The Name Game

I have to thank my colleague, Ms. Conyers, once again for sharing a great idea.

On Thursday we started The Name Game. This is how it works. One student is chosen to be the Name Game student of the day. I have their name written on a sentence strip and I read the student's name. Then we cheer each letter in the student's name by saying "Give me a _____!" and at the end "What does that spell?!" Then I cut up the letters and have that student come up and unscramble them.
After that, I model how to draw the student, talking about what color to use for the student's hair, eyes and clothing and what shapes we can use to help us draw the person. All the students go back to their desk and draw their own picture of the student of the day and label it with the student's name. When complete, I take all the pictures and staple them together with a cute cover page and the student of the day gets to take home the little booklet.

The pictures are coming out really cute already and I know they will just continue to get better!

A is for Apple

Since we were learning about the letter "Aa" this week, I thought it would be fun to do an apple tasting. We tried three different colored apples - red, yellow, and green. But, before we started, each child predicted which color apple they would like the best and we made a graph using a pocket chart. We counted how many of each color and talked about which color had the most and which the least. Most of the students predicted they would like green apples the best. Only two thought they would like yellow apples.
Then we sat at the tables and tried one piece of each apple at a time. We started with red and talked about how it tasted. We said that it tasted sweet, but also noticed that the skin tasted bitter. Then we tried the green apple. Many students were surprised at how sour the green apple tasted. Last, we tasted the yellow apple, which was a little sweeter than the red apple.
After we tasted, each student chose which color apple they enjoyed the most and wrote their name on a paper apple of the same color and we made another graph of the apples they liked the most. You can see a picture of the final apple graph below.
Turns out a lot of them did like yellow apples :)

Check out our Shutterfly Share site for pictures of the students during their taste testing!

Last Week's Centers

I thought I would share how we do centers in my classroom and some of the centers we worked on last week. Our centers are structured. Students are divided up and they spend a given amount of time (generally 15-20 minutes) at each center. We do centers Monday-Thursday and there are three center rotations a day. However, one center each day is always the Teacher Center with me (what they do at my center varies each day). By the end of the week, they have completed all 8 learning centers, plus four different teacher centers.

I use this handy dandy chart to keep track of which centers they are supposed to be at and when. I add sticky notes with the students names on them, written in pencil. Since their abilities change so often, it's nice to be able to easily switch things around when needed. Each column represents a rotation. The numbers correspond to numbered centers I keep written on the board. The red part turns each day. It seem complicated, but it's so easy to get the hang of it. I tell the students before each rotation where they will be going, but by the end of the year they can usually figure it out for themselves.

I always try to integrate a lot of different things into our centers - writing, ABC's, sight words, math, science/social studies.

Here are some of the centers we did this week.

For our letter center, we did a worksheet to practice recognizing upper and lowercase Mm's.

For the math center, students used pattern blocks. We incorporated letters into this center by having them make letters with the pattern blocks. I printed the templates from this site.

For an ABC center, I used a foam puzzle and put the missing letters in a bin of colored rice. They had to search in the rice, find the letter and put it in the puzzle. I found this idea on Pinterest.

Our sight word center involved stamping our sight words "we" and "can" into a sentence. Then they used the pictures to help them read the sentence to their partner and then to me.

We also did a science-related center about our five senses. Students had to sort pictures according to each sense.

Songs and Videos

In our classroom songs with videos are very popular. They keep the students interested and engaged as they sing and many times don't even realize they are learning. The more we watch the videos, the more they learn the songs and the concepts taught by the song.
My colleague, Ms. Conyers, posted on her blog about some of the favorites that we use in class and I thought I would share them as well.

Harry Kindergarten has created TONS of videos that range from the alphabet and phonics, to math concepts, science ideas, social studies and even classroom transitions. Below is one of the videos we have been watching for math to help us learn some of our shapes.

See all of his videos, here.


Another favorite set of videos comes from Have Fun Teaching. They have songs for each of the letters, a full alphabet song and now even some sight word songs. Their songs have really catchy beats - some that you may even recognize. Below is the alphabet song the students just love.

To see more of their videos, click here.

We have been watching a series of videos made to go along with color word songs. The songs are to the tune of popular nursery rhymes and teach the students how to spell the color words. Below is a favorite for the color green.

To see more color song videos, click here.

Last, but not least, Jack Hartmann. He has an enormous collection of songs, CDs and DVDs. Sometimes we listen to his songs on CD and sometimes we watch the videos. His songs for children cover pretty much everything! We were actually lucky enough to have him come to the school last year and I look forward to seeing if we can have him come again. The students really enjoyed dancing and singing along. (Also, many of the Harry Kindergarten videos use songs by Jack Hartmann).
Below is a clip from one of the songs I have on DVD.

 

See more Jack Hartmann, here.

Enjoy!