also just use the beans for this activity, too. But the coins are definitely more fun!
3. Hundred’s Day Ideas
Our 100th day doesn't come until Feb. 4th this year, so I wasn't really thinking about it yet. But someone asked the question on Facebook, so I started posting some ideas and pictures. Then lots of folks started contributing their ideas as well! Below are the ideas that I usually use. Very often, we’ll spend several days working on this sort of thing, because there are just too many good activities out there to confine them to just one day!
Counting to 100 Song:
If there were ever a day to pull this song out and do it again, this is definitely it! It’s a favorite, and totally exhausting if you do it right! We like to vary the movements and change it around as much as possible for variety. It is on both the Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes CD/DVD and the Musical Math CD and DVD.
Hundreds Day Hat:
I have a master that I inherited from my mother, who is a retired teacher and bequethed me all of her files when she left her job for the greener pastures of a perpetual vacation. :) The kids decorate it, and I usually let them put glitter on the numbers, if I have enough parent help that day. I cleaned it up and included it here for you as a free download! To make the hat, Duplicate on yellow construction paper. (The bottom edge of the paper forms the bottom edge of the crown.) Cut an extra 2” x 12” strip of paper to fit around the back of the head. I usually just cut the top part of the crown off for this. Children may decorate it as they wish, but glitter is always a special treat!
Hundreds Day Trail Mix:
For this, I ask parents to send in boxes of ten different types of snacks and the kids put ten of each item into a baggie. That gives them 100 things to eat! They do that at our math table.
Hundreds Day Writing:
At my language arts table, we write, "I can eat 100 _____." I have them write a couple of different sentences, (depending on their ability levels) and illustrate them. I read these to the whole class.
Hundreds Day Collections:
Of course, the kids also bring in their 100's day collections and share them. Don’t we all?????
One Hundred Stamps on a Paper:
I also like to have them put 100 stamps on a paper. To do this I have volunteers divide up a piece of construction paper into ten sections. I have lots of very small stamps. The kids take these and put ten of each stamp into each section. Then they write "10, 20, 30, 40..." etc. in each section til they get to 100.
Hundred Year Old Person:
Each child creates a self portrait of what he or she would look like when they are one hundred years old. Then I have a parent volunteer take dictation and ask the children what they will do for fun when they are 100, where they will live, if they will have pets, etc. The volunteer types up their sentences and we glue them underneath their pictures. Sometimes their views of what life will be like when they are old are pretty entertaining!
4. My kids LOVE the “His” Song!
Here is a video clip of the “His” song from Sing and Spell Vol. 4. The kids love it (especially the boys) because it has a car theme and sound effects. Isn’t it kind of funny how universal it is that boys like cars? I understand that even male primates show a strong preference for wheeled toys over any other! Anyway, here are the lyrics:
His, his, H-I-S!
“His” is for a boy!
His, his, H-I-S!
That car is his toy!
Vrooom! Beep, beep!
In the motions, the children drive a car around in circles, rev the engine on the “vroom” sound, and then honk the horn on the “beep, beep!” sound. At the end of the song, they hear the car crash and they all fall down as the sirens begin to sound. This song is our current class favorite, and is constantly requested. I would say that the video here doesn’t really even do them justice, since the boys got a little shy when the camera went on this time- and they are really supposed to be the “stars” of this particular show! They are really much more “into it” in person. I am including for you here as a free download the worksheets for the word “His” that come in the Resource Workbook, and the Mini Sing Along Songbook that goes along with them! Perhaps if you have a projector and an internet connection in your class, you can show your students the movie and teach them the song in your classroom, even if you don’t own the CD or DVD. And now you will have the follow up activities, too! I never do all of the worksheets; I just choose the ones that I think best suit the level and needs of my students. I also usually only give the worksheets for homework, but we do the the Mini Sing Along Songbooks in class whenever we can find the time.
5. Shark Teeth Addition
When I was thinking about creating another addition worksheet like the one with the stars that I gave you last week, I got this idea about having the children draw teeth on a shark. So I set about drawing a shark with a “head-on” view so that the mouth would be front, center, and open. Once I had that done, my husband helped me scale the tail of the shark back in order to make room for real pattern blocks to fit in the mouth for teeth. The result was a great looking shark workmat that the children really loved! This is what we did: I gave each child in the group a shark workmat and ten of the green triangle pattern blocks. We chose a child to spin the spinner, and then everybody put that many triangle teeth on the top of the shark’s mouth. (Notice the shark is toothless!) Then another child got to spin the spinner, and everybody put that many triangle “teeth” on the bottom part of the shark’s mouth. The children then added up the total number of shark teeth and wrote the equation on a white board.
After that, they flipped over their papers and did the worksheet on the other side. If the equation said “5 + 3,” then the child drew five teeth on top and three teeth on the bottom of the shark’s mouth, and then counted them up. Then they wrote the answer in the appropriate space. We are definitely getting a lot of “mileage” out of this shark addition activity! I’m hoping to make more with other sea animals, since we are now in the middle of our unit on ocean animals. The ones that are finished with it are just going back to the Bean Toss Addition page, so it is all working out.
Well, the weekend was a bit of a head rush, I must say! I met so many incredible and wonderful teachers with nothing but lovely things to say about my HeidiSongs resources and blog! Hearing about their successes with their students made everything seem so worthwhile. I also love to hear about how their children just LOVE the songs! I think that learning should be fun, as often as it possibly can be so and I’m so happy to have contributed to the happiness of some teachers and kids in our classrooms today! I was fortunate enough to speak to a much larger audience than was originally anticipated- nearly 200! They were a very responsive audience, and I surely enjoyed every minute! I hope that everyone that attended left with at least one or two useful ideas. I had the pleasure of watching Sheri Sutterley’s Mini-Keynote presentation, and she was wonderful!
A couple of nights ago, I posted on my HeidiSongs Facebook page this remark: “I feel like I'm trying to teach so much these days that I can't teach anything as well as I used to.” I would not have guessed at the amount of comments from people that immediately popped up! This is definitely a frustration for many of us. It just seems to be getting harder and harder to squeeze all of the requirements into the day, and I know that I often wind up skipping (or watering down) important lessons just to deal with classroom management issues each afternoon as the day progresses and the children become more and more tired. Teaching (and learning!) should be fun! But it’s pretty hard to relax and have fun with your students when you have to constantly watch the clock, as you struggle to squeeze just one more lesson into your day. Many of our colleagues have been forbidden to give their students recess more than twice a week, and some are not allowed to have it at all! If you have any tips for squeezing it all in while maintaining your sanity, post them on the HeidiSongs Facebook page! Let’s put our heads together and see what we come up with!
1. My Daily Schedule
Not long ago I was asked what my daily schedule looks like, so I sort of put it on my “to do” list to include it in my blog. I don’t know how useful this is to any of you, but here it goes! As you can see, I have music sprinkled in throughout the whole entire day, especially during transition times. When I need to introduce a song for the first time, then I do it at about 8:35 when I have the attention of the entire group. Then later, we can sing as much as we like during transition times, knowing that whomever is ready to join in and sing can review that song with us, but if they miss it because they are cleaning up, it is not a big deal.
7:45-8:00: Prep Time 8:00-8:15: Children arrive; outside recess. 8:25-8:35: Enter classroom, take roll, flag salute, update calendar. Read words and other flashcards stapled on wall next to calendar. 8:35-8:45: Music- Introduce or review any new songs that are necessary, based on the concepts on the Pacing Guide. 8:45-9:00: Explain what we will do at our centers during our rotation. Model the art project. Show what we will do at the other three centers as well. Sometimes I read a short book here. If writing is part of the rotation, then model the writing process at this time as well. If that happens, I usually wind up starting the rotation about five to seven minutes later. This shortens up all of the small group rotations, of course. 9:00-9:50: Small Group Rotation (part one)
We have four centers going at once. We do two rotations before recess, and two after. 1. Art: I have a volunteer run my art table. 2. Math: I have my aide run my math table. 3. Language Arts: I teach at this table. 4. “Extra” center: (either a math, science, social science, P.E., or language arts reinforcement activity is done at this table with another volunteer. If I am short a volunteer, then this center can be done independently. I always keep something in mind that the children can do alone, just in case a volunteer cannot come. One of the things that I keep on hand that the children can do independently is the Mini Sing-Along Song Books that are in our Sing and Spell Resource Workbooks. They have the words to the songs in them, and the children trace the target word on each page and then color or rainbow draw the words at the end. I do prefer to do this activity with the children, but I have found that they can easily complete and color these books alone if a volunteer doesn’t show up. They are supposed to read their books to a friend. First rotation: 9:05-9:25 Sing songs for transition 9:25-9:30 (We do a lot of the Sing & Spell Sight Word Songs as a review here) Second rotation: 9:30-9:50 Sing songs for transition 9:50-9:55 (We sing more Sing & Spell songs here, time permitting, or perhaps a few from Musical Math. If we are running late, then we don’t sing before we go out to recess.
11:05-11:10: Get ready for lunch 11:10: Walk to the cafeteria 11:15-12:00: Lunch
12:00-12:05: Come back inside, settle down, etc. 12:05-12:20: Story time/Science/Social Science/Guided Drawing 12:20-12:30: Shared writing about what we learned during story time. Sometimes we sing again during this time, especially if we already did our shared writing time earlier that day. The Skip Counting songs from Musical Math are always a hit in the afternoon, because the Count By Two’s song is a little silly! The Counting to 100 Song is good exercise, too! :)
12:30-1:00: Inside Playtime (Children must make sure that their backpacks are all packed up before they may play so that they will be completely ready to go. Otherwise, it takes us a REALLY long time to do it later. But if I withhold playtime until they are packed up, then packing up goes incredibly FAST! If I can, I have a parent pass out their binders and papers, etc., during our rotation, so that there are only approximately six to eight children at a time at the cubbies. 1:00-1:05: Clean Up 1:05-1:20: Story/Songs/Talk about activities of the day/ Review concepts, etc. 1:20: Dismissal 1:30-2:15: After School Tutoring (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays only)
• On Thursdays, we have our school wide Compact Day, so everyone gets out at 1:15, and then sometimes there are meetings or trainings to go to. Sometimes, the time is our own.
• On Fridays, we have time to plan as a Kindergarten team, so we don’t have to tutor. (Thank goodness!)
This is my basic weekly schedule in a nutshell! At the beginning of the third trimester, all of the Kindergarten students will start staying until 2:15 each day except Thursdays, and the after school tutoring groups will be dropped. Amazingly, parents often want to know why we don’t then keep those tutoring groups for an extra hour after that! As far as I am concerned, they are totally “fried” by then, and that would be a pointless waste of time! I’m so glad that our district administrators are not asking us to do this as of yet.
2. Getting Started with Addition
I usually introduce the concept of addition with my Addition Song from Musical Math, and by acting out addition stories. I also use my “Mouse Ears” addition workmat in small groups. I have no idea where the idea originated; I just know that I didn’t make it up! The workmat has one large circle in the middle and to smaller circles placed on the upper right and left so as to resemble ears.
For the activity, the children each get a basket of counters. One child is chosen to spin a spinner or roll a die. The whole group places that many counters in one of the mouse’s ears. Then, another child spins the spinner, and the whole group puts that many markers in their remaining individual mouse ears. Then, the teacher writes the equation on a white board, but saving the answer for the end, of course! The teacher asks the children to take all of their counters and put them in the mouse’s face. The children combine both groups of counters into one group, and then everyone counts up the total. Then the teacher writes the answer on her the white board, and the group reads it back. I am including a master of the mouse ears here as a free download. There’s really nothing to it, though! I also am including a very basic addition worksheet that I came up with as my husband drove us up to CKA.
3. Color By Sight Words?
Sometime during Christmas Vacation I had decided that I wanted to try to create a simple worksheet that had the children coloring by the sight words. So during that time, I created this Eskimo Color By Sight Words worksheet. In it, the kids are supposed to look for certain sight words on the picture and color them the color that is indicated on the page. I REALLY wanted to be there at school when the children did this activity to see how it went, but in the end, I wound up being sent for a day to an Apple Learning Seminar to gather ideas on how to use iPads, iPods, and other Apple products effectively in a K-6 setting. So while I was gone, my students completed this worksheet. And now I have no feedback at all on how it went, because there were no sub notes on this particular activity. (I guess no news is good news, but still....) Anyway, I am including it here for you to try out. Let me know how it goes!
My husband Greg and I are heading up to the California Kindergarten Conference (CKA) in Santa Clara from our home in Southern California. This will be a six hour drive, and we’ll need a good head start, so I am writing this blog entry a little early this week to make sure that we get it published before we leave! You’ll notice that some of the entries are written in future tense, because I was talking about what I am “going to do” rather than what I already did. So thanks for your understanding on that one! In any case, since a lot of this entry has to do with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, you may get more use out of it if you receive the blog entry a bit early anyway. Happy teaching!
1. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sound Effects Story
I have been trying to find time to write another sound effects story since I wrote the first one for my blog entry that I published right before Thanksgiving. If you are not familiar with the term, “Sound Effects Story,” this is a story that you tell and have the children listen for certain key words in the story. You have them make certain sounds and motions as those words come up. This helps them pay attention and adds a bit of fun to a lesson! So I wrote another one this week, hoping to try to use it before we leave for CKA. I was able to introduce it on Tuesday with my class, and then did it again on Thursday. I am including it for you here as a free download today! Hopefully, you will be able to get some use out of it. If it is too late for this year, then perhaps next.
The only issue with this story is that, at least when I told it, my children were so stunned by the message of what life was like back then that they were actually not having a lot of fun! And understand this: I never even mentioned that King was shot or died at the end! I totally left it out of the story. They were just plain unhappy about the fact that life was so unfair to anyone at all, and this could actually be a rule that everyone would have to follow. One of the sound effects that I gave them was to listen for anything that is not fair, and just say, “That’s not fair!” and shake your finger. I guess it turns out that having them repeat over and over, “That’s not fair!” spontaneously is a very effective means of getting them to internalize the message. At the end of the story, one of my little boys jumped up and stood in front of the class and declared, “I know what happened to him then. Somebody shot him- with a GUN!” The kids asked why, and I told them that this person didn’t like it when the rules changed. They wanted things to be unfair and didn’t want to share their parks and schools, etc. And they all just sat their with their chins dropped to the floor in disbelief. I so WISHED we had more time to discuss it, but it was dismissal time, and we had to go!
Now this is the first time that I have introduced the concept of King’s message to my class without a picture book, and I would have expected a picture book to be more effective. However, the children were visibly upset with the message of what was happening to King as a boy, and I have never seen this happen with a picture book. The fact that he could not attend the same schools, play at the same parks, or even use the same drinking fountains as white children was horrifying to them- and I’m very glad to report that this was the case! Did I want and expect the story to be fun? Yes, because of the sound effects! But more than that, I wanted them to understand the message of what was happening in our country during that time, and the fact that it took someone very special and brave to fix it. And the story certainly did accomplish that. And from there, I went on to explain how to do the Martin Luther King themed art projects listed below.
2. Martin Luther King, Jr. Art Project
We used to make a Peace Prize necklace that the kids would decorate for Martin Luther King, Jr. day each year. If have no idea at all where that project originally came from; I inherited it from the teacher that I used to work with years ago. I was going to share that one with you, so I brought it home to re-draw the master, because it had been recopied so many times it was in terrible shape! But when I checked online to find out what a real Nobel Peace Prize looked like, I found out that it looked NOTHING like the project we had been giving children to make for so many years! In fact, the pictures I found online resembled a penny with Lincoln’s head on it. I decided that this might ultimately be very confusing for the kids, so I decided that we needed a fresh art project that would help them understand the main idea of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message.
After giving it some thought, I came up with a picture of multi-cultural children playing together! We happen to have one of those Ellison Die Cut machines at our school, so I punched out five different colors of boys and girls for the project, in various shades of tan, light brown, dark brown, peach, and black. I sponge painted the grass on the bottom of the page, and added the children standing on the grass, some flowers, and a happy faced sun. Then I added some features to the children’s bodies. To finish it off, I decided to print out the words, “I have a dream!” and cut them apart. The children will need to use their reading skills to put them in order and place them across the top of their picture. I really like the way it turned out! We did this project on Thursday so that I could be there to see it. I did have them sponge paint the grass ahead of time so that it would be dry when it is time to decorate the picture. I also saved the scraps from the die cut machine and decided that we would use them as stencils to paint some “Rainbow People” as well! I had a volunteer tape these “stencils” down lightly, and I am going to let the children paint the inside of the children with as many different colors as they would like. Then we are going to talk about how much nicer it is when there are lots of different colored people instead of just one. I suspect that they will enjoy this project more than the one I had actually prepped for - but that’s okay!
Their pictures came out beautifully, and I think that they really enjoyed it and understood the point of the projects- that we should all be friends, and it doesn’t matter what color anyone’s skin is. The only important thing is what is on the inside. And by all means- the more colors, the better! But then I think that kids already know that instinctively. After all, if you let them go, you’ll even get rainbow colored penguins from some of them! They like to use every color in the crayon box.
3. Penguin Guided Drawing
I do love to do guided drawing projects with my kids, and penguins are fun and easy to draw! The directions are included here as a free download. The children are always so proud of their creations! And I love that when we go to write about them, everybody has an idea of how to draw one. Later, I even showed them how to draw a penguin sliding on its belly! Yesterday, a child showed me a picture she drew of a penguin going down the slide on our playground. Too cute! Enjoy!
4. Getting Kids Started With Inventive Spelling
This question was emailed to me regarding writing instruction in Kindergarten, and it occurred to me that my reply would make a good addition to my blog this week. So I am including both the question and my answer. If any other readers have some tips on this that they would like to share, I think that we would all like to know! You can leave comments on this blog, or on my HeidiSongs Facebook page.
Question:
“I was looking for some tips on writing sentences since it seems a lot of my students are sticking to sentences with "I like.." or "It is a" Do you have any suggestions as to how I could help them further develop sentence writing. This is my first year and I am looking for any suggestions...” My response:
After a while, I tell my students that we are not going to write those kinds of simple sentences any more, because "that's for babies!" They are too smart for that. And if they start in writing "I see___" or "I like ____," then I stop them right away and give them a fresh paper and remind them that I said we were going to write something else today. A few of them find this very frustrating initially, but I just stick to my guns. I also model writing other sentences in front of them and show them how to write something else.
Teaching beginning writing with those structured sentence patterns is a nice easy way to get them started, (see my blog entry on this topic) but it can be difficult to make them let go of the comfort of knowing exactly how to write something and knowing exactly what to do. They stick to those sentences because they are easy for them, and some kids, especially those who are "perfectionists," need a good nudge to get them out of the "it's got to be perfect" mode. I also assign other sentences for writing practice at home. I try to get parents on board with writing phonetically by showing them what I am looking for at parent conferences and Back to School Night, etc. This helps a whole lot! Children who get extra practice at home in writing "as it sounds" get used to the process and start to accept that what we are really looking for is their thoughts on the paper, and not each word written perfectly. I do tell parents that if we have learned sight word song for a certain word, then I would expect that word to be spelled correctly. But if we have not learned a song for the word, then the child should spell it like it sounds and leave it at that. Last year I had a little guy whose homework showed that he spelled everything perfectly, but when in the classroom, he absolutely shut down and refused to try any inventive spelling at all, and cried. I highly suspected that his parents were spelling for him at home, so I gave them a call and explained the problem. Even though I had already explained the process at Back to School Night and at parent conferences, they still felt that I would want everything spelled correctly on the homework. When I assured them that I absolutely did not want them to spell for him, the crying stopped and he started writing phonetically as I was asking him to do. So in conclusion, I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it is to get parents on board and to help them understand what it is you are looking for! It can make all the difference.
5. Getting Ready To Test on Matching Sets 0-30
We have been practicing this skill since the middle of November, and I think that most of them have it just about mastered. So we have been reviewing it this week by putting as many of these practice sheets I have been giving away in the past few weeks on my blog as I could find into the Communicator Clearboards that I told you about on my blog in the entry for Friday, September 17, 2010 in the Number Monsters section. I made some new ones with snowmen, penguins, Eskimos, snow hats, mittens, and also some with hearts and bunnies, etc., to add to my collection and use for review in the coming months. The kids really loved the new pictures, and the practice seemed to do them good! If you are unfamiliar with these Clearboards, all you do is slip a worksheet into one of them and give the children a dry erase marker. I had them try to complete one whole worksheet and then show my aide their work. If it was correct, they could go on to another one. If not, then they had to count over and try to fix it. With all of the practice that they had, I’m happy to report that the great majority passed their test on matching sets all the way to thirty! I figured that most of them would do fine if I can just get them to count carefully. It’s the careless counting that causes the mistakes! Of my 26 students, I have one that cannot count abstract pictures accurately yet (a fall birthday child), and another who simply circled the middle number on the section that tested from 20-30 because he didn’t want to do it, so he missed most of them. I also had another higher student who seemed to be having an “off day” and missed four out of ten of them on the 20-30 section. But that was it!
In the past weeks I have given away three of these pages, I think, but now I am ready to sell the rest of them as a download. If you would like to purchase the set, please visit my website. This four dollar download includes ten more pages, plus the three free ones that I already gave you for a total of thirteen practice pages.
Last Monday was our first day back after our Christmas vacation, and boy, could I TELL! We spent the first couple of days trying to remember what it was we learned before we left! Most of my students are doing quite well. But unfortunately, not all of the children got the reinforcement that I would have liked during this break. Some of the struggling students are in exactly the same place academically as they were when I left them in December, and others are actually worse off than before! Meanwhile, time marches on, so we review and hope for the best as we push forward to teach all of the standards that the children have to master before the next testing period begins again. So here are some things that I have been doing with my kids towards that end!
1. Word Family Review
We have been working on CVC words now since about the middle of November, and by now they “should” all be able to sound out -at, -an, -it, and -in family words. I would say that about 75% of my students are doing this fairly well, but there is still a small group of children that only sound out certain words well- and these words are generally the ones in the CVC book. I sent home the Student Flash cards for all of these word families from the CVC book, and gave them the assignment of practicing reading the words and matching them to the pictures. The problem is that they need to also practice sounding out other CVC words that are not included in the book. They also need to practice reading them on print that is not the same old flash cards, because I have noticed that though they may be able to read the word on the card, if I write it on something else, they often cannot read it! So I decided to dust off the old “Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) Boards.”
For those of you that are not familiar with this tool, it is more or less just a chart with words on it (or numbers, etc.) that you want your students to practice reading. The idea is that though there may be 25 spaces on the board, you may have only five or six words on it to read, and these words are printed over and over again. Ideally, you would have the child’s weakest word printed the most times, and the child’s strongest word printed the least amount of times. After school, I prepared an individualized chart for each child in my low group using the guidelines above.
This is how I use them in a small group situation: I passed out the charts to each child, and designated a word to look for and a color that he or she should make it. So, each time a child found the word, “and,” he was to color it red, for example. I got all of the children started doing this on their individualized charts and then stopped one of them to work with me on reading the chart while the others colored. I spent about two minutes with each child, and then went on to the next one. That way, I was able to work with each child individually for a couple of minutes. I feel that this is really a great way to help those little ones that seem to only respond to one-on-one help. It kept the group busy in a meaningful way while I worked with them one at a time. Whenever someone finished finding all of their words, I would quickly tell them to find the next one and assigned it a color.
I am including a free download of a RAN board here; it has a mixture of -an, -at, -it, and -in words on it. To make your own, you should be able to just insert a table into any word processing program and type in each square, and then add the child’s name on the top. That is what I do! I also have some that I send home for homework practice, though these are usually not individualized. The kids’ assignment is to keep track of how fast they can read the entire chart and then try to beat their own best time. Here is a download of a blank RAN board as well.
2. Penguin Word Family Coloring Sheet
I made this little coloring activity sheet over Christmas vacation and figured that it would come in handy. And it sure did on Monday morning, when we were short one volunteer! The idea here is that the children identify which word family the word belongs to, and then color it accordingly. If it belongs to the “it family,” they color it black, and if it belongs to the “in family” they color it orange. This was still a great puzzle to my struggling learners, but to be fair, most of them really are “fall birthday babies” and are probably not ready to learn these concepts quite yet. (And this probably explains why they are having those difficulties I mentioned previously, as well!) For those of you that are unaware, the current cut-off date for entrance to Kindergarten in California is December 2nd! That means that I have children in my class that might not turn five until December 2 each year, and it is no surprise that these children often have great difficulties grasping concepts such as sounding out words. Sight words seem to be not a big problem for them, considering most of these little ones learn well through music, and the Sing and Spell program does wonders for them! It’s the “thinking concepts” rather than the rote memorization concepts that puzzle these sweet little ones.
Luckily, the California cut-off date for entrance into Kindergarten is changing starting next fall. They are backing the date up by one month each year for the next three years until it will finally settle on September first in 2014. I am greatly looking forward to having more children that are physically, cognitively, and emotionally ready to begin their formal education on the day they begin school, rather than three and a half months later. Kudos to the California Kindergarten Association for their hard work in pushing this bill through! I’ll be presenting at their annual conference in Santa Clara, CA next weekend. Join us!
3. Symmetrical Pattern Block Snowflakes
This is a fun project we do for math each year: we make symmetrical snowflakes out of pattern blocks! All you have to do is start with a blue piece of paper cut into an eight inch diameter circle. I have parent volunteers cut them out for me and glue a white hexagon paper pattern block in the middle. Then I have them fold and unfold the circle into sixths so that the kids can see some defined sections in the circle. I also have them cut out a bunch of white paper pattern blocks. If you need the masters to run off the pattern blocks, they are here as another free download!
To introduce the topic, I tell the children that something that is symmetrical is something that is the same on all of the sides or parts. So we will be making snowflakes that are the same in each section. I put some baskets of the white paper pattern blocks on the table and then I ask each child to pick one block out and hold it. Then I go to each child and ask him where he or she would like that block to be. The child points to the spot in one section where he wants it glued down, and I then put a dot of glue in that same spot in each of the sections. The key here is that there is only one bottle of glue, and the teacher controls it, placing a dot of glue in each spot that the child identifies. Once the child has laid down pattern blocks on each dot of glue, then I have them pick another block and again tell me where they want it. They continue on this way until the snowflake is finished! It’s fun to make at least some of them double sided and then hang them from strings on the ceiling. We usually just make snowflakes cut out of paper the usual way for the other side of the snowflake. I often have their book buddies help them with this, since cutting on folded paper can be difficult for little ones.
4. Sound It Out Snowman Game
Well, I received an email from a blog reader who wanted to know if I was going to make any more of my seasonal sight word games that I have been giving away recently on my blog. I replied that hadn’t thought about it yet, but would consider it. So I decided to have a “chat” with all the nice gals that frequent my HeidiSongs Facebook page, and asked them if their students were tired of the “Sight Word Santa” type of game that I have been making, in which you hide something under one of the seasonally themed word cards and then have the children guess which card it is under. The answer was a resounding, “We’re not tired of it; please make another!” I figured that since we are studying winter and were learning the Let’s Make a Snowman song from Little Songs for Language Arts, a snowman theme might be good, and the consensus from the Facebook page agreed. But that type of game needs a rhyme for the kids to repeat when each time someone takes a turn. So I came up with this little rhyme to go with it, but I knew it wasn’t as good as it could be:
“Snowman, snowman, round and fat,
Snowman, snowman, where’s it at?”
So I posted the rhyme on my HeidiSongs Facebook page, and asked for help! And lo and behold: we, as a “HeidiSongs Facebook team,” brainstormed a cute little rhyme that could go with a snowman themed game, and this is what we came up with! Kudos to Kristin Fuller, who completed the rhyme so beautifully!
And Kristen suggested:
“Snowman, snowman, round and fat,
Snowman, snowman, where’s your hat?”
We all agreed that this was a FABULOUS idea!!!! I LOVE it! So thanks for contributing to the brainstorming session, Kristen! You inspired me to finish up the project and get it out on this week’s blog. I knew that rhyme was a little substandard, but was having trouble fixing it! It’s just lucky that I happened to wake up with a really bad “we just had a huge earthquake” nightmare at 4:00 AM, and decided to get up and create it rather than attempt to sleep for one more hour and then get up again. (Thank goodness it was only a nightmare!) The only thing is that now my snowman picture had to be “hatless,” but that was no big deal. He’s not as cute, but I think we can all deal with that, right? Here’s your free download of the Snowman Game. The only thing is that I felt like my kids are doing pretty well with the sight words because of the Sing and Spell songs, so I decided to make it a word family game instead. There are still blank snowmen at the end, though, so you can make your own cards. I was thinking that you could play memory with them, too! Just have them match one word family card to the same word family card! Example: hat and mat would match, because they are both from the “at” family. There are even numbers of each word family card, and I included words from the -at, -an, -it, -in, -ip, and -ig word families, since this is what I am working on now and in the coming weeks.
