Five for Friday: April 8

Hi everyone!

I’m linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 things from this week!

1. Introduction to Story Writing

We introduced story writing this week.

I saw @ourkindergartenfamily post this picture on Instagram and knew I had to copy their idea! I whipped up a quick cover for our “A Wordless Text” booklets.  Then I introduced them to the wordless story “Chalk”by Bill Thomson.  One of my teaching partners from next door introduced this text to us! Thanks Cristina!

We “read” this whole group and talked about what was happening in the story and how we could tell. We made lots of predictions and inferences and talked about how the details in the picture help tell the story.

Then they were invited to create their own wordless texts at centre time.

I love how it was accessible to all abilities in our class and we had a few happy surprises in terms of kids who chose to go there/were very engaged there!

We will start to learn how to write fiction stories with text next week 🙂

If you would like a copy of the cover that I used you can download that by clicking here or on the image below!

You can also find more Term 2 writing lesson ideas and templates by clicking here or on the image below:

2. Number Order with Play Dough and Popsicle Sticks

I think the title says it all but this is a super easy prep and low cost centre idea for practicing number order (which is a surprising area of need in our class!) I just printed the numbers 1-10 on popsicle sticks and set them out with play dough.  I told the kids to make a log and put the popsicle sticks in order from 1-10 on the log.

The kids loved this and my friend Rachel (you might also know her as @thekinderteacher on Instagram!) said that she does this with words as well, which is SO smart! I’m going to incorporate that into my morning centres next week for sure!

3. Number Provocation

I was fortunate to be able to participate in the first annual “Kindergarten Krawl” last week where we got to visit 3 Kindergarten classrooms in our board after school.  We got to go in the classroom, take pictures, talk to the classroom teachers etc! It was so cool to see the amazing things that are happening in other people’s classrooms!

I saw this number provocation in one of the classrooms and since I had the book I knew I had to try it! The pictures are from the book “Teeth, Tails and Tentacles” by Christopher Wormell.  I copied the pages (reduced 80% for the top pages and 50% for the bottom pages) and glued them onto black cardstock.  Then I set out some loose parts (rocks, wooden cubes, wooden buttons and glass pebbles) with shells with dots, number, a combination of numbers and dots and +, – and = on them.

I had the kids create anything they wanted inside the frame.  Some kids made patterns and some practiced counting.  This was only open for one afternoon this week so I’m excited to see how they will continue to use this provocation next week!

4. My Friends List

We have been working on list writing as well and this “My Friends” list writing has been a huge hit ever since it was introduced.  I have their names on the word wall so that they can go and get the names that they need and copy it onto the list.

Next week I’ll be introducing them to a more open-ended list where they can come up with the topics themselves!

You can download all of my list templates for free by clicking on the image below!

5. Meaningful Math, Inquiry and Play

 

Today was a PA Day so we spent the morning in our own school (staff meeting) and then we went to a workshop of our choice in the afternoon.  I went to a workshop called “Meaningful Math, Inquiry and Play” by Cheryl Herder and it was great! I loved that there were so many ideas for provocations set up that we could get ideas from and try in our own classrooms right away!

I snapped the picture above at the workshop and am going to incorporate it when we review measurement in a few weeks.  She made a scale out of wooden blocks, set out some loose parts with the book “The Balancing Act” by Ellen Stoll Walsh and had a sign that said “Can you make it balance?”

I highly recommend this workshop if you get the chance to attend it!

That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading!  

Click on the image below to link up with Kacey and share your Five for Friday too!