Bear Thematic Unit For Kindergarten

Looking for a great way to fill the days between Halloween and Thanksgiving?

This 90 page Bear unit is divided into areas of literature, music, art, literacy, math, social studies, science, creative writing, word wall, and guided reading. The activities are clearly written, easy to use, and need limited amounts of preparation. The lessons (games or activities) included are scripted. They are written in a format that can be easily taught by the teacher or readily handed off to a parent volunteer or a classroom aide with complete confidence that objectives of the lesson will be reached. 
Literacy Activities:
Woodland Friends At the Park: Identifying Beginning and Ending Sounds
Corduroy’s Alphabet Game: Identification of Upper & Lowercase letters
ABC Honey Hunt: Identifying Alphabet Letters & Naming Letter Sounds
Bear Match: Matching Letters of the Alphabet
Bear Twins: Compound Word Deletion
Math Activities:
Teddy Bear Picnic: Spatial Intelligence and Estimation Strategies
Bears & Buttons: Counting With a One-to-one Correspondence
Pattern Bears: Extending Patterns
Race Car Riot: Ordering Numbers 1-12
Counting Hives: Number Sense Worksheet
Art Projects
The Three Bears
Poky Bear
Corduroy Portfolio Sample
How To Draw A Bear
Social Studies
Families: Portfolio Page
Writing Prompts/Word Wall
What I Know About Bears
The Three Bears
Bears Word Wall Words
Science
Hibernating Bears: Bear Facts
Songs
Three Brown Bears
Poky Bear
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Corduroy
Guided Reading Books
Where Is My Bear?

Teaching Kids To Read -&- Avoiding the 3rd Grade Slump

Imagine building a house and beginning with the roof! You don’t need construction experience or a degree in architecture to know that this will not lead to a successful end. Just as the building of a house needs to follow a certain order, skills for reading also follow a sequence. In fact, research has shown that most students learn to read following the same sequence of skill acquisition. What does this mean as we teach beginning readers? 
Parents, students, and even teachers are often so anxious to start the reading process that beginning readers are frequently presented with words before they are ready for them. According to reading research, however, students should first work with letters. In fact, students should concentrate on capital letters; once they know the uppercase letters, the lowercase letters are easier to learn. Only after mastering both upper- and lowercase letters should high frequency or sight words be addressed.

Although it’s often tempting to jump into phonics in order to please parents and administrators, research has shown that students with strong phonemic awareness skills tend to be better readers than those who do not participate in as many of these auditory activities. Before connecting letters and sounds, students should clap out syllables, play with rhymes, and isolate initial sounds in words. As students continue on the reading continuum, they can work with letter sounds and then decoding.
These are just a few examples related to the sequencing of reading skills; there are entire books devoted to this subject! Just keep in mind that as you make your weekly and daily plans, you must always consider the sequence of skills. A simple solution to ensuring that the correct reading sequence is followed is to use the materials in our many thematic units. Starting with the Alphabet Fair at the beginning of the school year and continuing with successive units, skills are addressed in the sequence recommended by research. The Kindergarten Kiosk units can supplement any reading program, providing timely activities for practice and intervention. 
Also check out our monthly homework packets. They to are ordered sequentially according to reading research. Continue to visit our blog and check out our materials to help meet your needs!




 
&Kathleen

Pumpkins at Kindergarten


A great pumpkin day!
A Pumpkin Assembly

"Grove City Gardens" brings the farm to town.
Thanks for the Pumpkins!
Conducting a Pumpkin Report


Playing Pumpkin Smasher

Writing about Pumpkins at the Writing Center



Do you know the "Pumpkin Man" that lives down Pumpkin Lane?




Halloween Center Activities, Homework, Guided Reading & More 10% Off

All of our Halloween Products are 10% off 
from now until Halloween. 
Includes 6 products:
--Halloween Center Activities for Literacy Math Science and More
--Halloween Alphabet & Phonemic Awareness Scripted Activities
--Halloween Reading and Math Scripted Games/Activities
--My Skeleton Thematic Unit: Math/Science/Reading & More
--Fall Themed Guided Reading Books: Early Emergent
--Scarecrow Mini-Unit
Enjoy some SPOOKY Halloween Fun! 


 






Fabulous Follower Giveaway!!!

Caitlin at Ms. Preppy is having a fantastic 
"give away" to celebrate her 200th follower! 





Here's how to enter...go to Ms. Preppy's page and follow her awesome blog. Next,  follow each of the contributors blogs and their shops/stores.  Then, blog about the giveaway! Leave a comment on Ms. Preppy's blog each way that you enter her contest. So many ways to enter, what are you waiting for! The winner is announced on Saturday, you have until Friday at 11:59 pm to enter!

From Kathy at Kindergarten Kiosk


From Karen at Froggy Friends Fun...
From Rebecca at Teaching First... THREE units!



From moi...

AND then there is also a membership to The Graphics Factory!! I mean HELLO awesome giveaway or what?!



Fall Themed Days In Kindergarten


We are in the middle of our Fall themed Learning. As you will note in the pictures, our hallway is in the development stage of construction; we add to it daily.




We have many fall themed units available at our on-line stores.
Click on the links at the top-left to view products that are now available.


Friday Highlights.
Studying Change in a Fall Tree
Gathering Autumn Artifacts
Catching Leaves During Literacy Centers
Reading Fall-Themed Books at our Class Library
Making a Fall Tree
Studying Fall at the Science Center


Writing Fall Words At the Writing Center

Recording Changes in a Tree at the Art Center





Free Fall Alphabet Letter Fluency Game


Develop alphabet letter naming fluency by playing this fun, active letter gathering game.

Enjoy For FREE by clicking below!








Beautiful Bones!

I just put together a new Bone Unit at our Science Center!


We will be singing this song tomorrow to get the children excited about bone science.

Here is a science lesson adapted from one at this site:

Amazing Bones!

Objectives: 
Children will learn about bones and the skeleton.

Materials: Skeleton model, X-Rays, Sheets of paper, paper plate, counters, animal bones (including 1 that is broken)
___________________________________________________________________________
Tell children that you see (number of children) skeletons, then tell the children that they are the skeletons that you see.

Tell the children, "Bones and muscles give our body its shape. We have more than 200 bones inside our body. The whole set of bones is called a skeleton. Bones are hard on the outside but soft on the inside. Bones protect the inside of our bodies, the skull protects the brain, and the ribcage protects the heart and other organs. Drinking milk makes our bones strong. We can feel our bones under our skin."

Instruct the children to feel their hand, arm, and rib bones.

Show the children a basket of X-Rays. Tell them that an X-Ray is a picture of the inside of a persons body. Hold up each X-Ray, 1 at a time, against the white board. Instruct the children to compare the X-Ray to the skeleton model. Where is the bone shown in the X-Ray in their body?

Show the children the basket of real animal bones. Show them a broken bone and point out that it is porous and hollow. Roll up a sheet of paper about 1 inch wide into a cylinder, have a student place a paper plate on top of the hollow “bone”. Have the children add bear counters to the plate. Instruct the children to count how many the plate can hold before it collapses the “bone”

Roll up another sheet of paper as tightly as you can so that there is no hollow section. Stand up this “bone” on the table before placing the same plate on top. Add bear counters to the plate until the “bone” collapses. Ask the children Which bone was able to hold more weight? The hollow center gave the bone a better design and made it stronger. The large bones in our body are also hollow, which makes them strong so they can support more weight, but also light and easy to move.

For more Skeleton ideas, you can download this unit at one of our stores!

Activities include:

Literacy Activities:
Six Swinging Skeletons: Naming and Generating Beginning Sounds
Skeleton Town: Uppercase Alphabetical Order
Skeleton Dance: Matching Letters

Math Activities:

Skeleton Match-Up: Matching Quantity With Numbers
The Bone Yard: Counting Backwards

Songs
The Skeleton March
The Ghost of John

Art Projects
Skeleton Construct

Science
Q-Tip Skeletons: Following directions to make a skeleton.


Guided Reading Books
Skeleton
The Skeleton

Writing Prompts
What I Know About Skeletons
Skeleton Word Wall Words

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