Kindergarten Kindergarten

Sight Word Practice Pages

Here are some packets I made for my kindergarten class this year to practice reading and writing their sight words.

Download Week 1_look at the my see

Download Week 2_the is it my can

Download Week 3_he she is can said

Download Week 4_we like to go went

Download Week 5_on in are you am

On the first page, they read the sentences and color the sight words different colors (I color the boxes beforehand so they will know what colors to use).

On the second page, they rainbow write the words to practice spelling.

On the third page, they cut and paste the letters to make the words.

The next pages are my favorites. They are flashcards that they can play games with (like Memory) or they can build sentences with the cards. The cards in each packet build on each other from week to week, so it's important that the kids do not lose them! (For example, you can combine words from packets 1 and 2 to make new sentences).

The last page is a page to practice writing sentences.

Even though the packets are labeled week 1 and week 2, etc., I do not necessarily use them that way. I do not give a child a new packet until she/he has mastered the previous one.

These are the first 5 packets, but I will post more soon.

I hope you can use these in your own classroom.

Enjoy! 

 

Random Kindergarten Teacher Tip #1

What do you do when one of your kids comes to you with shoelaces tied in a hundred little knots that you cannot undo? And you're tired of breaking nails trying to?

You get out the Jaws of Life...otherwise known as a staple remover. Works like a charm!

A Science Mini-Unit: Living and Non-Living

This is a quick little unit that teaches children about living and non-living things. I find that most kindergartners can almost always tell you what things are living and what things are non-living, but they cannot tell you why. And there are definitely some tricky ones--for example, most of my kids think that a tree is non-living.

And then there is always the discussion of non-living versus dead. They will sometimes say things like, "The rock is dead." So I explain that in order to be "dead," something had to be alive first. And then, most likely, one of you little angels will shout out, "My grandpa is dead." Don't you just love kindergarten!

Even after we have completed this unit, we continue to discuss living and non-living things and the differences between them. Every time we start a new unit on animals, plants, insects or even rocks--we ask: Are they living or non-living? How do you know?

Day 1

I start this mini-unit by showing the Is it Living? powerpoint.

Download Is it living

It's just a bunch of pictures--of both living and non-living things. I simply show the pictures and ask the kids if each object is living or non-living. I do not correct them right away. I just let them discuss their answers. The kids can pretty easily tell you which ones are living and which are not, but there are a few tricky ones (i.e. the rock and the tree). It's fun to listen to the reasoning behind their answers--the debate can become quite heated at times!

Stop at the slide with the stop sign! Lead your students in a discussion with the following questions:

How can you tell if something is living or non-living?

What are some things that all living things have in common?

Resist the urge to correct any misconceptions they have. I know it's hard, but you can do it! Write down all of their ideas on a big chart. This is the list my class made this year. Yours may be different.

Now, choose an object that all of the kids can agree is absolutely, without a doubt, living--like a puppy! Go through each of the ideas on the chart. If it is true for the puppy, put a check. If it is not true, cross it out:

It has a face. Check! It grows. Check! It can move. Check! It talks. No! Cross it out. Now we know this is not true for all living things. It has a heart. Check! They have ears. Check! They have hands. Debatable...depends on whether or not your definition of hands includes paws!

Now choose another living thing, but this time, choose an object you know will get a few more misconceptions crossed off that list. Butterfly got They have ears crossed off. A sunflower got It has a face and It has a heart crossed off. Keep going until you have all of the misconceptions crossed off and you will have the beginnings of a list of what all living things have in common.

Note: Your kids will most likely want to cross off It can move or It can breathe (or a few others) for a plant or a tree. After all, they do not obviously move or breathe. So you will probably have to have a quick discussion about how plants move and breathe at this point.

Your class will probably not think of all the things living things have in common. You can see we only had It grows and It can move. Finish the rest of the Is it Living PowerPoint. Now you can add the other criteria to your list.

Day 2

Time for some reading. My favorite books about living/non-living things are:

Are You Living? A Song About Living and Non-Living Things by Laura Purdie Salas

What’s Alive? By Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

As you read the books, make an anchor chart listing all of the things living things have in common.

You can also go back and discuss the Challenge questions in the Is it Living PowerPoint. Are the the seeds, egg and an apple living or non-living? Get the students to justify their answers based on the things they learned. Here are my imperfect, but kindergarten appropriate answers:

Seeds are living if they are still viable--or if they can still grow into living things. If they are roasted or in your tummy, they are probably no longer living. The egg is living if it has a baby bird inside. Mommy birds have to take care off eggs that have baby birds inside. The eggs that are in your grocery store do not have baby birds inside and are no longer living. The apple is living if it is still attached to the tree and can still grow and change.

You can also have the kids do a living/non-living sort in their science journals.

Download Living_Non-Living Sort

Day 3

Make a chart like the one pictured below with all of the characteristics of living things across the top. Choose different objects and go through each of the characteristics for each one. Then have the kids determine whether that object is living or not.

We keep this chart up throughout the week and add to it whenever we have a few extra minutes.

Finally, have the students pick one (or more) objects and answer the questions on a recording sheet in their science journals. You can print pictures for them, have them cut pictures from a magazine or draw pictures.

Download Is it Living Recording Sheet

Bonus

 

Here are some cards you can have the kids sort into living and non-living groups (whole-group or as a center activity).

Download Living-NonLiving Flashcards

Have Fun!

One More 3-D Shape Anchor Chart (or Woops! I forgot to show you this...)

Here is the anchor chart I made with my kindergarten class after we did the 3-D Shape movement activity here: 3-D Shape Problem Solving. You can see some of the language my kids used when discussing whether or not 3D shapes could roll, slide or stack and how it relates to the attributes of those shapes.

Better late than never, right?

Shapes...Shapes...Everywhere!

Here's a quick PowerPoint I made for 3-D shapes. I use it as a warm-up by showing a few slides per day and having the kids discuss what shapes they see. Super easy!

You can download the slideshow here: Download Shapes, Shapes, Everywhere!

Enjoy!

Wanna follow me?

Pinterest is, like, the best thing EVER! Here is a link to my boards, if you would like to check them out. Like everything else in my life, I need to organize them better! I'll get to it. I have several education-related boards, and a lot of other artsy-crafty-foody type boards.

Wanna Pin me? Please feel free to pin anything from my blog! Thanks!

Math Problem-Solving: 3-D Shapes

So here are some 3-D Shape Problems. Make sure you do lots of exploring with 3-D shapes before you even think about doing these problems! (Click here for ideas). Some of these problems are very challenging. You know your class best! You determine which problems are appropriate and which ones aren't. (And you can always do them whole-group. Just make sure the kids are doing the thinking and you're not telling them how to solve it!)  

Day 1

This is a fun activity that really encourages kids to think about the attributes of 3-D shapes.It also integrates science and makes kids think about how the shape of an object affects how it moves.

It's super easy. Just prop up a flat surface (we used dry erase boards), give the kids a variety of 3-D shapes and let them go!

I encourage the kids to make predictions and explain their thinking before they roll, slide or stack. For example, "I think the sphere will roll because it is round all over," or "I think the cube will slide but not roll because all of its sides are flat."

I also encourage the kids to try all sides of a shape out--i.e. a cylinder will roll on its sides, but slides on its ends. You can stack a cone on top of another shape, but because it has a point on top, you cannot stack another shape on top of it (although they sure try!)

After the kids have had lots of time to explore, they fill out a recording sheet for their journal. 

You can download the recording sheet here: Download 3D Shape Movement

Then we discuss! What different attributes helped or stopped the shapes from rolling/sliding/stacking? Would it be a good idea to make a car with cone-shaped wheels? What about a sphere-shaped soccer ball?

Day 2

Make sure you give kids actual shapes to manipulate when solving these problems. This one is pretty straight forward...

Day 3

This one is 2-steps...count and then compare.

Day 4

This one is fun...there could be multiple answers. A cube and a cylinder? Or a pyramid, a cylinder and a cone?

I love this one...can you read it? SALANDR (cylinder) AN (and) RAGELR RAZAM (rectangular prism...I think!).

Day 5

This one is very challenging. Again...it has more than one possible answer. Is it a cube and a cone? Or a pyramid and a cylinder?

 
Have fun!

Spring Break Blog Update

OK...so we all know I'm not the best at keeping my blog updated! But I am officially on Spring Break and have lots of time on my hands. So every day this week, I am going to update my blog with lots of fun, new things. I am also going to do a lot of spring blog cleaning--updating links, organizing my downloads, hopefully making the whole site a little easier to navigate. So check back everyday to see what's happening!

Shapes...Shapes....Shapes.... 3D!

My kids love 3-D shapes even more than they love 2-D shapes! They are super excited to learn everything they can about them, so that makes my job very easy. As always, hands-on exploration is essential in order for students to develop a solid understanding of 3-D shapes. So we play and explore a lot! 

I let the kids explore 3-D shapes by building, stacking, rolling, etc. Then, together, we create an achor chart. We describe the shapes using both formal and informal language (so the kids can build on their schema) and record the information on the chart. In the beginning, the kids will call spheres "circles" and cubes "squares," but they learn the correct names very quickly. Although I introduce the vocabulary--face, base, point, edge--I do not require my kids to memorize it. We're just building that foundation. We compare the 3-D shapes to their 2-D counterparts and talk a lot about the 2-D shapes we see in the 3-D versions.

Then we think of examples in real life--and this is where the real fun begins! I challenge the kids to go home and find as many examples of 3-D shapes as they can and bring them into school. We create a Kindergarten Shape Museum! We find a very special place in the room and add to the museum as the week progresses. We talk about the objects the kids bring in--What shape is it? How do you know? What do you see?

Here are just a few examples of objects that make their way into the museum...

And a few others that don't fit...mostly triangular prisms (which the kids mistakenly think are pyramids) and eggs (what shape are eggs, anyway? Google it...it will give you a headache!)

Here is one of my favorites from this year...the kids dubbed it a "Star-angular Prism"!

After a couple of weeks, all the shapes go back home. But the kids never stop looking for 3-D shapes. They point them out all year long! 

We also do 3-D shape recording sheets for our math journals. First, the kids write about the shapes. Some kids use formal mathematical language, and other kids use everyday language. It just depends on where they are in their understanding.

 

You can download these pages here: Download 3-D Shapes

And like so many other things, we compare and contrast different shapes--2D and 3D. Not only does this reinforce concepts and vocabulary, it really promotes critical thinking.

Finally...when all the kids are familiar with all the shapes, we can get down to some problem-solving.

So check back soon to see what we do!