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Sunday, March 4, 2012

This Week In Pictures and Links (3-5-9)

Hi Everyone!  I hope you all had a great Read Across America Day like my students and I did! 
Here are a few photos from our day.  We did a rotation with the 2 other morning kindergarten classes.  In each room a Dr. Seuss book was read and then a follow up activity was done.  1 was art, one was rhyming and my class made a green egg from Nilla Wafers, frosting and a green M&M.  They loved it! 
After putting on our Cat in the Hat headbands, we went to the library for a Suprise visit from The Cat In The Hat (our old Principal who loves to act silly and read to kids) 

Then we went back to our room for a Book Share!  I have the students get in a large circle while holding their favorite book from home.  After browsing the book for 30 seconds, we pass the book to the right.  We did that until the books were back with the child who brought it. They get to see 25 books and look for a story they might like to read. Lots of fun!

Centers:  I have been sharing the activities that we do in centers without really explaining how I run them.  I do not have true Literacy or Math Centers.  My students stay in heterogeneous groups (table groups) and complete 2 centers per day, for 3 days in the week. There are 2-3 activities in most centers. The activities are a mixture of reading, math and art or science.  Truthfully they are whatever I want to teach for the week. All of the activities are must do!  My groups are 4 students for all tables except one table that has 5.  I explain the activities on Monday and then again briefly each day.  One group is taught by my PM partner and the reading group by me.  My parent volunteers supervise the other 4 groups.  I always try to have a couple of centers to be basically independent. The differentiation happens through extension of some activities and by individual attention (especially in the reading group).  In 3 weeks we will be finished with our Heart Word books (little red sight word readers) and then I will work more on individual reading conferences (see Mrs. Patton's post about this)  I do not do traditional Guiding Reading groups in kindergarten.  I have in the past and I find that it is just too hard for me, especially in a 1/2 program. I prefer to work on basic skills with the entire group and then for the last 3 months do a lot more differentiation and especially hit the reading strategies and comprehension.

Students are allowed to take the time they need to complete a task for the most part.  We share and meet briefly on the carpet between the 2 centers and so some students are still working.  To me this is another way of differentiating.  Students who finish early are asked to read or complete a fun "I'm done" activity. (review) They are also encouraged to add more to their writing or drawing or whatever they have finished. Students can work at their own pace for the most part.  They can move on to the next activity in their center when they are ready.  There rarely is sitting and waiting for others to finish or not enough time to complete a task.  My centers generally take 30 minutes.

I keep my center materials in 6 tubs for the week.  The children switch to a different table for the 2nd center and then I move the centers the following day.  I know this may be confusing, but I hope you get some idea of what I do.  The children love centers and understand the system after the 2nd week of school. 

I hope this helps!  The rest of the week we do whole group activities and specials like library, computers and motor.

On to my activities for the week:


From The Moffatt Girls

My Reading Center
Students will review their sight words, read the blends and digraphs chart
From Julie Van Alst She has amazing products!

Read the come short book and write it in their writing book
Complete the Come see the cat page
Read several trade books with the sight word come


Tara West recording sheet
Love her stuff!
KindergartenLifestyle (great blog with freebies)


Word Work
Here students will read real and nonsense words and record them
Then they will sound-out cvc words


Listening Center
Just a fun rhyming story



Rainbow Painting
We are starting a mini unit on rainbows and we have new paint sets!
Later in the week they will freely paint a rainbow with tempera paint and dictate a sentence about rainbows



Rainbow Writing/Art
Sorry it is upside down (it's getting late and I just can't deal with it now!)
The student glues the strips in rainbow order and then writes the color words on the strips. 
Next they write their name in rainbow order


                                                                 Survey
My students will ask classmates a question about somthing they like or dislike.  They will write the totals in tally marks.
This is from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons
(I couldn't find it again for a link)


More Word Building 
This center is from Lakeshore
The students will build the words with letters and then record them

Addition Work
This is another Lakeshore center
The students will first complete addition worksheets from our math progarm and then
use this center and record the equations

Writing Center
This week the students will write about Dr.Seuss and his books
 on cute lined paper with The Cat in the Hat on the left to show how to use the lines

Please check back and see some of the whole group activities we will be doing. I will also take a picture of the rainbow poem we have in the pocket chart

If anything on this post was confusing or useful, please leave me a comment.  Thank you!!!!
                     

10 comments:

Unknown

Your centers sound great!
Jennifer

First Grade Blue SKies

Anonymous

Hi Cindy,
As always I love your centers --Where did you get the cute cards for the nonsense word writing center and the rainbow page for the watercolor? Thanks for all you share--you are the best!!!
Chris

Mary

LOVE IT. We always ask for Crayola watercolors, but sometimes ew get the cheap stuff. I use that stuff early in the year before they learn to take care of the good stuff. It has helped so much!
Mary
Sharing Kindergarten

Freckleteacher

Yes! We get very poor quality sets in our supply kits and the kids use those in the beginning until they are all a yucky brown color. We just splurged on these brand new sets for rainbow painting and the kids know how to use them and to rinse their brushes and change the water. The rainbows turned out lovely and in the correct odrder of the rainbow, which was the point. Thanks for the comment and I love your blog!

Freckleteacher

Anonymous,
Thanks for the sweet comment! The watercolor rainbow came from a March Mailbox book from last year (I used to buy those, but now that I have found blogs, I don't anymore) The real and nonsense Dr. Seuss cards are now linked on my post. The kids used them today and it worked great. I gave each child 6 word cards (3 real and 3 nonsense) they read them and wrote them.

Unknown

I just gave your blog award! Come over to my blog to find out the details.

Happy Blogging!
Ann @
http://mrsgreeneskindergartenkorner.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Egley

I love all of your wonderful ideas that I find on your blog. Hop on over to my blog, I have nominated you for an award!

Diane
kindergartenafunplacetobe.blogspot.com

Unknown

Love your blog! I gave you an award on my blog =)

http://thedailycupcake-akindergartenblog.blogspot.com/

Here's your link to grab it:
http://www.teachingblogaddict.com/2011/05/top-10.html

Unknown

I love reading about how different teachers set up their classrooms, centers and rotations. I am your newest follower.

www.bedroomchecker.com

I am finding this post very interesting, I enjoy reading this post. Thanks for sharing. I will keep come back to this site.

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