Kindergarten Creations

Pumpkin Themed Literacy

This week our focus was pumpkins. I am trying to incorporate at least 3 shared reading experiences for my kinders each week. We use each shared reading poem, song, or big book for two days. Here are a couple of poems we used this week.

This poem is called Little Pumpkin. I displayed it using my projector, and then provided my kinders with a paper copy and highlighters. We found words we knew, identified rhyming words, highlighted beginning sounds of words, looked for punctuation, and other concepts of print. This poem is a FREEBIE in my TPT store. Click here to see it.

This is a predictable book that I created about pumpkins. We illustrated our own "picture clues" using words from the book. Students had to draw short, tall, skinny, wide, big, and little pumpkins. We then read our stories using the beginning sound of our "unknown words" and our "picture clues." You can get this book and more here!

Our sight word of the week this week was the word "have." I created this predictable chart using the word "have" and number words. Students helped me highlight the word "have" and then draw pictures and numbers to match our number words. I also used sight word "have" activities during my literacy center time. You can see more of these activities by clicking here.

This was a song that I wrote to review number words. It is sang to the tune of "10 Little Indians." After we sang it a few times, the students helped me cover the numbers with number word sticky notes.

We also created this cute pumpkin craft to hang in the hall. It reviews the life cycle of a pumpkin.

Crystal McGinnis

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Literacy In Kindergarten-The First Few Weeks

By Crystal McGinnis 9:51 AM

The first few weeks of Kindergarten have come and gone, and now my kinders are beginning to get into our literacy routines of shared reading, alphabet recognition, and sight word practice throughout the day. I also try to tie in phonemic awareness, read alouds, and beginning writing skills. Wow, we are busy! Below are a few pics that I snapped this week to show some of the

literacy activities that I do at the beginning of the year.

Sight word q-tip painting. Our word of the week this week was the word see!

Uppercase and lowercase partners. I place these on student desks during transitional times. The students find their matching partner and stand beside them. This gets us up and moving, and is a quick alphabet recognition review.

Sight Word Morning Work-This was one of my morning work activities. I had a basket of highlighters ready to go, and my students found and highlighted the sight word "see".

This was one of our book box books for the week. We used my "I see" book to review our color words.

I cut off the top of a post it note (the sticky part) and let students find and underline the word see with the post it note during our shared reading lesson.

I created a sight word "see" book that had all of my students faces and names in it. The students loved these!

We were also learning about color words this week, so I created this pocket chart activity for my kinders. After reading the book Brown Bear Brown Bear, students drew a picture of one of the animals from the book. We placed these in our pocket chart to create a predictable reading activity. We then pointed and read all of the "I see" statements together.

This is another brown bear activity. We created Brown Bear bags. We then sequenced the story according to the order of the book. We placed the animal pictures inside, and my students took these home and retold the story to their families.

I place letter tiles in small bowls and give them to my students. We order the alphabet with these, and then we do a "quick retrieval." I call out a letter, and my students slide that letter down to the bottom of their desk. We practice both upper and lowercase letters.

Our book boxes!

This is what I have been using for letter formation. Click this link to get this. I have found that my kinders are not ready for lined practice this early in the school year. I project this unlined version on my white board, and my kinders have a version on a clipboard sitting in front of it on our carpet. We practice making every stroke of the letter together. This has worked perfectly!

Our math focus this week has been shapes. I gave my kinders these shape foam stickers. They placed a sticker that matched the color word in each sentence. We then practiced reading these together. Once again, we were reviewing the sight word see.

Here are a couple of files that these activities were in.

I hope that you can use them in your classroom.

Sight Word See

Colors and Color Words

Crystal McGinnis

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Kindergarten Number Sense Activities Made Simple

By Crystal McGinnis 4:26 AM

This week we have been very busy practicing number formation, recognition, and counting. I always try to include a hands-on activity, along with our paper pencil activity, in my math lessons. Here is what my kinders did this week. I hope you find some ideas for your own classroom!

We used linking chains to build the numbers that we had already learned. This was an easy, no prep lesson!

We played number slap it!

We built our numbers with play doh.

We highlighted our number of the day. Click this link to get these.

We used small bathroom cups to order numbers.

We used teddy bear counters to practice counting.

We made number towers using unifix cubes.

We counted and clipped using my clip it cards.

We used linking chains to create sets.

We practiced counting using these domino mats.

We clipped tens frames using clothes pins and mats from my Math Mats Collection.

I had a few extra minutes, so we used circles to cover the numbers on our name plates as I called them out. The kinders also counted out the correct number of counters as I called out a number.

Crystal McGinnis

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Fall Emergent Readers

By Crystal McGinnis 6:18 PM

The following is a quick preview of a new set of Fall Emergent readers that I created for my kindergarten classroom. I love to add at least two new books to my kinders book boxes each week, so I created this set to help with that. This set includes books about apples, Johnny Appleseed, pumpkins, and everything fall. The eight books are very predictable so that even the youngest of readers can be successful. Take a look!