Life in Kindergarten (The Craft Stick Special)

Hello Everybody!

I've been getting asked the question "so when are you going to post some things about teaching again?"  Well, today is your lucky day! I am posting some pictures of my adventures in kindergarten.

I'm slowly getting my kindergarten feet back... at first it was hard.  I forgot how simple things are in kindergarten.  I'm told this is normal.  I agree.  I remember having the opposite problem when I started third grade.

My first subject I picked up was math! EEK!  We are using Everyday Math.  Everybody seems to really detest the program, but it isn't too bad.  I'm trying to be as creative as possible with teaching it, but I'm not reinventing the wheel either.  I want my ideas to be helpful and too the point. I have 45 minutes to teach math, but in reality only 15 minutes of that is direct teaching time.  The first 15 is dedicated to calendar and the last 15 is dedicated to my differentiation students.  

So my first day, we did math bundles. 

 I had a bunch of min craft sticks bundled into 10s.  Then we talked about how the number 1 in the number actually represented 10 and not 1.  We made several numbers up by rolling the die and creating two numbers.   Below is an example.  We rolled a 3 and a 2 and created 32.  We had 3 bundles (30 sticks) and 2 ones.

 Then we represented them with craft sticks.   The kids were understanding what I was looking for... but they needed me to guide them during the time I am supposed to be working with two other students... I felt like crap, but Pam insisted I did a good job.  I just need to be aware of my directions.  All in good time I say.

We are also working on subtraction.  Pam introduced the topic last week, but this week I wanted to reinforce the topic.

I created a sorting game with craft sticks.  It's pretty self-explanatory.  They get a stick and then put it in the correct bucket.

 They loved this game! I had the buckets go from 0-9 but for all intensive purposes, I didn't put those out when I took the picture.  This game was easy to make!  We worked with the Unix Cubes so there was a visual connection for those who needed it as well.  I am excited because I am able to use this game next week when we have a game day in math class! 

 Then during the independent work time, the students had to color in the correct flower on their subtraction worksheet.  I know what you are probably thinking...worksheets are evil.  Not always.  This one is based off another one they had to do last week.  They liked their worksheet last week because it was coloring! They LOVE to color...why not embrace that?

I also created a bulletin board.  This was for the Spring board outside of the classroom.  I love boards... I will be adding more to this one as projects come up! Several of the other kindergarten teachers gave me such lovely compliments on it.  Note....I didn't create the flowers...just designed the board!

I am going to start BRAIN BREAKS!!!  They are these 3 minute activities that get the juices flowing in the head... a great way to start any lesson!  Since my handwriting usually stinks, I decided to print up the font instead.  I say they look awesome! They sit on my desk...waiting to be used! (I'm waiting to be a little more FT first)

 Don't they look AWESOME in my green bucket? (Recognize it from another lesson...?)

 And finally... a look at my desk...I need to update the photo I have of Pickles.  I have such cuter pictures of him somewhere... or maybe a good picture of friends should be in place? My desk is very small so I needed to bring in one of those 3 container things.  Now I have all the binders and books there.  The flowers are hung up and the boarders are put away as well.  So now... my desk is empty!

 And last but not least... student artwork! My kiddos are AWESOME!!!

So as you can see...I'm having a ball!  More to come soon!

Hugs!

<3

Em!