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

Here

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!!!!