A Neat Centers Activity

3 Fun Light Table Projects for Kids

This would make a wonderful centers activity!

Link here.

Spell-a-Word Game

Here's a game you can make using sets of those Dollar Store magnetic letters!

Make a set of index cards with 3-letter words such as CAT, DOG, RUN, HOP, GET, etc.

1. Children pick one card to "fill".

2. Children toss a penny. Heads = get a letter, Tails = lose a letter.

3. When a child gets a Head, they pick a matching letter from the bucket to put on their card. If they get Tails, they have to put a letter back.
4. First child to fill up their card Wins!

Later on, switch the group of cards they can choose from to 4-letter words, then on to 5-letter words near the end of the year when their reading skills have improved!

Fivesies, a Quick and Easy Math Game

This is a fast-paced game that reinforces counting and instant recognition of numbers up to 6. More than that, it's a ton of fun. Plus, if you're needing a filler for your centers, or a way to pass the time when the weather is too bad to go outside, this fits the bill.

It's called "Fivesies", and you can play it in four different ways.
Also, it's important that each student needs their own set of 5 dice.

Basically, to begin, each child rolls all five dice at once (or dump from a cup). They look to see what number repeated. Ex: if they have 3 threes. Then that's the number they aim for. Their goal is to be the first person to end up with 5 of the same number. Or in this case, 5 threes.

The first child rolls, puts aside those repeated dice, and the next child rolls. When it's Child #1's turn again, he rolls only the dice that didn't turn up the repeated number. So if he got 3 threes the first time around, he only rolls the 2 dice that weren't a three. If he gets another three, he puts that die aside, and next time he rolls the single leftover die.

Each child gets one roll per turn. The winner is the student who is first to get all their dice with the same number.

Variation #2
Give them a specific number to aim for. Ex: the number six. Again, each child rolls their dice, saving the ones that show a six and re-rolling the dice that didn't. Winner is the first one to get 5 sixes.

Variation #3
Play 1-6. In other words, they have to end up with their dice in numeric order, showing the numbers one through six to win.

Variation #4
This is a quickie game. Each child gets One Roll of the dice. The winner is the student with the most repeated number. In case of a tie, just those students re-roll their dice to determine the winner.

Bowling For Words

This is a representation of a bowling game I created for one of my centers. I call it BOWLING FOR WORDS. I used the following letters for the ten pins: A, E, R, M, C, P, N, D, B, T

* Each student in the group gets a piece of paper and writes their name on it.
* They get to roll the ball two times.
* Using the pins they knock down, they try to write down all the words they can make using the letters on the knocked-down pins.
* When everyone has had a turn, the person with the most words wins!

For a variation, they can work in teams (ex: 2 teams of 2 students in each).

Dollar Store Finds and Ideas, Part 2

Today I'm showing you the rest of what I discovered during my recent jaunt to the dollar stores.

I saw these growing crystals. Although I've never used them before, for a dollar, I thought they would make a great experiment for the kids to observe. I found these over in the toy section.

Of course, any sort of puzzle/matching game that reinforces basic knowledge is worth buying. I'll put these in separate plastic containers for the kids to use. The same goes for these puzzle sequencing games (see below). Incidentally, I just got an idea for a game using the sequencing cards. I'll post it on Friday.

And, finally, who doesn't need stickers? The googly eyes were a bonus, as we use boocoos of them during the school year for art projects!

Dollar Store Finds and Ideas, Part 1

Within a five-minute radius, there's a Dollar Tree, a Dollar General, and a Family Dollar store. Each one carries similar items, but not always the same merchandise. Every so often I go in one to pick up something, and when I do, I always peruse the store for things that catch my eye and ignite my imagination. (This also goes for those dollar bins at the grocery store and Target.)

This go-round, I came away with a bonanza, which I'll be sharing this week in three parts. Most of these items I already have, but through use and "borrowing", my supplies needed replenishing or replacing.

One can never have too many shapes puzzles to use in centers, or to put out during my Ten Minute Smarters. These are great ways for the kids to use Tangrams, work on their fine motor skills, and to recognize shapes.

Seashells can be utilized in many ways: as part of your science center, to have the kids separate into classifications, as markers on a game board, or simply to count. The possibilities are endless!

Marbles are terrific when it comes to marble painting (rolling it in Tempra, then letting it go all over a sheet of paper.) They're also neat to use in science experiments (let them roll down ramps, and see if the angle of the ramp makes a difference in speed.) Have racing games with them. Play "croquet" using a pencil for a club. Or go bowling.

The chips are also great, and these multi-colored ones offer a wider variety of utilization. They make terrific tokens or markers. Toss them into a paper cup. Count them, or show math sentences for sums (ex: 2 yellow + 3 green = 5, the same as 4 yellow + 1 green = 5). Divide into different color classifications.

More to come!

Egg Words

If you're like me, you have stashed away among your Easter stuff some empty plastic eggs. With the holiday coming up, I thought I'd use them to reinforce sight words by making a little game out of it. So I created EGG WORDS.

There's two ways to play it: Up to 4 people can play per game. Basically, one person opens and egg, and they all try to arrange it into one of their sight words. First person to identify the word gets it and the egg. When all the eggs have been checked, the student with the most eggs wins.

Second way to play it: First person picks an egg and tries to arrange the letters into a sight word. If they can't figure it out, they put the egg back, and the next person draws an egg. (Or they can choose the same egg the other person put back if they're pretty sure they know what the word is.) If they get the word right, next person draws. (They don't get to pick another egg. Only one egg per person per round.) Person who ends up with the most eggs wins.

Ten Minute Smarters, Con't.

Here are my 5 stations this week for Ten Minute Smarters, to give you an idea of what I do:

1^  These are my teacher guided readers. I introduce a reader they've never seen. We sound out and read through the whole book, then go back and re-read it with better clarity.

2^ This group is playing my Gingerbread Man game that I adapted off of an idea on Pinterest. They each have a playing form. They take turns rolling a die. They take the piece of gingerbread (brown tag) and place on top of the "puzzle". If they roll a number they've already used, they lose that turn. First person to cover up their form wins.

3^  This table is reading their actual readers (from our program). Since we've already been reading from these, they can self-guide by reading as a group, then reading one page or one sentence at a time Round Robin style.

4^  I like to mix math and Language Arts activities, since we do LA in the morning and math in the afternoon, and our Smarters "bridge" between the two.  This is another game I adapted from Pinterest. I made a die from a plain wooden block to match the shapes. The game is called "4 in a Row". They roll the die, then cover that shape on their mat (using the two-sided discs, although you can use whatever you have at hand.) First person to cover up 4 in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally wins.

5^  This is a star pattern from Pinterest. It calls for only 2 players, but I found a table of 5 could do it just as well. Each player gets their own marker. First player rolls the die and then colors that many spaces on the star. (The Pinterest game also has a heart form I'll use later in February.) The sheet goes around the table with each person getting turn to roll and color. Once I call time, the person with the most colored squares wins.

Tomorrow, I'll rotate the games so that each table gets a new one. By Friday, all tables will have done all five "Smarters".

Why Some Tools Work and Others Don't

I recently saw this math suggestion at another site, and my first reaction was, "COOL!". But then I realized this particular activity wasn't going to be worthwhile for my kids. Why?

First off, it has everything going for it. It has a seasonal touch. It emphasizes fine motor skills, plus one-to-one correspondence and counting. So what's wrong with it?

It has no verification. A child could put four buttons on that 7 snowman. And unless I'm able to catch his mistake, the child would learn nothing from doing this concept builder. And he would go happily on his way putting the wrong number of buttons on each snowman until he either tired of the game, or I rang the bell signaling an end to the session.

But there is a way to fix this!
1. Have the child work with a partner, preferably paired with an opposite. (Ex: strong with weak) That way the student with the stronger math skills can help correct errors as soon as they're made.

2. Have a fixed number of buttons. If there are, say, 5 snowmen to work with, and each snowman has a specified number of buttons to place on it, have that exact amount of total buttons in the bag. So if the child has to put 6 buttons on the last snowman, but there's only 3 left to use, he knows he miscounted somewhere and has to go back to find out where.

I'm very careful about using "open-ended" activities that don't provide a way to check/correct errors. If the students are supposed to get some good out of these cute centers, then there has to be some accountability to them.

Dog Toys - Yum!

See this table setting in our play house center?  Looks delicious, doesn't it?  That's because I stopped using that dinky, plastic play food you usually buy for children to use, and starting buying dog toys instead.

Yes, you read that right.  Dog toys.  Tough, durable, able-to-take-a-beating-from-a-mastiff-and-a-class-of-Kindergarteners dog toys.  Yeah, they may cost a bit more, but they last for YEARS.  Plus they're very realistic.  And more importantly they're non-toxic if the kids put them in their mouth (which we all know they will at some point.)

Hint:  Check out your dollar stores!

(The dog toys are as follows (from lower left and going clockwise: hamburger, hot dog - chicken quarter, bacon - hamburger, t-bone - hot dog - and of course the sundae in the middle.)