Turkey Leftovers From My Classroom!

November has been such a busy month for us. At this time of the year I am assessing students to get ready for report cards but it is also the wonderful season of fall and I love teaching about the Wampanoag culture and reading fun stories about turkeys and Thanksgiving. This year I did a billion and one activities but I will only hit the ones I loved or better yet- have pictures of. We grew seeds in the backyard of my classroom and this time a mom had the kids help her put soil in about 5. How smart was she? One of them is bound to grow and several did! This is an early picture and I cannot wait to see what the pumpkins look like this week. We talked about decomposing and the kids never get tired of watching these. If you have never done this promise yourself you will try it next year.

Whatever concepts I needed to teach during these weeks had a picture of a Wampanoag or pilgrim. This was a simple math game where they just counting the dots on each card and recorded it and I ran it on old scrap booking paper and distressed the edges with brown ink to make it look old. The kids really liked this activity and it was a great formative assessment. Does anyone know how to make a 5 without reversing it. Nope.

We played lots of sight word games with cards and spinners and showed different ways to make numbers using an image of the Mayflower to spice things up! All of these were a big hit with the littles.

Here is a fall fluency chart we worked on to build their confidence before going to a little reader that matches this text. We built the sentences in a pocket chart with a matching picture and talked about adding "s" to show more than one. This is a great strategy to use when teaching new vocabulary.

We made a variety of maps and labeled them as we completed our Social Studies unit on working together. I also teach the children top, bottom, left and right while we complete this activity.

At this time of year we are working on story elements and we sorted character, setting, and event in a pocket chart. Some students found this challenging but we worked on it together and students had to support their ideas when they placed the picture in the chart. It was a great activity to do and I will keep working on this...

I love teaching guided drawing which then leads to their writing. This was so much fun and provided an opportunity for me to teach about the pilgrim children, what they wore and the jobs they did to help their families. We also talked about their clothing and compared many things to then and now. The kids did these on clipboards sitting on the learning carpet and loved their results!

I love providing these mini anchor charts when I asked students to write independently. It makes them so much more successful since it triggers their creativity and anchors their thinking. How cute are these 2 drawings? I love this age.

This year I was not interested in sending home the same old turkey for families to decorate so I decided to do a thankful plate. What are you thankful for as we approach this important American holiday? My students and I talked about gratitude and I sent this plate home with a note to the parents offering suggestions for making this. They knocked it out of the park! They were SPECTACULAR AND I CRIED OVER EACH ONE... NOT EVEN KIDDING. Parents really worked hard with their children and were so creative. I just took a few pictures but all of them were amazing. Their words were so beautiful and the family photos were so special. This was not my idea but I have had many friends on have done this and now I am trying to decide what I can do for the winter holidays that will be more meaningful. My students were so proud of their work that we ended up showing them to the principal. You have to try this project!

As Friday rolled around I was starting to fall apart from all the projects, activities and the mess. The kids love all headbands so I came up with this super simple one and when I modeled how to make a turkey feather you cannot imagine how much they loved this activity. It was silent in the room as everyone got to work trying this new "feathering" skill. Kids helped each other and now I realize why we have to release kids to do things on their own... yup it is painful.

This simple little turkey is so kid friendly. I walked them through the process and curly the feather on a pencil was the best part of their day! It felt magical to them and I loved their enthusiasm. I think they are so adorable and full of personality. These went home for the holidays.

I hope you got a few ideas for next year and now we are on to The Gingerbread Man which I love. I think I own every book possible for teaching this story and the kids never get tired of it. Check back soon and I hope your turkey day was filled with family, good times and memories that will keep you warm in the winter!

Together We Are Better

Our district has a Thanksgiving Unit of Study that kindergarten teachers implement during this time of year. It is the story of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag working together to reach common goals. We open up the unit with collaborative activities in groups of four but I will talk about that in another post. Here is the pictorial I made to help the children retell the story. If you are not familiar with this GLAD strategy I recommend learning more about it. It is great for ELL's. Each title and picture has velcro so that I can hand out the pieces and make the learning more interactive!
The Mayflower is on a stick so a student can show the journey the pilgrims took. All of this helps to build oral language.

To help support this unit I made a few extra activities I thought my students might really enjoy. There is a lot of new content vocabulary they need to know so I made a separate set of cards just for this unit. We can refer to it as we travel through the unit and it will help support their writing. I attached all the cards and it is a mobile that can be moved around the classroom. What do you think?

We are continuing to work on syllables and I thought they would love to do this in a pocket chart as drum beats. I better look for those musical instruments that I packed away. I thought it would be fun to stay with the Native American theme here.

Here is another version of our pocket chart sight word game but this time I am hiding a wetu behind one of the Wampanoags. I better think of a good chant for this before tomorrow!

This is just a simple math game 0-10 showing a variety of ways to express a number. I thought it would be fun to do this on the sails of the Mayflower and add Pilgrims and Wampanoags to the pictures. 

There is so much more I could add but I have too much to teach in just five days so I think I better stick to just these few but I also have a packet that I use during this time with great little emergent readers: I made this last year but I love many of these ideas

Both of these are available in my store if you might need a little extra for your math and literacy stations. Click on each picture to find them. What Thanksgiving activities do you love to do? 

Have a great week of learning!

Don't Be A Turkey... Some Fresh Ideas

By the end of October I am screaming with happiness if my students know all their letters and sounds. This makes a huge difference when it comes to reading and writing. Not there yet? Are you sick of working on this constantly and do you feel like you are spinning your wheels? Welcome to my reality! This is a Fall Beginning Sounds Packet (seasonal images) that might be what you are looking for. It is filled with interactive and differentiated materials to meet the wide range of needs in your classroom. Click on the picture to find it in my store on Tpt. I promise you won't be sorry. My students love it and need more practice, and more, and more... so i need to make it fun!

Stick with me and I will solve all your problems this week...

Don't start screaming but did you know about this? Stop screaming. 

So Pete is in a school play and it is all about the story of Thanksgiving kindergarten style. It is really cute and a bit interactive with flaps. I might have to create one as a Big Book for my kindergarten classrooms. Easy to teach the story if it has my buddy Pete in it. Look for freebies soon. Check back and leave me some some suggestions!

Finally we get to my Turkey Packets if you are trying to stay ahead of the curve:

These are filled with math and literacy activities for your students with the famous Fran Kramer emergent readers. They are two of my best sellers. Take a look at T is for Turkey and Turkey Leftovers if you want some meaningful work at this time of the year. I don't think you will be disappointed. Trust me. Check back for some fall freebies.

GLAD to see a Common Core Strategy Return

How many of you are familiar with GLAD strategies?  GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design in case you have never heard of this. These are being used again in our district as part of of our lesson designs when building Common Core units. Why is this such a big deal. It works!
Teachers often put these pictorials on large sheets of white butcher paper and use a projector to lightly trace the image with a pencil. This is then put up in the classroom and created in front of the students using markers while you are talking about what is being created. This might be the only time my students are quiet. This process fascinates them. Now to make this more dramatic I use scrapbooking chalk to add the color quickly and easily but I am asking them for their input..."Hummm I need to make this an ocean  so what color should I use?"  The first day might just be the map but as I teach them about the journey the Pilgrims took on the Mayflower I am adding labels. This can be done right on the paper but I have mine color coded and on velcro so it can be more interactive. Notice that the Mayflower is on a separate stick that the children can move across the ocean to show the path they took.  I have have students come up and add pieces as they become more familiar with the story. Make them think. When the Pilgrims got to America what do you thing they made their houses out of? There were lots of trees in the forest. Who wants to put some of these on my pictorial? Where did they find food? Do careful questioning based on the story you have read and you are using a non fiction piece of text to build their understanding and they are putting evidence on this picture to support their comprehension. Our curriculum specialist came up with this idea and I loved it! The labels help to build academic vocabulary. Clap out the syllables and pay attention to beginning sounds. Students can add their own pictures to this unit as you move forward and it stays up while you are teaching about an important American holiday. What do you think about this?