It All Started with the Dinosaurs

 I am starting this blog to challenge myself to create more hands on learning opportunities for my students. I am a nerd at heart. I love learning. I want my students to love learning. Learning should be fun especially for five year olds. 
   I am not new to this blogging thing. In 2011, I started a blog about my son's medical journey with HCM. But shortly after his open heart surgery, I stopped blogging. It is a bit different. So, be patient with me ,dear reader, as I figure all this out.  

 What I do know is teaching and as I say this, I have no disillusions of being Deanna Jump , Greg Smedley-Warren, or Melissa from The Printable Princess. If you haven't checked out their pages, you need to. They are AMAZING! I am just your average, kindergarten teacher at a Title 1 school. This is my twelfth year teaching. Most of my time has been in kindergarten but I have taught 1st, 2nd and as an intervention teacher.  Reading is my passion, but this year I have made it a challenge to get better at teaching math. 

We love Math. This week my little friends worked on identifying greater than and less than in numbers to 20. Like I said Hands On. So, I created some centers. I feel like even in centers students need something to turn or they get off task. I totally made these worksheets for me, this is what I want on my students papers. I included the learning goal right on the paper. Let's face it, it is best practices for students to know why they are doing what you ask. Also, if you are required to follow Marzano, it is providing a clear learning goal.  I created the worksheets to have a writing component to add rigor and to show evidence of learning. My favorite part is the check for understanding at the bottom of the page. It gets students thinking about where they are in the learning process.  

 Dinosaur Greater than Less Than  

 We did this activity as a mini lesson for my little friends who needed a little extra help. I differentiated this even more with my struggling students by having them put beans on the black dots in the tens frames as they counted. This activity was put in a center for my friends to practice the next day.

 Getting these little ones to talk in the beginning of the year is like pulling teeth. We practice a lot of accountable talking. As we finish up centers, we do a quick check for understanding. Students tell a partner how they know which card has more.

 

We like to keep our hands busy. So to practice our sight words, we write them in shaving cream. The school I am at uses IRLA.   Our high frequency words are referred to as power words. I play a power word video from you tube and deliberately stop the video on the words we need to focus on. The students read and write the power word.

My little friends LOVE to play Jenga.  On one side of the each block,  a sight word is written. On the other side I wrote either a letter or a number.  When a student pulls a block, they read the sight word to the other players. If they do not know the sight word, they can  choose another option on the block, either ( depending on their skill level) say the letter and sound it makes, say a word that begins with the letter or count to the number on the block.

   Reading is my absolute favorite. I want my little friends to LOVE reading as much as I do.  During independent reading time, I pull out a small tent, a tunnel  and some comfy pillows for the students to enjoy while reading quietly.  My students LOVE to read in the fun spaces.

These are put away super quick as students put their book boxes away.  It makes reading fun for my little ones.

On nice days we also do buddy reading outside.

I am hoping to have weekly updates with fun "Hann's On" activities to make learning fun. If you have a favorite blog that you like to read or a fun hands on activity, please share in the comments below.  I am always looking for ideas for the classroom. I promise to give credit where credit is due.  I know as teachers we spend way too much time planning.  With this blog, I am hoping to help share ideas and hold myself accountable with my challenge to create more hands on activities to make learning fun.