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

Firemen go to Kindergarten

This week we introduced our students to firemen 

as an important community helper 

by inviting the community fire department to visit our school.

Afternoon Class

We also have been doing activities that can be found in our 

Firemen and other Community Helpers Unit that is available at our on-line stores. 

The students are loving the activities and while learning fireman facts 

are able to practice common core skills yet again in a fun-authentic way.

Check out our 90 page unit today and you will find...

Literacy Activities:

ABC Firemen: Letter Identification
Race Up the Ladder: Identifying Syllables
Help The Helpers: Beginning Sounds
Fireman Fluency Flash: Beginning Fluency

Math Activities:
Fireman Number Race: Matching Numerals to Quantity 1-6
Cop Patrol: Identifying, Creating & Extending Patterns
The Fire Station: Five Frames
Fire Truck 1-10: Ordering Numbers

Worksheets The Fireman Race
Around the Town
Fireman Portfolio Page

Art Projects Construct a Fire truck
Construct a Fireman
Fire Safety Arm Band
Policeman/Fireman Hat
Draw a Fireman

Writing Prompts/Word Wall
Word Wall Words
All About Fireman
What Might I be?

Guided Reading Book
The Fireman

Song Posters
My Neighborhood
People Who Help
Ding Ding Ding
Five Little Firemen
The Policeman

Fall Themed Guided Reading Books for Early Emergent Readers

Don't loose valuable teaching time and wait to start guided reading just because your reading series may lead you that way. Check out our "Fall Guided Reading Books" at either of our on-line stores. These simple books are great to teach early reading strategies such as: 1) Sit in reading position. 2) Point at the word your voice is saying. 3) Use the pictures for clues.

Your students will love these simple books with great text, ready to color pictures, and engaging endings. Or, if you are a parent looking for a way to promote reading at home, these books will offer the needed support you are looking for.


The price is great too! Get these five books for only $4.00.

Fall and Harvest Thematic Units

Signs of fall are officially in clear view and it is time
to bring the season into the classroom!


A great way to start is by throwing some dried corn and wheat into the sensory table. (If you don't have a farm, feed, or garden store nearby, both can be purchased at most large grocery stores.)

Check out our 84 page Fall Thematic Unit 

and 

74 page Harvest Thematic Unit:

Both are filled with great ideas for immediate use. 

(See itemized lists below)

This unit is divided into areas of literature, media, music, art, literacy activities, math activities, worksheets, science activities, creative writing, word wall words, and guided reading. 

The lessons (games or activities) included are scripted,  clearly written, easy to use, and need limited amounts of preparation. In fact, after the initial preparation all activities can be filed and used with confidence with no additional  preparation for years to come! 

This  format 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:

 Letter Whoo: Identifying Upper & Lowercase Letters

 Collecting Acorns: Blending Onset/rime

 Catching Crows: Identifying Letters

 Hidden Sounds: Identifying Beginning Sounds.

Math Activities:

 Scarecrow Patterns: Making shapes with pattern blocks

 Whatʼ s Missing: Developing observation & descriptive skills

 Leaf Count: Counting Leaves

 Leaf Graph: Graphing Leaves

 Leaf Hunt: Ordering Numbers

Worksheets

My Leaf Book

Trace and Write Letters A-Z

Writing numbers 1-10

Writing Prompts/Word Wall

Scarecrows

All About Autumn

Harvest Word Wall Words

Guided Reading Book

Fall Leaves

Science

 A Tree For All Seasons: Creating trees to represent

the four seasons

 A Fall Walk: Observing and recording the change of

season found around the school yard

 Seasonal Change of a Tree: Using senses to

observe and record the seasonal changes of a tree.

Art Projects

Leaf Person

Fall Leaves

Leaf Rubbings

Drawing Lesson: A Shapely Scarecrow

Pattern Block Scarecrow

Leaf Painting

Fall Tree

Songs

Autumn Leaves

Pick It Up

Scarecrow

The Harvest unit is divided into areas of literature, media, music, art, literacy activities, math activities, worksheets, science activities, creative writing, word wall words, 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:

Apple Tree Rhymes: Producing Rhyming Words

Harvesting Spuds: Identifying Uppercase Letters

Harvest ABC Train: Letter Identification

The Country Store: Clapping Syllables

Math Activities:

Ordering Baskets: Ordering objects from least to greatest.

Harvest Sorting: Sorting potatoes or apples into groups

Harvest Balancing: Experimenting with a balance

Number Bingo: Identifying the numbers 0-12

Worksheets

Trace and Write Letters A-Z

Fall Patterns

Writing Prompts/Word Wall

What I Know About Apples

Pumpkins

Harvest Word Wall Words

Guided Reading Books

In The Fall

Science

Apple Experiment: Examining an apple using math and science skills.

Pumpkin Report: Recording Observations

Art Projects

Potato People

Potato Truck Portfolio Page

Apple Thumbprints Portfolio Page

Apple Prints

Construct Pumpkin 

Songs

One Potato

I Like Potatoes

Apples

The Apple Tree

Applesauce

The Pumpkin Patch

Check them out today and enjoy!!!

American Indian Day at Kindergarten

American Indian Day is celebrated on the fourth Friday of each September.
We are lucky to have an Indian Reservation within our school district's boundaries.
 Today we celebrated the Native American Culture in style!

First we used dyed salad macaroni to make our very own beaded necklace!

(To dye, add food coloring and rubbing alcohol to salad macaroni.
Spread out on parchment sheets and dry overnight.)

Next, we created fanciful Indian Dancers from Tangrams and 1" Blocks.

Pattern and scripted lesson for this activity
can be found in our Thanksgiving Unit.

We were then entertained by the Indian Dancers
who shared their rich culture of dance with us!
And of course we cheered for our classmate that was among the dancers!

Featured Shop on Teachers Notebook!

We are so excited! We are the featured shop this week at...

Please visit their amazing site and celebrate with us!

Happy First Day of Fall!

The first day of fall is here, and here in Utah the weather has been a lovely 80 degrees all week long. I must admit that this is my very favorite season and I was so excited to get out my Harvest Unit. Here are some of the things I'm putting together.



Fall Harvest vegetables at the Science Center. For now I will be letting the children make observations about what they see on the outside. Later, I will cut them open so that the children can make observations about the insides.











Feed Corn at the sensory center.







Painting apples trees at the art center. The trunk was made by painting each child's arm up to the palm, the leaves were finger painted, and the apples were made with thumbs.For more harvest ideas, visit our store.