Anchor Charts

I love to use the charts in the classroom as they are great reminders for the students who can not seem to remember what they are supposed to be doing. Mrs. Meacham has tons of resources on Anchor Charts that  are correlated to use in all subject areas including math and science. 

PBS Kids

Pbskids.org is a GREAT website to find various games on phonics and math. The students love playing the games as a whole group or independently on student computer.

Letter P

For the letter P my students and I Painted Paper Plate Pepperoni Pizza's!

We took a paper plate and colored the edges brown for the crust. Next I put a dot of red paint in the middle of each child's plate for them to spread out with a Paintbrush. Once they spread out their Paint, the students cut yellow strings into little Pieces to represent the cheese and then added their Pepperonis. 

We did not have to use glue because the Paint held all the Pieces together as it dried!

Our Pepperoni's had Pictures of things that began with the letter P. 

This is extremely easy to make as I used word clip art and drew circles around each Picture before running copies. To add higher order thinking, you can add Pictures that do not begin with P so the students have to differentiate between what begins with P and what does not. 

Core Standards

The school district that I teach in has made the decision to begin the switch from state standards to core standards. To find out more about Core Standards you can visit CoreStandards.org

Red Ribbon Week

We are celebrating Red Ribbon Week at school so I thought that I would share some of the cute door ideas some of our teachers made to show how our students "Say No to Drugs". 

Don't Fall Into the Wrong Patch 

(students drew pictures of friends helping one another)

Who Gives A Hoot About Drugs 

(students made paper bag owls and decorated pumpkins)

You Can Count on Us to Say No To Drugs

 (students made the Count from Sesame Street using paper plates)

Our Futures Are Too Bright to do Drugs

(students took pictures wearing sunglasses while holding signs of what they want to be when they grow up)

We Would Rather Eat Bugs Than Do Drugs 

(students made giant spiders)

LEGO'S

Lego's are a GREAT resource to have in every classroom as they open up a students imagination and lead to higher order thinking. I am very fortunate to work in a school who believes in the research linked to Lego's and in return they have been kind enough to provide a Lego table for every Kindergarten classroom. 

There are many uses for Lego's in the classroom. Some of these include:

1. Create an image to illustrate a part of a text or poem.
2. Create an image and write a sentence or story to match.
3. Illustrate the various emotions to show how you are feeling.
4. Use math words such as who can build the tallest or who can build the shortest.
5. Create a LEGO book for students to look at the pictures and create the images on their own. 

For more research and information on LEGO's in the classroom please visit the following sites:

• Serious Play Lego
• Lego Education
• Educational Benefits of Lego's
• The Learning Power of Lego's

ORGANIZATION

We use bins for a lot of things in our classroom. One of the uses is to help keep the students organized. 

These bins were purchased from Wal-Mart in the school supply session.  

We have big bins at the ends of our tables that hold our art boxes, text books, and a variety of books for the students to easily grab when they are done working. These have helped with the students movement in the classroom to get the necessary art supplies for any projects. 

We also have a little bin that sits on top of each table to hold items that we use all day. The contents are kept in five individual plastic cups purchased from the Dollar General. The contents include:

1. Crayons
2. Pencils
3. Extra Scissors
4. Extra Glue Bottle and Glue Stick
5. Student Name Tags
6. Dry Erase Markers

Little vs. Big

I recently had the chance to visit a local elementary school in my district and was blown away by the great things that were happening in the kindergarten classrooms. One idea that I borrowed and brought to my room was the lower tables. This is essentially the same concept as having students sit on exercise balls instead of chairs. For research on this topic you can visit: Research That Matters. I have both high and low tables in my classroom and I guide the students who need it most into choosing to sit at the lower tables. This has decreased my behavior problems, increased student performance, and allowed me to easily identify the students whose motor skills are still developing.

Pumpkin Math

We use pumpkins a lot during the month of October in all curriculum areas. One book that I have found most useful for math lessons involving pumpkins is How Many Seeds In A Pumpkin by Margaret McNamara. The story introduces words used for length, counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's, and touches on sorting and grouping. My students love to hear the story and we do a lot of the same activities that are in the story in our classroom as well.

Literacy Centers

I often struggle to come up with creative things do during literacy centers. Mrs. Nelson's Class webpage has tons of GREAT literacy center ideas that can be modified to meet the needs of your students.

Rain Gutters!!!

I LOVE using rain gutters in the classroom for many reasons. They are inexpensive, hold lots of items, and work as great bookshelves. Uses for rain gutters include:

1. Bookshelves (this way the cover page of each book is displayed)
2. White Board tray (I use a rain gutter for this and it holds EVERYTHING from markers to containers)
3. Herb Garden (attached under a windowsill)
4. Display Student Projects
5. Cable Management (structure under computer tables and it holds all those pesky loose cords)

Here is a helpful I have found that shows how to install rain gutters everywhere. Rain Gutter Tutorial

Halloween Sorting/Graphing

With Halloween only a week away, we are gearing up for our Fall Rotations this week. In the past we have always done a marshmallow graphing and sorting worksheet as one of the stations. We use the Halloween marshmallows that can be found at your local grocery store this time of year.The children are instructed to get a handful of marshmallows from the bag and sort/graph those that they had in their hand. You can find a graphing page and sorting page from Shari Sloane's webpage at Kidcount1234.com.

WELCOME

Hello, my name is Kristy Arrowood and I am currently in my third year teaching Kindergarten. Our school has recently decided to make the switch from using TN State Teaching Standards to the Core Curriculum Standards. I hope that the activities and games listed on the blog help you in your search for activities correlated to the new standards as they have helped me in my classroom this year.