Turkey Day Is On the Way!

This is a mini unit you can start tomorrow. I have tons of activities that kinder kids should be practicing to meet the standards. Many of these can be done independently during workshop time and will be fun for your students. If this looks like something you could useclick here to go to my TpT store. I hope this makes life a little easier at such a busy time.

Gobble Gobble Fun

I have been working all weekend on a turkey mini packet for my classroom and to sell on TpT. It is a little bigger than I planned for but it is full of activities that I am hoping will help my students to grow academically. This is one of my favorite times of the year and my head is spinning with the projects that need to be done. So... I am busy coming up with things to keep your students engaged while you are getting ready for your festivities. Macaroni necklaces, patterned vests, placemats, turkey art... Okay I better finish this and move on so I will be ready too.

T is for Turkey has an emergent reader, syllable counting work, sight word games, maps to use, cvc activities,

beginning sounds work, alphabet matching, counting work, etc. It is almost finished!

Pumpkin Learning

New strategy in my room: Practice the text in the little books I make billions of times so students feel more confident when reading. Obviously the sight words I am working on are "we" and "see" but I am also talking about adding s to show more than one. We practice this as a routine every day for a week and by the time we get to the little book we know it really well!  They feel really successful and so does the teacher! The pumpkin cards are another way to practice the alphabet with a partner.

Mentor Magic Is Coming to Kindergarten

Okay I am getting ready for tomorrow and I even ran off questions so the mentors have something to guide their thinking. They can ask any kind of a question but these are suggestions in case they run out of ideas. I want to take pictures of each kinder student with his mentor to put on the front of their intervention notebooks. Now I need to come up with something fun for us to do after this... Suggestions?

Calling In Pete for Intervention

Help me understand the adoration my kids have for this cool blue cat. Honestly, using Pete on my bingo boards was inspirational. My kiddos are so motivated by this class icon. What I like best about this is they covered his red shoes and I could still see if their bingo chip was on the right word since it was not covered up. At the end of the game I put them in partners and they "read' their board for additional practice. Why is the word "the" such a challenge for some of my students? 

Q tips Can Be Used for Other Things

We have been listening to lots of stories about the life cycle of a pumpkin so I made this quick little mini book for my students. It was so simple and then I decided to let them jazz up the cover by using a q tip dipped in orange and yellow paint. How much mess could this possibly make? Plenty. but they loved doing it so maybe I will try something bigger next time.

Star Word Mastery Lights Up My World

Okay, no one warned me  how much work this intervention would be but once it is done we will be ready to rock and roll with our mentors. I got these rings in Office Depot for a dime a bag and I thought I was going to die of happiness because rings are costly. I have a friend that uses shower curtain rings that she finds at the dollar store and that is a brilliant idea! Teachers are sooooooo smart! Anyhow, once they master these ten words they will get a certificate and tons of applause for a job well done. Motivation and competition rule the world!

Just a little check up...

Okay I'm not sure how this will roll but I am going to give it a try. Here's the plan: I am going to have my mentors quickly review letters and sight words using flash cards and then give a quick five minute assessment
which will be stored in individual student notebooks. If any student gets 100% I will check for accuracy and give out a certificate the following week and we can all applaud these students. Will this work? I will get back to you on that!

Pumpkin Seeds: Count Them and Eat Them

My grade level BFF's are already doing Pumpkin investigations and needed this book to finish out their activities. This is just like the book I have in the Applelicious Packet for sale at TpT. The kids had so much fun doing it and it was easy enough that many could do this pumpkin one independently... maybe. This week we are going to estimate the seeds in a small pumpkin by counting them in groups of ten. I also bought pumpkin seeds for them to taste too. We have been reading some great stories, focusing on the life cycle of a pumpkin. What activities are you doing? Grab it here and I hope you use it in your classroom.

Mentor Mapping: Week #2

So I had our mentors fill out questionnaires with the kinders and now they are going to put this information on a double bubble map. Why? They are going to figure out how they are alike and how they differ. When students look at text they often are expected to compare and contrast two characters and this is a great way for them to get started with this important skill. Photographs can go under each label or kids can draw themselves. The most meaningful part of this experience is buddies have an opportunity to get to know each other and share ideas.
I am looking for sentences such as "We both love dogs." Another possibility might be, I like to play soccer but Tomas likes to ride bikes."  The outside circles are colored one color and the ones the buddies share are another color. I hope this makes sense. I can't wait to see how these turn out. By the way I run these maps on 8 and1/2 by 14" paper for my little ones.