Six Weeks Down: Introducing.... Counting Creatures!!!!

The BOYS Choose to COLOR at Playtime???? 

Well, I don’t mind telling you that it’s been a tough week, and Friday couldn’t have come soon enough!  I had to make a heart wrenching decision on Tuesday to put my older beloved dog “Hunny Bun” down due to congestive heart failure, as she was suffering greatly.  But knowing this didn’t help my broken heart at all; she was my baby, and she was born in our house!  Needless to say, the tears didn’t stop falling for a couple of days, and I keep finding them welling up in my eyes even now.  Luckily, the kids themselves are a good distraction from this type of grief, as is teaching itself!  And as hard as it is to force myself to get up in the morning and just GO and DO IT, it is much better if I do!  Just as I assumed they would, their bright smiles were the perfect distraction from a very difficult, emotional situation.

To make matters worse, my district seems to have gone DIBELS crazy, and planned a training for the afternoon of our weekly Compact Day, so I lost ALL of my prep time on Thursday afternoon.  And then I had to go to a training on Saxon Math all day on Friday, and will have to go next week on Monday, and Tuesday as well.  Mind you, we are in our third year of implementing Saxon Math, and are only now getting the training.  Also, our K aides do most of the small group instruction in math,

while the K teachers do the small group instruction in language arts, but it is the teachers that have to go to the training.  Furthermore, the district math committee decided NOT to revise our benchmarks or assessments to match the Saxon text.  This means that if we actually follow the book, our students will NEVER hit their benchmarks on time for the first or second trimesters, because Saxon moves far too slowly in comparison to the benchmarks.  Our instructions are to supplement the text.  The end result?  We wind up supplementing more often than teaching from the text.  And now I get to spend three days away from my classroom hearing about how to use the text properly and about the wonders of Saxon Math.  When I told my students that I was going to be gone for three days and that there would be

"Saxon?  What's That?"

a substitute teacher, some of them looked like they were going to cry!  And even though I showed them on the calendar when I would be back, one precious little girl immediately told her mother upon dismissal, "Mommy!  My teacher is leaving and never coming back!!!"
The end result of this is that I had to make sub plans for these three days in my “spare” time.  Ahhhhh!!!!!  There are few things that irritate me more than being out of my classroom for reasons like this.  And now I have the biggest challenge of all:  To keep my big mouth SHUT for three days in a math training, and NOT get myself into trouble by saying something stupid, like, "Saxon?  What's that?"

Well, if nothing else, at least I have some great instructional activities to share with you this week!

1.  Introducing.... Counting Creatures!!!!!

If you have been reading my blog for a full year now, you may remember me mentioning a cute set of worksheets called “Number Monsters” that I had enjoyed using since my earliest years of teaching.  These worksheets have been out of print for many years now.  But my memories of using these  worksheets in the classroom and how the children enjoyed them sparked the idea of making a set of worksheets that included some fantasy creatures for counting and numeral formation.  This idea finally came to fruition this week when this big project was finally completed and I was able to introduce it to my students!  They were just as excited about it as I had hoped they would be, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am at how the whole thing came out!  We decided to call it Counting Creatures, and it includes robots, creatures, dinosaurs, and monsters.  (To find it, click on the link and scroll down a bit.)  As you can probably imagine, the children are wild about it- ESPECIALLY the BOYS!!!

One thing that is really fun about it is that at the beginning of the workbook, I introduced each character with it’s own little poem and coloring page.  The children clap out the number of limbs or features that each character should have.  For example, Robot Number Two has two wheels, two arms, two antennae, two teeth, and two knobs.

The poem for number two goes:

A Counting Creatures Poem Page

“Robot, robot, number two,
How many wheels do you have on you? 
One, two!”

Creature Number Nine has nine bows, nine legs, nine freckles, nine eyelashes, and nine spots.  Her poem goes like this:

Creature, creature, number nine!
How many bows make you look fine?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!

Anyway, I had some parent volunteers help me color, laminate, trim, and bind up a booklet of the Counting Creatures so the children could have them in book form and be able to read them lots of times.  You can watch the video of the children enjoying the poem here!  It’s also good for them to try to remember that seven claps, for example, is only SEVEN- not eight or nine!  This has been a tricky lesson for some of them who are still a bit unsure of what numbers represent.

I have been putting the numeral copying practice sheets in dry erase sleeves so that the children can practice tracing and writing their own numerals, and also finding and circling the correct numbers. 

Soon we will also try to count and find the correct number of items, etc.  I am planning on getting some more of the dry erase sleeves so that I can keep more of these different worksheets at different levels handy, especially for the children who are ready to move on and don’t need to keep copying the numbers over and over.  I discovered that the Scholastic Book Club has them in the Bonus Catalog, so I was able to get a few more with my bonus points, so I was glad about that!

But besides the dry erase sleeves and the math activities, the funny thing is that the children keep begging me to give them more of the coloring sheets to color during their play time!  In fact, yesterday, the most popular “activity du jour” was coloring, believe it or not!  There were more children wanting to color than anything else.  I think I am going to have them graph their favorite creature next week.  So far, the boys seem to like Robot Number 2 best, and the girls like Creature Number Nine best, (because of the hair bows.)  So, I have decided to include one of the number formation practice pages for the nine and the two, plus two more for you as free downloads for you today, so that you can see for yourself how much fun they are!



2.  “Books That Make Kids Think”
I recently read a review of some new books in a publication put out by NAEYC called “Books That Make Kids Think,” and I am SO glad that I did!  The first book is called We Are in a Book by Mo Williams.  In this book, the elephant and the piggie discover that they are being read by a monster!  But NO!  It’s really just a READER!  The characters realize that they can play a trick on the reader by making him or say a funny word, if the reader is reading out loud.  This funny word is “banana.”  As the story moves along, Gerald and Piggie make the reader say “banana” several times and fall over crying with laughter at the funny trick they played on the reader!  Then they realize with dismay that the book will soon END- horror of horrors! 
My class had SUCH a lot of fun with this book!  I had them take turns coming up to the front of the class to be the reader that would say the funny word, and each time a child did that, the whole class just roared with laughter!  We really had a wonderful time with it!

Another great book that makes kids think is called Press Here by Herve Tullet.  This marvelous little gem of a book is wonderful fun!  The first page asks the reader to press a colored dot, and when you turn the page, it turns into two colored dots, just like magic!  And so it goes- each time you press a dot, shake the book, tip the book to the side, blow on the book, or clap your hands, you find something new when you turn the page.  The children in my class just begged to get to come forward and push one of the dots, etc.  I highly recommend this book for any Pre-K, K, or first grade collection.




3.  Trying to Push Our DIBELS Scores UP!
This year, my district has switched over to the new “DIBELS Next” system of tracking student progress, and on Thursday all of the teachers wound up in a training session designed to teach us how to enter our progress monitoring scores.  Thankfully, there are only a few DIBELS tests that we have to give in addition to the myriad of assessments that we are already giving one-on-one in Kindergarten, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much!  Our first test is the “First Sounds Fluency” (FSF) test.  In this test, you tell the child a word, and the child has to tell you the first sound that he or she hears in that word.  The second test is simply a Letter Naming Test, but they only have to do this again at the end of February, so I am not worried about that one.
In any case, I figure that a little extra practice on the format of the FSF test couldn’t hurt, so I created a power point presentation for that purpose.  I found two pictures for the beginning sound of each letter of the alphabet and inserted them into my power point presentation, and mixed them up.  Then I started drilling the children, asking them, “What is the first sound of ______?” (insert the name of the picture on the screen in the blank, of course!)  While we did this, I had them stand up and respond using the Zoo-Phonics motions while giving the sounds to keep them actively involved.  I think that this extra practice really helped!  So far, half of the children that I have done the progress monitoring on have shown dramatic improvements.  Now the only thing I need to do is keep finding a variety of pictures, and also find pictures that begin with words that start with the /sh/, /ch/, and the /th/, since the DIBELS assessments include these sounds as well.

Sorting "Training Baskets" to Help Kids Focus on One Attribute

4.  Working on Sorting
Getting the kids to sort three ways is always tough, and this year is no exception- particularly since my group this year seems lower than usual.  We have been singing the Sorting Song from the Musical Math CD/DVD, and that certainly helps them to know that they need to sort by color, shape, and size, but the problem is that this year, they are simply sorting incorrectly.  So when they sort by shape, they are wanting to take the attribute blocks and sort them by both color AND shape, putting the red triangles in a pile, the yellow triangles in a pile, and the blue ones in a pile.  Then they put the red squares in a pile, the blue ones in a pile, and the yellow squares in a pile, etc.  So the basic problem is that we are having trouble focusing on just one attribute at a time. 
To help the children get past this and focus on just one attribute, I decided to try giving the children something I decided to call “Training Baskets.”  I got some black baskets for sorting by shape, some white baskets for sorting by size, and some colored baskets for sorting by color.  Then I put some signs on them that said something like, “What size?  Big or little?” etc.  I decided that we would tell the children that the shapes would have to go into one of these baskets; they could not go into any extra baskets, so they could not create any “extra” categories at all.  So all of the triangle shapes, no matter what color or size, would have to go into the triangle basket, etc.  We’ll see if this helps them focus on just one of the attributes.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed!  Hopefully it will, and then we can take away the baskets and let them try it without those "training wheels!"  If anyone has any other suggestions for helping children with this, please let me know!  I already sent home shapes with instructions for parents to practice at home, and am planning on sending home a mini progress report on this next week.

5.  Read Aloud Chart for October
We are not quite ready to add the Read Aloud Charts for sale to the web site, because we are preparing an entirely new and updated HeidiSongs website, which will be released in about a month!  This new website should have plenty of "spots" for more items, such as the Read Aloud Charts.  So for now, while we wait, I am going to give you the October Read Aloud Chart as another free download.  Enjoy!

Five Weeks Down: Tricks for Learning the Alphabet

Even though California now has state standards for preschool, I guess it is safe to say that it really doesn’t matter what they are if the parents just don’t send their children to preschool!  Children in California are supposed to start off Kindergarten only needing a short review of the alphabet and letter sounds, and then it’s on to the big adventure of learning to read!  But preschool is not compulsory, and times are hard.  Most parents are NOT sending their children to preschool, (though I think most would have liked to,) and now I feel like I’ve spent the last five weeks practically standing on my head, trying to get these kids to learn their letters and sounds!  And YES- most of them were technically BEHIND on DAY ONE of kindergarten, which is actually pretty depressing, when you think about it.  The pressure is on, because if I do not get them caught up quickly, then they will likely spend the rest of their school career getting farther and farther behind from this point on.  Even more depressing is the knowledge that, as much as I love these little guys, the majority of them are much lower than I am used to normally getting. (Insert heavy sigh here.)
With this in mind, here are a few things that I have been working on to help solve this problem.  Most of this has been on my “Plan of Attack” for many years now!  Hopefully they will be usable ideas that will be relevant to you!
In any case, we are doing pretty well so far!  Our class average for letter sounds on entry was 9 letter sounds per child.  Now, after five weeks, our class average is 24 out of 26 letter sounds per child!  And I think that is pretty great!  The child with the least amount of sounds now has 17 of them.  Our class average on entry for letter names was 32 out of 52, and now it is 42.  The child with the least amount of letter names has 15 of them.

1.  Letter Sounds Club  (AKA:  A Little Motivation, Please!)
Last year, one of my talented colleague came up with the idea of making up a chart that the children could add their name to when they all learned their letter sounds.  It is very similar to the Number Club, in which the children get to add their names once they know all of their numbers 0-30.  I also sent home a note about it in hopes that the parents would want to help their children get their names up on the board.  I designed it to look like an awards ribbon, and I really like the way it came out!  I am including it today for you as a free download, too!  And in case you were wondering, my priority is this:  first I concentrate on the letter sounds, then the lower case letter names, and finally the capitals.  Why?   Because once they know the letter sounds, they can begin to learn to read.  Also, they will see the lower case letters much more often than the capitals, so these will be more important for them to learn first.  Once they know the lower case letters, the capitals will follow, especially since many of them are look-alike letters anyway.  :)
 
2.  Progress Report  (AKA:  A Little Help from Home, Please!)
I sent home a progress report at the end of last week to let parents know how their children were doing.  (Yes, I do realize that it was only the end of the fourth week of school!)  But I figure that if I am going to get them to help their children master the alphabet by the end of the first trimester, I will have to start lighting that fire ASAP, because it is not going to be an easy task for some.  I am attaching this progress report for you as a free download, just in case you would like to do the same!  I know that some parents may not do anything with the information, but at least half of them will take the information to heart and try a little harder to help their children.  And anything that the parents do is one less thing that I have to do myself, that’s for sure!  Even if it just helps a little bit, it’s worth a try.  I will also send home a fresh set of alphabet flash cards with some of them to practice with.

3.  Extra Parent Conferences for Those That Are REALLY Struggling  (AKA:  Empower Those at Home to HELP!)
I held an extra parent conference last week with one child’s parents who were really concerned about her slow progress in learning the letter names.  At this conference, I showed the parents how I would work with the child at home, if she were my own.  I sat with them and showed them three or four different ways to practice the alphabet with their child, and also gave them a Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds DVD.  So basically, I sat and modeled how to teach their child the letters.  Last week, the little girl knew just four or five lower case letters, but today during after school tutoring, she identified SEVENTEEN lower case letters!!!!  So I think this must have really paid off!  Even I was amazed at the change in her ability to identify the letters!  Wow!

RAN Board

4.  Individualized RAN Boards for My Tutoring Group  (Break Down the Task Into Manageable Chunks)
For my after school tutoring group, I made an individualized Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN) Board for each child to work on.  If you are unfamiliar with these RAN boards, they are charts that can be used to practice any items that need to be memorized, such as letters, shapes, numbers, or words.  The basic idea is that you need to limit the number of items on the board to just few, and repeat them over and over.  Then the child practices reading the entire chart as fast as he or she possibly can.  It is really the equivalent of giving the child a stack of flash cards, but with the same words or letters written several times on lots of different flash cards for lots of practice.  So during my tutoring group, I had these children each try to find all of a certain letter on their RAN boards and color them all the same color.  For example, find all of the lower case a’s and color them all red.  Then find all of the lower case c’s and color them yellow.  I am including one of these RAN boards for you here as a free download in Word format, so that you should be able to edit it yourself.
Meanwhile, once I got all of the children in the group started, I stopped ONE of them and asked that child to practice saying the letters on his or her RAN board with me.  When that child finished, I went on to the next child and did the same thing, and so on.  It’s a method that has worked for me fairly well, year after year.  I also send a copy of these RAN boards home with each child so that they can work on them at home, and I update them regularly as well.



5.  Tricks for Learning the Alphabet Names  (Try Some Mnemonics On For Size!)
Once I have the children in small groups, I try to show the children the relationship that many of the letter sounds have to the letter names.  For example, the sound of the M and its letter name have a definite connection, so these letters will be easier for them to learn.  The “Sounds to Letters” song on the Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds CD/DVD is also useful for establishing this connection.

But over the years, I have developed a few tricks to help the children remember some of the letter names that have no connection to the letter sound, such as the letter Y.  Below I have listed the ones that I know of.  If you know of any others that work well for you, I would LOVE to hear about them!  Please leave a comment on this blog and tell us!  I am confident that if we all put our heads together, we can come up with a MUCH better curriculum than anything our district can hand us, so let’s go for it!

1.  Y:  For this letter, I tell them to throw their hands up in the air and make a letter Y with their bodies.  Then they should say, “WHY can’t I remember????”  This always makes them laugh, and they usually remember it from that point on.
2.  G:   For the lower case G, I have them trace it in the air, but when they get to the “tail” of the G, they turn it into a “pirate-like” motion, and say, “GEE, I wish I could remember!” 
3.  For the H, I have them make the H sound and start running, just like they do at the beginning of my H song.  Once they start singing the song, the lyrics of the song itself will lead them to the letter name. 
4.  Q:  The beginning of the Q song has the children making cuckoo clock motions, which the kids seem to remember, but I tell them to say “Q, Q!”  instead of “cuckoo!” (with my head popping forward and back, of COURSE!)  They think that is hilarious, too, and anything that tickles a kids’ funny bones is more likely to help them remember something, at least according to research. 
5.  C:  I have them make a sign language C, which is also in my C song on the DVD.  So the children start singing the C song, which includes sign language for the letter C, and then a second or two later they have already said the letter name, just like magic!  “To make a letter C, C, C, it’s half a circle, C, C, C....”
6.  I:  We start singing the beginning of the I song, and that’s it!  “/i/, /i/, I!  /i/, /i/, I!”
7.  J:  The children usually really like the J song, so when I show it to them, I have them shout out the end of the song, which ends just like “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” but it goes “J, J, J, J, J, J, J, J!”  They raise their hands up in the air and bring them down to the ground as they do it, so it makes it fun.
8.  U:  I draw a couple of eyes on top of it and say, “Its YOU!”  And then we sing a snippet from the U song:  “It’s a smiley, smiley, letter U!”
9.  W:  I have them draw a W in the air and start to sing the W song, which goes with the motion of drawing the W.  “It’s a W, a W!  Everybody make a W!”

6.  Home Made Zoo Phonics “Transitional” Flash Cards
I own the Zoo-Phonics font, and I LOVE this because it allows me to make my own flash cards!  One thing that their company does not offer (at least not that I know of,) is something that I like to refer to as “Transitional” flash cards.  To make these, I print out the Zoo-Phonics card and glue it on one side of the card, and then I print out an ordinary matching letter and glue it on the back of that card.  Then I laminate the cards, trim off the excess lamination, and voila!  I have a set of “Transitional” Zoo-Phonics Flash Cards. 
These cards are very important to me in helping the children learn the names of the letters, because once they know the letter sounds, (which are fairly easy to learn with the use of their cards and my Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds CD/DVD,) I can help them transition over to the letter names with the use of these cards.  I can also train them to tell me the sounds of the letters WITHOUT looking at the Zoo-Phonics card by using these cards.  This is what I do; it’s actually pretty sneaky, I think, because the children don’t even seem to notice the change!

One day when I’m about to drill the children with the Zoo-Phonics cards, I just flip them around to the back and simply start using the other side and ask them to respond the same way.  Usually, I don’t even have to ask!  Somebody will start going “/a/, /a/, /a/!” and making alligator chopping motions, for example when they see the letter A.  If the kids are stumped, I flip the card to back for a quick peek at the Zoo-Phonics card, and then quickly flip it back again to the regular letter.  That way, when they are making the motion, they are looking at the regular flash cards, NOT the Zoo-Phonics card!  This “imprints” the sound on their minds, and most children make the transition away from the ZP cards onto plain letter cards very quickly.

Once most of us have that part down, I add a third element to the drill (and by the way, this is all usually done in a whole group situation.)  Each time I show a card, I say, “Sound?”  Then they make the sound.  Then I say “Letter name?”  Then they say the letter name.  Given that this is a whole group activity, the more advanced children tend to pull the struggling learners along, and that really helps!  They hear their peers responding, and do the same.  I watch the entire group, and NOBODY is allowed to just stand there and so or say nothing.  They MUST all try, even if they are only repeating what they hear after somebody else says it first, AND I must see their bodies moving with the motions.  This full body response is vitally important to the learning process for young children.  Insisting that everyone participate may seem a bit “over the top” to some, but I am convinced that this is the key to learning, so I continue to demand it each year.  Once the children understand that I don’t take “no” for an answer, I do get full cooperation, and learning usually follows.  (By the way, this is the exact same process I use for teaching the names of the numerals, but I use the Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes flash cards and songs, and it works like a charm!)

Four Weeks Down: What's Working?

Wiggles Paper Bag Puppets!

After four weeks of half day Kindergarten, I am definitely ready to move into our extended day schedule!  On Monday, the children will begin staying from 8:15 until 1:20.  (Up until this point, they have been dismissed at 11:35.)  We will continue on this schedule until the end of the second trimester, at which point they will go home at 2:15.
I think that all of the children will be happy to have a little bit more playtime than they have had in the morning, and time for more stories and more lessons, too!  It will be nice NOT to have to rush, rush, rush through EVERYTHING!  The only thing is that I will need to keep a small group of children for after school tutoring three days a week.  These children will stay until 2:15. 
This schedule is really nice, and all of the Kindergarten classes in our whole district are on it.  It was negotiated for us after a few of us piloted the first full day Kindergarten program in our district about ten years ago.  During the after school tutoring time, we are allowed to either work with students in another grade, work with parents, or work with our own students.  Most of us are working with four or five students, but we are allowed to work with as few as ONE child, if we believe that this is the best way to make progress with him or her!  We generally avoid keeping children who are discipline problems for tutoring because they tend to prevent the other children from learning, so if those children need interventions, we need to try to pull them for help somehow during the day.  Sometimes volunteers can help with this.

So what have we been doing?  We made our Wiggles Puppet, as you can see in the picture at the top!  It was great fun and a wonderful way to finish up our unit on learning the school rules.  We also have been making the Shape Song Book from Little Songs for Language Arts.  It’s one of those "Singable Books" that you can download here (keep scrolling down until you see it.)  This year, I ran off each page on different colors to make it easier for the children to find the correct page to work on.  That has really worked like a charm!  So that way, I just tell them to look for the purple page, or the pink page today, etc.  We have done two books this way, and there has been only one time where a child glued the project down on the wrong page, and that is definitely a record!


AND, by the way, those glue bottles that I “lubed up” in August have been working GREAT!  Not a single one has clogged, so I declare myself the winner in the war on glue bottles- at least so far!  Read this blog post for more info on how I "Declared War on Glue Bottles!"

1.  Working on Rhyming Words
We have been playing the Rhyming Words Bingo Game this week to help the children learn their rhyming words.  Click here to find it and scroll to the fourth game down on the list.)  The thing that I like the most about this game is that we can practice our rhyming words off of the large cards first, and play the game using those same cards as the calling cards.  I have the children try to call out as many different words that rhyme with the given word as possible before revealing the “answer” on the card.  I always remind them that there are MANY correct answers to the question!   I am really hoping that they are NOT just memorizing the rhyming pairs; we’ll have to wait and see.  I am sure that some of them are simply memorizing, but hopefully they will eventually understand what it is they are doing.  And hopefully, this will happen BEFORE they leave Kindergarten! 
I created a little worksheet on rhyming words to go along with their homework next week, and I am including it here as a free download this week!  At my school, the children have to be able to come up with their own word that rhymes with a given word.  So in this worksheet, I have them circling the word that rhymes with a given word, and then drawing a picture of another one.  I also left a space for the parent to “translate” what it is by writing the word underneath the child’s picture.  I thought that in this way, it wouldn’t matter if the child really couldn’t draw at all.  The child could make an attempt and then the parent could label the picture. 

Blue Group Hand Stamps

2.  Hand Stamps for Managing Groups?
Many years ago, I came up with the idea of stamping the children’s hands to help them remember the color groups that they are in, and I have done it each year!  I like this MUCH better than putting their name tags with color dots back on them- name tags drive us all crazy!  All we do is leave the stamp pads and rubber stamps at the tables where each group begins.  As soon as our group rotation starts, I have my aide and volunteers all stamp the children’s hands in their group.  The red group gets a red apple, the blue group gets a blue balloon, the green group gets a green frog, and the yellow group gets a yellow sun.   (I will confess to pressing the sun stamp into the black stamp pad maybe once a week, just to make sure that yellow shows up.  This makes my yellow stamp a bit dingy, but I don't care.)  When a child gets separated from his or her group and winds up in the “wrong spot,” all we have to do is check for the color stamp on his or her hand.  This will instantly tell us where the child belongs, and that helps a lot!  (By the way, I saw colored stamp pads recently in the Target dollar section!)
For some reason, the children can’t seem to answer when asked what color group they are in, but they can (almost!) always tell you what color stamp they have on their hand!  They can even tell us what color stamp was on their hand YESTERDAY!  (I change their groups around a LOT based on how they are doing!)


3.  Counting Plates (AKA "Number Tubbing" From Math Their Way)

Okay, everybody!  File this one under “Incredibly Simple, Cheap, and Easy Ideas That Work!”  Many years ago when I first started teaching, I was sent to a Math Their Way workshop where I learned that children needed to develop the concept of “one-ness,” “three-ness,” and “five-ness,” etc.  The suggested activity to help develop these number concepts was called “Number Tubbing,” as I recall! In this activity, the children were supposed to be working on making groups of numbers until they began to count them out correctly.  Once a child has mastered making groups of three, for example, he or she could begin working on sets of four. 

Well, not too many years ago, I remember a very sweet, rather immature student with a very late November birthday in my Kindergarten class.  He was having a very difficult time developing one to one correspondence, and for him, counting out any quantities past two was quite difficult.  In desperation, I one day grabbed a magic marker and wrote a number three on lots of plates.  I told him to try to put three cubes on each plate and call me when he thought he had it.  That allowed me to walk away from him while he was working, and he knew exactly how many groups of three he had to make.  This worked out better than asking him to fill the table with sets of three, which had proved overwhelming.  It also reinforced the numeral, so I killed two birds with one stone!  When I came back to check on him, we counted the cubes together and found several mistakes.  We dumped the cubes off of those plates and had him try again until he had all of the plates done correctly.
 Since then, I have used this activity every single year, and I have done it with EVERYONE rather than just a few children!  In fact, we have done it at least once a week since school started!  Counting out the correct amount of objects can be amazingly difficult at the beginning of the year!  I have learned to change the counters, too, so that sometimes we are using pom-poms, plastic spiders, farm animals, etc.  I also like to combine fine motor skills with math by having them count out the objects with tweezers or tongs, etc.

Three Weeks Down, and I LOVE My Class!

Well, it's official!  I've already fallen in love with my little cherubs!  They really are a sweet group of children, and they have been really quite easy to train into the routine of things!  They do have their moments when they are noisy, etc., but they can be brought back "down" easily enough.  And though about 12 of them came with really no knowledge of the alphabet at all, I am pleased with the progress that they are making.  Of my 24 students, about seven of them came in knowing most or nearly all of the letters, and sounds, and the rest knew about half of the letters.  The group on the whole, though, is able to sustain attention long enough to practice the alphabet and rhyming words, etc., so I do think that we will be able to get somewhere!  I will keep you posted on my progress towards the goal of getting everyone to know the entire alphabet by the beginning of November.  This may be a real trick, because remember:  the cut-off date for starting Kindergarten in CA is December second, so about 25% of my students are still four years old.  Stand by....

1.  How I Introduced the iPad in my Classroom, and a Great iPad App:  Picture Dot to Dot
Last summer, I got an iPad for my birthday, and one of the things I wanted to do with it was learn how to use it in my classroom.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to go about introducing the it to my students, because I had never done so before.  But one day last week, I just stuck the iPad in my school bag and brought it along.  I have been exploring apps throughout the summer for a technology presentation that I have been preparing, so the tablet was all loaded up and ready to go. 

This is how I introduced the ipad.  I had given my students a paper to do that was their writing assessment for the beginning of the year.  They were supposed to write a story about themselves and draw a picture.  Now, anyone that has ever taught Kindergarten before knows that at the beginning of the year, this isn’t going to happen, at least not in a Title One public school in southern California.  Naturally, there was a fair amount of whining and complaining about the assignment.  I told them that if they didn’t know how to write a story about themselves, they could write a sentence, such as “I am a girl,” which I demonstrated.  But other than that, they could write their name, or copy some letters that they might find around the room, or write their name, or write any letters at all that they knew, and draw a picture.  We did this at my table during our small group rotation, and there was still a lot of stalling going on!  But one of the children in my first group finished quickly, so at the spur of the moment, I decided to get out my iPad to keep that child busy while the rest of the children tried to work.  Voilá!  OF COURSE, everyone at the writing table wanted to do it, too, but I told them they had to finish their paper first.  They all immediately got to work.  As soon as they finished, I let each of them take a turn with this new app I found the other day called “Picture Dot to Dot.”   My kids LOVED it, and it only cost $1.99.

The thing I like about this app is that you can control the settings to tell it how many numbers should be included in the connect the dots activity.  I chose to include the numbers 1-10, but you can set the app to include the numbers up to 50.  All they have to do is take their finger and drag it from numeral to numeral in order from 1-10.  You can also set it to use letters instead of numbers, and then choose lower case or upper case,and include only certain letters, such as from A-E only.  Likewise, you can select it to use only odd numbers, or evens, etc.  A line is drawn as their finger drags.  However, the next numeral doesn’t highlight unless the child hits it the correct sequence.  Therefore, if the child draws a line from five to seven, the line will be drawn, but the number will not highlight.  So I had to coach the children that they did not get it right unless the number changes color.  The key is that they must first TOUCH the previous number, and then drag to touch the next number in sequence.  If they lift their finger up from the tablet before touching the next number, it will not highlight.  Once they understand this, then they are off and running.  Many of the children understood it instantly and got it right away; others needed me to hold their finger down and drag it along for them to get them to understand.  The neat thing about this app is that as soon as the child completes the sequence, the outline of the picture changes into a real photo of a real animal.  The kids were squealing with delight!  I would say, “Look, what did you get????”  And then there were happy shouts of things like, “It’s a rhino!!!” etc.  All in all, it was such an easy way to get the children motivated to complete their required assessment, and I’m so glad I thought to give it a try!  If you would like to see a short video of the children trying this app out, check out my HeidiSongs Facebook page.

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When we were done, I gave a volunteer, a check off sheet with the children’s names on them and had her begin to pull the children one at a time for a turn with it.  We’ll have to keep working through that list to give everyone a turn, but I have plenty of volunteers this year, so that shouldn’t be a problem.  Once they all know how to use this app, I should be able to let them use the iPad as an independent center.  However, I expect to also need to teach them how to handle and take care of it, and not click out of it, etc. 


2.  Using the Wiggles Book to Practice the Word “The”

People often ask me if I wait to introduce the sight words until the children all know the alphabet, and my answer is always a resounding "NO!"  I NEVER WAIT to teach the sight words until they have all learned the letters; if I did that, we would be waiting until November to even begin teaching them a single word!  I always teach the words and letters in conjunction.  I find that some children will learn the letters in the word "the," for example, more quickly just by being exposed to the song and the word!  So this is yet another opportunity for the children to learn the letters in a new way, and the word, too, at the same time.
This week, we learned the word “the” and it’s spelling song from Sing and Spell Vol. 1.  So in order to practice their new word, I decided to have them look for and highlight the word “the” in their Wiggles books!  They loved the activity, and they also got a chance to read and color their little kid-sized Wiggles books.  We’ll be finishing up with the coloring tomorrow, which is good because the children are very anxious to take their books home!

3.  Making Sub Plans Easily
People ask me sometimes how I manage to be out of my classroom so often at conferences.  First of all, I have an arrangement worked out with my district that is satisfactory to both of us.  They are extremely supportive of my accomplishments, and I know that I am extremely lucky that they allow me to go speak at different conferences so often!  (If you would like to see a list of my upcoming conference speaking engagements, click here.) 
Second, I also have a retired teacher friend that has agreed to take my class just about every time I am out, which is wonderful!  I give her all of the dates that I will need her for the year in August, and she puts them on her calendar and saves them for me.  She also lets me know at that time if she is going to be out of town or not, so I can think about reserving my next choice of sub.  She has been in my room so many times that she knows my routine almost as well as I do, and can pretty much look around the room and just “know” what I had planned to do that day!  She also will almost always arrange to come and see me the afternoon before I leave so that I can describe for her what we are working on in person what we are going to do.  This means that I don’t have to write it all down, saving me HOURS of work!  How much more blessed can I possibly be????
BUT... there are times when she cannot come, and for those times, I have created what I like to call my “Generic Lesson Plans.”  Basically, this is a silly name for a skeleton sub plan that has just about everything written out for the day in long hand, except for the specifics, such as the exact activity we are going to do at each table, and what books we are going to read, and what the science lesson might be, etc.  I keep a bunch of copies of this document in my file cabinet, so that any time I need to write out sub plans, I have them.  (At my school, we are also required to turn in these plans to the office each year in a sub folder with a seating chart and a discipline plan.)  Just so you can know what my sub plans look like, I am including them as a free download here for you, and I am giving them to you as a Microsoft Word document, so that if you want to use any of it, you can just type over it and change it.  Since every classroom is different, this may not be useful to many, but who knows?  It also shows my daily routine in EXCRUCIATING detail, so if you are interested in that, you may want to read through it.  You’ll either enjoy it, or it will put you to sleep.  :)


4.  We Love the “Summer” Song!
One thing that I always do is ask the children what season it is when we update the calendar each morning.  And we have also been singing the “Summer” song from Little Songs for Language Arts when we get to that point, as well!   I designed the seasons songs so help children come up with a couple of things that happen during each season of the year, and in my experience, the songs really accomplish this.  This particular group of children just LOVES this song!  Watch the video and see!  My favorite part is the three year old little sister in the group that was doing everything her very smart big brother was doing in the video.  (She was visiting that day when her mom was volunteering.)    See if you can pick her out of the group! She’s adorable, and her big brother is a pretty great kid, too!
Enjoy!

Have a wonderful weekend!
Heidi

Two Weeks Down! What’s Working? What’s New?

My class is now off and running, and we are now in the routine of small group centers.  It was a fairly smooth transition, thankfully!  You may have noticed that I posted a mid-week piece on Sight Word String-Ups, and that’s because I wanted to get the word out early in the week about a good idea for using those pencil boxes that were on sale this week for one cent at Office Depot.  (They usually sell out of them quickly around here, and I didn’t want anybody to miss out that might be interested!)  So if you are interested in reading up about Sight Word String-Ups, scroll down this page a bit and you will see my last post about that.  Meanwhile, this is what we are working on, and here are some things that are working well this week.  I hope that some of these ideas are useful to you.  I am also especially glad that the parents in my class have already given permission for me to use all of their beautiful children’s pictures in my blog, etc.  Hooray!  It’s no fun without them, so enjoy!
 

1.  Ring the Bell
This week, we played Ring the Bell at one of our math centers with my aide.  You can find this game here; just scroll down to the third item on the page.  This is a really fun game that plays like the traditional “Bang!” game, but also has some extra fun activity cards in it, including a card in which you ring a bell and get everyone’s cards at the table.  It is designed to help the children practice letters and numbers.  I use a Staple’s “Easy” button for that one, and of course the children love to push it!  I think I’m going to have to get an extra button, though, since that is also our homework bell, and I don’t want them to get tired of pushing it.

2.  Unifix Cubes Patterning Cards
We have been making lots of patterns this week with anything we have around, but especially with Unifix cubes.  One thing that I always use is pattern cards with Unifix cubes on them.  They have patterns started, and then the children’s job is to continue the pattern.  I have no idea where I got the original cards that I have; I only know that they are home made.  This week, however, my aide pointed out that we really did not have enough of these cards and that I should make a few more.  So I thought that I would make some and share them with you here today as a free download!  That’s always a good thing, right?  To use them, just laminate them or cover them with clear Contact paper.  Give them to the children and show them how to cover the picture cubes up with real cubes and continue the pattern as long as they can.  When they are finished, they should try to identify the pattern.  Then they should take it apart and try another one.  That’s it!

 
3.  Wiggles (is still) Learning the Rules at School!
Wiggles continues to fascinate all!  The children are still LOVING that Wiggles story, and still want to hear it every day.  Who ever heard of children begging to be reminded of the rules?  It’s kind of funny when you think about it!  The only problem is that we really don’t have time to read it every single day!  But that doesn’t stop us from trying!  I shudder to think what will happen when the children figure out that I am only getting the story and puppet out when they are especially naughty.  Do you think they will be clever enough to be really naughty on purpose, just to make me get Wiggles out again?  Hmmmmm......  :)
Next week I am going to teach them the word “the” with the song from Sing and Spell Vol. One, and then on Thursday we are going to look for and highlight that word in their own little Wiggles books that they will get to take home.  I think that I will have them just do the highlighting on Thursday and then save the book to finish coloring on Friday.

The Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds DVD

4.  Music, Music, Music- for Classroom Management AND for Learning!
We have been learning the Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes songs, and so far we have learned 0-10, the Counting to 100 song, and the Circle Song and the Triangle Song, and have practiced with the cards that go with it every single day.  The kids are getting better and better at them!  We are drilling on the Zoo-Phonics cards, too, of course.  We are also working on the alphabet songs from Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds, and have learned A-H so far.  Check out the little video that I took of my new class singing the H song; it's so cute!  It's a little video clip of my students singing along to the Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds DVD, which was being projected on my wall.  And if you watch past the end of the song, you will see one of the children spontaneously decide to form a lower case h on the floor with his body.   He said, "Look, Mrs. Butkus!  I made an h!"  And the next thing I knew, several of the other children had all made h's with their bodies as well!  It was the perfect learning moment (not to mention really cute!) and I was so pleased to have captured the moment on tape. 
And, we are working on the Color Word songs also from Sing and Spell Vol. 2, and so far have learned Red, Yellow, Green, Orange, and Blue.  It’s always harder to find the time to introduce a song than to simply practice the song, but once we have got it down, we’ve got it DOWN!  We have also managed to sing the Summer season song from Little Songs for Language Arts after we say the date each day during our calendar time.

I’ve been using the “Sh” song from the Sounds Fun CD acappella (with no music CD to back me up) any time that I’ve been having trouble getting the children’s attention as a group.  For example, if a bunch of children are talking and I can’t seem to get them to settle down, stop, and listen to me, I begin singing:

S and H!  S and H!
Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh!
Quiet please, quiet please!
Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh!

AND... it seems to be working!  This group of children really responds to little chants that they can join into and say along with me.  So the more I sing it, the more children join in.  I get quieter and quieter while I am singing and the children do, too.  When I finish, I have everyone’s attention.  Easy, right?
It goes along very well with the little chant I blogged about last year:

Criss cross applesauce,
clap, clap, clap!
Eyes on the teacher,
Hands in your lap!

Again, we keep repeating it more and more quietly until I have everyone’s attention and they are sitting nicely.  It works!

5.  Pete the Cat
We have been reading Pete the Cat and the children have just been LOVING that book and the music, too!  It is WAY too much fun!  My friend Krissy Miner traded me a product for a product and gave me a copy of her super cute Pete the Cat packet.  I love the guided drawing section, and I can’t wait to try it!  (You know how I LOVE guided drawing, and Krissy even recently added all of the step by step directions so that teachers will know just how to describe each step for their students, just the way I do.  The packet also has a neat story re-telling component that I think will be great, and some pages that will also help the children practice their color words, too!  Fun!