Happy Thanksgiving from my Kinders to yours

What a week.  I'm not even sure I survived.  I'll let you know in week or two.  To end our study of thanksgiving we made Thanksgiving story bracelets.  They enjoyed it and were able to retell it later.  What do you do special for Thanksgiving?  I'd love to get some new ideas.

What are we doing this Fall

This is my favorite time of year so far.  My kinders have our routine down and we can do some fun stuff without my constant correction.  The freedom makes our days go so much better.  In Math we have been talking about measurement so i gave them a piece of yarn and let them explore the room and document their findings.  This student labeled their picture without my prompting. WOW !!!

Each month we will create a way to display words we are learning.  They made this tree by tracing and cutting out their hand, then using precut leaves (if they cut them they may be too small to write on )  Next time we're going to try for a turkey with word feathers, and....... hopefully they will write some sentences with the words.  I'll try to share that later.  What are you doing for fun?

Fall Math

I've been to Target again.

They had these great table scatters in the $$ spot.  Leaves, acorns and pumpkins, I think I see ten frames coming out of this computer pretty soon.  I only wish I had found them sooner.  Have you found anything great lately?

It's been awhile

I always start the year working on our names.  These are the first, simplest activities I use and the kids love them both.  When they can complete their name puzzle, like above, they can take it home.  The play-doh is more of a challenge since making the "snake" is hard as they usually don't have a lot of experience with forming the doh.

Do you have any standby activities that you use every year?

apple fun

Last week I actually correlated math and ELA into an apple unit.  We read "Up, Up, Up It's Apple Picking Time" in ELA and discussed it to pieces.  I don't think I've ever gone into as much depth as this.  Trying to get ready for Common Core for next year.  

In Math we read "Ten Apples up on Top".  As I read I stacked these little shot cups on a stool by me without saying much about them.  It got very quiet as I got to the end of the story.  Would the cups fall? 

By Friday we were ready for some fun.  I divided them up into groups and let them try to stack the cups on a group members head.  How many could we get up there?  They loved this.  One group actually got 5 up on top without holding them, but I could get to them for a pic before they fell.

We also tasted 3 varieties of apples.  A,green, Granny Smith, a yellow, Golden delicious and a red, Red delicious.  A lot to discuss there.  Finally we graphed our favorite.  Golden delicious won this time.