My Kindergarten Dictionary - October, 2012

jawberries












chicken pops

 

toes pin

Science Stunts

These were originally meant to entertain guests at parties, but they're just as much fun to watch (and do) in the classroom!

Letter A Activities

Our activities for the Letter A last week included:


* Sang "The ANTS Go Marching", then made ANTS with our fingerprints in paint. (Picture #1)

* Brought APPLES to class and graphed them by color. Then we placed them in order from smallest to largest.

* Cut open the APPLES to see the stars. Ate one half, then did APPLE STAMPING with the other half in paint.

* Had APPLE SAUCE and APPLE JUICE for snack one day (It was amazing how many of my students had never had this drink.)

* Took pictures of ALLIGATORS and put them in AB sequencing order on a sentence strip. (Picture #2)

* Made APPLE MOSAICS with red (or green or yellow) construction paper by tearing and gluing finger-sized pieces to the picture. (Picture #3)

* Opened a box of ANIMAL CRACKERS and tried to identify the animals.

* A lot of my students have names that begin with A, so they got to wear a yarn necklace with their names written on a card, and the A emphasized in glitter glue.

* Jumped on and sounded out the letter A on the floor every time we entered the room.

Graphics From the Pond - Terrific Teacher Resource!

Put this in your favorites! This site has clipart and fonts - tons of free stuff that any teacher can use to create games and worksheets! I've already added this site to my list on the left of the blog.

Recycling Old Tires

I found these pics of what people had done with old automobile tires, to benefit children's and school playground, and I just had to share! They're ingenious!

 

Letter S Activities

1. Glued STICKS on the letter S.

2. Formed STICKS into other letters of the alphabet. (See picture.)

2. Painted a picture of the SUN with SOUP (tomato soup, to be exact!)
*Note: 1 can will suffice for approx. 10 students.

3. Collected items and labeled them as SOFT or hard.

4. Cleaned our desks with SOAP (aka SHAVING cream).

5. Compared rocks to STONES.

6. Using alphabet STAMPS, spelled out our names.

7. Had STRAW races (using straws to blow a pom pom down a "race track" on a table).

8. Wrote our letters, numbers, and names in SAND. (I put colored sand in some old pencil boxes.)

9. And on Friday, SLID around the room in our SOCKS, just for the fun of it!

"Let's Sing Hurray Today!" - A Cute and Short Alphabet Literacy Song

You can use this with every letter of the alphabet! Just change out the object words!

(Note: I'm not the author of this little ditty. It was shared by another teacher at a recent workshop.)

Let's Sing Hurray Today!

(Tune of “Farmer in the Dell”)

Let’s sing hurray for A,
Let’s sing hurray for A,
Let’s sing hurray for A today
Let’s sing hurray for A.
An apple starts with A,
Ants starts with A,
Let’s sing hurray for A today,
Let’s sing hurray for A.

Let’s sing hurray for B,
Let’s sing hurray for B,
Let’s sing hurray for B today
Let’s sing hurray for B.
A bat starts with B,
And ball starts with B,
Let’s sing hurray for B today,
Let’s sing hurray for B.

Music And October

Click here for the Table of Contents, and a Freebie Halloween Song.

You can buy it here for just 99 cents via PayPal.

Or here through Teachers Pay Teachers.

Letter F Activities

I was asked recently if I did any activities to go with the alphabet when we learned/reviewed letter names and sounds. I'll begin sharing those, beginning with the letter F.

1. They mixed red and yellow paint to discover the color orange. Then they colored a FLOWER with a FORK.

2.  Trace handprints on construction paper and cut out to make FALL LEAVES to hang from the ceiling. (Blogged earlier.)

3. Draw pictures of our FAMILY to make a class book.

4. Discovered which FRUITS (including a pumpkin) "Sank or FLOATED".

5. Cut out pictures of FOOD from magazines to FILL our paper plates. Note they had to find 1 meat, 2 vegetables, and the fourth was their choice. (Plates were divided into fourths with a marker.)

6. Finished the week with FUN FUN FRIDAY - we brought our FLIP FLOPS to school to wear in the class.

Multiple Intelligences (In the Classroom) - A Field Guide by Marek Bennett

Jump Shout! Learning Our Letters

The group I have this year are a challenge. Most of them don't know their letter names, much less letter sounds, so I have to find ways to keep the letter front and center until they learn it. Constant repetition is the key, and so we do the Jump Shout!

I put duct tape on the floor in the shape of the letter. (This one is an F.) The letter is DIRECTLY INSIDE THE DOOR. To enter the room, they have to jump onto the letter and shout its name (or sound, depending on which one I tell them to say.) They love it! In fact, some sneak back into the line to do it again.

Considering we leave and re-enter the room an average of SIX times a day, that's a lot of repetition!

More One-to-One Correspondence - and a Freebie!

I gave each student a "checker board" that I'd created and run off on colored tag (then laminated). Each table got their own set of math manipulatives: buttons, pom-poms, colored blocks, unifix cubes, and bears. All they had to do was put one object on each square. At first, they used all the colors, so I made them clear their boards, and do it again, but using only one color. (These pictures are from when they had done the activity a second time, using a single color.)

To extend the lesson, I ask them to put 2 items on each square. Then 3. I stop at 5 because the squares tend to get too crowded. For the blocks, I let them "build" a small tower on each square. (They love doing that.) The next time they do this lesson, I give each table a different set of manipulatives.

For your Freebie, I've uploaded a copy of the checker board, which you can download from here.