Peek at My Week 9-22, Names, and the Little Red Hen

I LOVE the season of fall! I get to teach some of my favorite units. I love teaching about seasons, the five senses, apples, and all that fun stuff! We've got a lot of that planned for this week. I'm linking up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for a Peek at my Week. 

Get a copy of my lesson plans here.

I finally got around to uploading some of my pictures and want to share with you some of the name activities that we have been working on!

I got a lot of my ideas/activities from Deanna Jump's Literacy and Math Fun with Names unit.

We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and made our own coconut trees. My kiddos got the letters in their name and got to hang them from the tree however they wanted! Then, we counted how many letters were in our names.

These little sweeties stayed pretty close to the box. I had some kiddos that put letters on the back of the paper!

We also used Deanna's cute poem Bippity Boppity Bumblebee to practice syllables. We did this before through our Star Student days earlier in the year, so my kids were pretty familiar with the concept. They loved the cute song and loved making the class book even more!

We also read Silly Sally! I always forget home much my kids love this book until I read it again :) We used the language from the book to create a class book (also from Deanna's unit). I modified it a little and added in a picture of my kiddos! They thought this was the coolest!

We also made rainbow names! I used this activity along with DeeDee Wills' Sticky Situation poem from her August and September Poetry Stations pack. My kiddos needed to practice the "just a dot" method and this was the perfect way to do it. I just happened to have a TON of tissue paper cut up so it worked out perfectly! Here is a finished product.

This was also our first week of our emergent storybook unit. I love starting with the Little Red Hen because it's always a favorite! 

We colored our own retelling pieces and practiced telling the story to each other. 

We also talked about how the little red hen was such a big helper. She helped so much in her house and no one else did. We talked about how we could be helpers, at home and at school. These are some of the ideas my kiddos came up with.

Sweep the floor.

Make the bed.

Stack the chairs.

They had so much fun with them and it was super easy to differentiate for my kiddos who are ready to stretch out sounds!

This week is apple fun and the Three Little Pigs! More fun to come for fall :)

Have a great week!

Names, Names, Names! with a Freebie

I don't know about you all, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching about names. There is no more authentic, engaging learning tool than each of your student's names!

We do name work for about the first month of school. My school does not teach "letters of the day" or "letters of the week," so letter work is integrated daily through learning from our names.

We start the year off with Star Students. Each student gets the "honor" for one day. This kiddo gets to do all the class jobs, be the line leader, and get a special sticker.

On this day, we also learn all about the kiddos name! I got a good part of our routine from this picture from Ketchen's Kindergarten and I made similar cards for my class. You can get those cards here.

The student is called up to stand in front of the class to help with their name work. We read a cute poem to start out Star Student called Everybody Has A Name.

**Say it: All students say the SS's name

**Cheer it: Spell SS's name in a cheer (Give me an S, give me an A...)

**Clap it: Clap the syllables in the SS's name (I often compare their name to previous SS)

**Count it: Count how many letters are in the SS's name

**Fix it: Write the kiddos name on a sentence strip, cut out each letter, and mix them up. My SS gets to choose friends to come up and fix their name. Then, we spell it together saying the letter names.

Then, the SS gets something very special. My kiddos watch me do a drawing of the star student. I talk about each body part as I add it. It is a great way to practice drawing people for writer's workshop later. Then, each of my kiddos go back and draw a picture of the SS. They all add their own little twists to it. We write the SS's name together on the paper to practice letter formation.

Then the SS gets to take home a book of all the pictures as a keepsake! Parents and kiddos love this!

After all of my kiddos get to be star student, they get to put their name up on the word wall. Can you believe I have 5 kids who have a name that starts with C?? 

We keep on trucking along by using tons of read-alouds to continue our name learning!

I'll update you more soon :)

Peek at My Week (9/15) and Reader's Workshop

Alleluia! I'm actually getting these plans on here on time this week! I'm linking up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten to share a Peek at My Week!

You can get a copy of my lesson plans here!

So this week, I thought I would share with you a little bit about my reader's workshop! During this time, I do my read-aloud, mini-lesson, me time and we time.

Read-Aloud

I generally do my read-aloud first. This time comes right after we come in from recess and my kiddos have gotten all their wiggles out and are ready to listen. My mini-lesson usually goes hand in hand with my read-aloud. 

For example, this week, we are reading The Little Red Hen! I don't always do a close read, some weeks we do a different read-aloud each day. I try not to allow my read-aloud to last longer than 10 minutes as to keep the kiddos engaged and paying attention.

Mini-Lesson

My mini lessons are used to teach reading procedures, skills, and strategies. The picture below includes anchor charts that my students helped me make for procedures during me time and we time. My mini-lessons are either integrated into my read-aloud or are an extra 5 minutes. I make them small and short so they are attainable for my kiddos!

Me Time

Me time is my students' independent reading time. Right now, this time is only 8 minutes long. By the end of the year, we build up to 20 minutes. During this time my students read alone from their book boxes.

Their book boxes include: an ABC tracing book, a song book, and 10 just right books. They keep these just right books for a week and then book shop on Mondays.

My kiddos have their own spot for me time. I find the more spread out they are, the better of a reader they are! I make it clear very early how important it is to focus on your reading.

We Time

We time is my students partner/group reading time. Right now, they sit at their tables with known books and read with each other. Sometimes kids read alone, with a partner, or the whole table will join in. This time is about 10 minutes.

This is a picture of two of my little sweeties reading the Itsy Bitsy Spider. They were adorable! 

During me time and we time, I confer individually with students, and pull one guided reading group. I find individual conferring much more effective in moving students forward than having all guided reading groups. I know that is not how everyone does it, but it works for me!

I also do shared reading and literacy stations, but this is done separate from reader's workshop. I'll show you our work during that time of the day another time!

Enjoy your week!

Peek at My Week (9/8)

Hey all! Happy Hump Day!

I had my lesson plans done on Sunday but have just not had the time to put them on here and link up! WHOOPS :)

I am linking up with Mrs. Will's Kindergarten for a Peek at my Week! Here are my lesson plans for this week.

Have a great rest of the week! 

Peek at My Week and Our Morning Routine

I don't know about you all, but after 4 weeks I FINALLY feel like I'm back in the swing of things. Obviously I'm not on time with my plans (2 days late...whoops!), but at least I have them haha!

I'm linking up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for a Peek at my Week!

Here are my lesson plans for this week. We didn't have school Monday and had a late start day Wednesday, so the kids are all kinds of crazy this week!

I am finishing up with our basic routines/procedural stuff this week and am excited to be diving into more detailed curriculum next week!!

I thought that I would share with you what we do for our morning routine each day in kindergarten!

My kiddos each have their own hook to hang their backpack on. We are also still lucky enough to have a short rest time in the afternoon, and the kiddos are allowed to bring a small blanket if they want to that they keep in a white bucket under their backpack (dollar store find!).

They also place their lunchboxes in our red bucket. Since I do not take my students to lunch, having all the lunchboxes in one place makes the transition way easier for my lunch helper!

Then, they show me their folder for notes/papers/money, and put it in their mailbox. 

Next, they make their lunch choice. This is a craft stick with the child's name on it. They place it in the appropriate cup (lunch from home or lunch at school). Then if they buy lunch, they take their stick with them that has their pin number on it! You can get these labels for free here!

Last, they usually have one piece of morning work to finish. This week, we are working on DeeDee Wills' Community Helpers Read, Trace, Glue, and Draw. I have ALL of her RTG&D packs and use them for morning work all year long!

This saves me from having to give directions everyday of what to do. It also helps my kiddos with their handwriting, cutting, gluing, and illustrations. It's also cute to see as the year goes on how they are able to start reading the sentences on their own!

I generally sit with one table each morning (if I can) and talk them through letter formation!

The kids work until they hear my morning song. It's super cute if you need a culturally responsive song :)

It's called Global Wonders and teaches the kiddos how to say hello and goodbye in a bunch of different languages. We practice different ones each day!

I'll be sharing about the other parts of our day in posts soon!

Enjoy the rest of your week!