Animals?!

Hi y'all!

So.. let me tell you a little bit about Treasures. It doesn't make sense.

Nope, not one bit!So I get major jealousy when I see all you alls posting about your fabulous Christmas themed stories and centers and such! Now.. I do all of my stations thematically, but I *really* wish my district wasn't so strict on the curriculum. Like, there's no veering from it.. we get a few weeks a year that are "free." So we go to town doing all the fun stuff we can't do any other time! I try to sneak all my theme-y stuff into Social Studies time! ;)

Shuna from Pocket Full of Kinders sent me this fabulous animal centers pack.

It worked out perfectly that we're working on an Animals unit by our curriculum now. I know, in January?! And not the penguin and seal and snow type of animals... but PET animals. Don't you guys just love Treasures?! {those that use it! It really makes no sense whatsoever} 

 How did she know that it would fit right in to the curriculum we're in right now?! ;)

The packet is all about beginning, medial, and ending sounds. Perfect for Kindergarten curriculum!

Here's the one I used for my intervention group last week. Beginning sounds with animals! They really enjoyed placing the tiles on the cards and writing all the animals out on the recording sheet.

{I just love those letter tiles! I use them for everything!!}
Click HERE to check out her stations pack!

Shuna's packet has much more in it and everything is perfect for our little guys any time of the year!

Now click on over to Shuna's post to see what has been going on in her classroom {hint! It's from me ;)}

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Work in progress!

Ok, maybe I can be better about taking pictures at school now that my formal eval is over!

We're all over the place this week- we'll be starting some Thanksgiving fun next week so now we *might* be finishing up some Halloween stations that I didn't quite have time to do before Halloween (oops!)

We've been focusing on patterns in Math: They each had a little baggie of 12 candy corns and could choose to do the patterns we have learned so far (AB, AAB, ABB) as long as they could justify the type and label it. *Most* of my sweeties did really well- there are definitely a few that I need to reteach it to!

This is an awesome station activity all year- especially for intervention or for your kiddos who need a little extra support with letter recognition. You can't see very well in this picture, but that's a Halloween bucket- I found it at out grocery store for 75 cents for 2 right after Halloween! Score! Obviously, you could use any kind of a bucket (or stocking during Christmas!) but all the kids do is pull out a letter and find it on the paper. I got this printable from Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten- go snag one for yourself!

We're working on a super cute and FUN season wheel that I will have more pictures of this weekend when it's complete- we're doing a season a day, so it's taking us all week to complete!

p.s. Have you seen these adorable reminder signs from Lyndsey at A Year of Many Firsts?! I'm Loving the "wash your hands" reminder- the one in my room is definitely not as cute as Lyndsey's, and hers is free! Go snag them up from her blog!

 

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Stations this week!

Hello teacher friends! I've been wanting to share how I do my centers with you guys for a while - I've done them a few different ways but this is my favorite so far!

It keeps ME organized and my kids get to go at their own pace so I'm not forcing kids to switch or hurry up and finish without doing quality work.

I have 5 different groups - they are grouped by ability so when I pull them for small group they are all together. Depending on what they're working on during stations, they may work together or independently.If you look at the pictures below you can see a little border around each name - this is their small group, so when I call them to my teacher table I just call the "blue group" etc.

These are my stations drawers. Do NOT buy these at regular price! Jo Ann's has them for $30 after Thanksgiving and Michael's always has a coupon for 1/2 price. They're regularly around $70! eesh!

My kids complete two stations a day - we work in stations and small group with me for about 40 minutes during ELAR. The drawers are labeled with the letters A-J. Every Monday my red group starts on A and B. Then on Tuesday I switch them to C and D, and so on. The other groups will just move down behind them. I always start the red group out on A and B so I don't get things confused for myself. My kids that are on "A and B for that day have to complete A first, check it with me, and then they finish B. The first one is usually a more "work" station so I can assess and the kids can practice where the second one is usually a more "fun" station (stamping sight words, a game, writing sentences with letters on the lockers, etc). If they finish both stations then we have early finisher games - like the fiddle sticks game I posted about earlier. I fill my station drawers on Monday and don't change them all week.

 Here is my rotation chart - I just have it up on the white board by magnets. I could've just taped the group names because I do not move them (afterthought!) but the letters definitely need to be movable - next year when I have less whiteboard space because of the Smartboard I might make this on a poster and then just use velcro for my letters.

Here are some of the stations that I have them working in this week:

Find the missing letter from sight words

 Real or nonsense? (From my Spring Fever packet) CVC... next week we will do the CCVC words

 Sequence ending sounds game from Deedee Wills

 Sight words write the room

 Computers

 Handwriting practice! These little books came from Dollar Tree and they love them!

 CVCe words from Melissa Freshwater

Does that make sense?! I love hearing everyone else's ideas and ways they do things in their own classroom - every one in my team all has their own way of doing stations- this is what works best for me! I hope it was useful in some way! Thanks for sticking with me this long!

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