K Ideas

One of my followers teaches Kindergarten and I try to keep my ears and eyes open for ideas for her. Lots of times I adapt the K ideas I see just a little and use them in first for the beginning of year. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures for most of these ideas, but hang with me and read through them and I am sure you will find something you might can use in your own classroom. Alot of these ideas came from the Summer Stds. Training I went to a few weeks ago. So, I can not take credit for these ideas. The ideas come from Vanessa Ritter and nearby teachers who attended the conference with me.

1. 1st Day Puzzle Crown- Write each student's name on a piece of colored cardstock and then cut the letters apart to create a puzzle. Place each name puzzle in a baggie. On the first day of school, have the baggies on their desk and have them practice putting their name puzzle together. Once you have seen they can do it with ease(or have seen who can't), have them glue the puzzle pieces onto a yellow or gold bulletin board border strip. Once the puzzle is glued to the strip, they can then decorate it with glitter glue, stickers, buttons, etc. Once they have decorated it, staple it to make a First Day Crown for them to wear all day. This also serves as a name tag so you can remember their names! The teacher who shared this said that when she makes the name puzzles, she makes 2 baggies and uses the other bag for a center. They will already know how to do it. You will also have an extra puzzle for those who had difficulty spelling their name the first day with their puzzle.

2. Candy Game- This game has so many possibilities and can be adapted for any grade level. You will need: enough M&Ms for each child to have a small handful (the more each child has, the more challenging the game will be), 1 paper plate or sorting mat for each child, and a game key posted on the board, overhead, projecter, etc. After each child has their candy, have them sort them by color. Then you use your key to have them do whatever you choose. I will explain one for an example. After sorting, if they have 4 green M&Ms, they have to tell the other kids in their group 4 things that are green, if they have 3 red, they name 3 things that are red, etc. She put us in groups of 4 for this activity. Other things you can do with the candy game: -they pull one M&M out and if they can tell you the color, they get to eat it! -assign a vowel sound to each color, so if they have 2 red they have to tell you two words that have the short e sound -beginning sounds red= name that many that begin with r like red blue= name that many that begin with b like blue, etc. -idea for older grades red=nouns blue=verbs etc.

3. Dr. Jean's song- "Letter-Cise" Vanessa Ritter even used this song with her second grade class having them name every sound that letter can make with the punch. For kindergarten, they just punch and say the sound the letter makes. Then you can switch it to kick, etc.

4. Syllable Sombrerro- This is much like my clapping with gloves center, but with a spin. Place pictures of items in a real sombrerro and provide one maraca for the group. They take turns pulling a picture out of the syllable sombrerro and shake the maraca one time for each syllable in the word. I really like this idea, but for centers, I think it will be a little loud. I am thinking I might use it for small group re-teach with students who just can't get the hang of syllables.

5. Letter Bag- This is another center idea. Make cards with capital letters on them. Then print out a photograph of each student in the class and write the student's name on the back with the capital letter highlighted or underlined. When the child goes to the center, they will spread out the photos on the table facing up. Students will take turns pulling a letter out of the lettter bag and finding the kids(photos) whose name starts with that letter. Other students in the group can check by looking on the back of the photo.

6. Go Fish!- This center idea is stored in a plastic fishbowl with a lid that the sharing teacher said she found at Target. Place word cards, Gotcha! cards, and Go Fish! cards in the bowl. Students take turn pulling out a card and if they can read it, they get to keep it. If they pull a Gotcha! card, they have to put all their cards back and if they pull a Go Fish! they get to pull again. At the end, whoever has the most cards, wins.

7. Practice Slates for Early Finishers- Make a page on the computer with practice skills for each individual child or use extra worksheets. Place the page in a page protector and provide the student with a dry erase marker to practice the handwriting, skills, etc. Then it can be wiped clean and used again and again. Each student will keep his own practice slate in his desk to work on when other work is finished. For more advanced students you can have their slate be a journal page with handwriting lines and a box for illustrations.





8. Freebie from Vanessa Ritter- While sharing one of the many story element ideas which I shared in my last post, Vanessa referred to the problem in a story as the "Uh-oh!" and the solution as what makes the uh-oh, okay. This is not something that I wrote down and really didn't know that I had taken it in until I was reading with my 5 year old. I read a book to him and was wondering if he could identify the story elements and I used those terms and he got it. That got me to thinking that those words would be great to use in Kindergarten and early First Grade to help the students understand what Problem and Solution mean because those are awfully big words for little ones.

9. Foldables- Vanessa also introduced me to Dinah Zike's Foldables and after searching the net, I found some great examples to use in the primary grades. Here are some pics of what I found. Please keep in mind that these are not my ideas. I found these and many more at the following site: http://www.catawba.k12.nc.us/c_i_resources/Foldables.htm
I always try to give credit where credit is due.