Full of Beans!

Jack got more than he bargained for when he exchanged his beloved cow for a handful of magic beans.  Imagine the excitement in my classroom when I tell my students that I have a whole bunch of magic beans that can be used to create a variety of colourful and interesting patterns as we build our names.

This organizer is an excellent way to keep the beans sorted.
I print each child's name on heavy cardstock paper.

As the children create patterns on the letters in their names I encourage them to make each pattern different and challenge them to try their hands at "trickier" patterns (like double attributes or three different colours of beans).  Upon completion of their name we count the letters, identify the letter their name begins with, and write a simple "story" about their name to be displayed with their project.

I'm a strong believer in proudly displaying the hard work of my students.
The giant (sporting dark liver spots and feathery orange eyebrows) peeking
over the top of the bulletin board is fourteen years old.  I made him my
first year of teaching.  I guess you could say I'm also a strong believer in doing
something really well once and keeping it for a lifetime.

Hop To It!

One of my goals as a teacher of young children is to continually find ways to actively engage my students in learning.  I have been quite successful at resisting the temptation of plying my little learners with worksheets and reproduced "busy work".   I want my Kindergarten students to get up and move while interacting with one another!  Worksheets just don't do that (plus most five-year olds are not at the stage where they can sit independently for lengths of time while focusing on tasks which require large amounts of fine-motor coordination).  


This Easter Egg Delivery Egg-stravaganza game is the perfect activity to play with a group of 4 or 5 students during your Center Time or at Literacy Stations.  The curricular objective of the game is for students to match upper-case letters with their lower-case counterparts.  

Before you begin, place a number of "houses" with upper-case letters around the classroom.  Provide each student at the station with a basket full of paper Easter eggs with lower-case letters printed on them (these lower-case letters need to match the upper-case letters of your houses... or else there would be no matching and no point to the game).  The children then hop about the classroom (a sneaky way to work on large-muscle development during language arts instruction) delivering eggs to their correct houses.  I give each of my students a pair of floppy golden bunny ears to wear to really get everyone into the spirit.  Once everyone has finished delivering their eggs, we take down each house and go through the contents to ensure that there were no delivery mistakes.  At this point, to deepen the learning, we also talk about the corresponding sound each letter makes and I ask every student in the group to tell me a word that starts with the letter.  They can look for clues using the colourful alphabet posters that decorate our classroom.  This is definitely a much richer learning experience than an ABC worksheet.


Time Saving Tip:  I write the upper-case letters on the laminated houses with washable marker.  That way, I can customize the letters for the children in each group.  As well, I adapt this game over the course of the year.  In December, the children don Santa hats and deliver little paper holiday stockings to each house.  By February the children are ready to deliver valentine hearts with lower-case letters emblazoned on them.  By providing theme and variation the children think they are engaged in an all-new game while allowing them multiple attempts to practice and eventually master the skill of letter matching.  The possibilities are endless...

'Tis The Season

This is quite possibly my favourite time of the school year.  I am always amazed at the progress that my young students have made at this point.  Many of the children have more than doubled their knowledge regarding letter identification and number concepts since the last progress report!  

Student-Led Conferences are the perfect way to showcase the outstanding growth to parents.  Each child is scheduled to visit our classroom with their parents for a 30 minute block of time.  In that 30 minutes, they will visit 5 stations designed to highlight the knowledge and skills that we have been building over the past seven months.  Following are the five stations that the Busy Bees will guide their families through:

READING STATION:  I supply a number of familiar books for the children to choose from.  I want the reading task to be easy for the children allowing them to fluently read the text to their parents.  The directions for each station include suggested questions that parents may ask their children to deepen the conference conversation.

SHOPPING SPREE STATION:  The children play this math game to demonstrate their knowledge of numeral identification as well as their skill at counting objects (in this case pennies) using one-to-one correspondence.  I supply enough pennies so that mom and dad can join in the game.

SCIENCE SORTING STATION:  This task actually includes three major areas for the children to tackle.  First off, they demonstrate their fine-motor control by cutting out the seasonal pictures (both straight and curved lines!!).  Secondly, they have to decide which picture goes where.  Finally, they have to do all of this in a very short 5 minute span testing their time management skills.

SPIN-A-WORD STATION:  This station is simply a literacy game that we play throughout the year.  It is an easy, fun, and interactive way to get children to read a list of high-frequency words that we have been learning in class.  I encourage advanced players to think of a sentence that has their word in it.  I've learned from experience to supply a couple of chairs for parents to sit on... most adults seem reluctant to sit "criss-cross-applesauce" on the carpet.  Go figure!

ABC BINGO STATION:  And finally, a station to showcase letter/sound knowledge.  The parental questions supplied lead the children to use more information around the classroom including our alphabet letter posters and our Word Wall featuring high-frequency words and classmate's names.  And like any good Bingo parlour, upon completion the children can see me to collect their prize for a job well done (usually a bottle of bubbles or container of playdough... no cash pay-outs here).

QUICK TIPS:  I picked up the plastic direction holders when the Eaton's department store went out of business many years ago.  You can find similar display items at office supply stores but they can be very costly.  

I attach clusters of balloons to each station as a way of ensuring that families visit the correct areas in our classroom (not sneak off to the block center or dig around in the sand table).  The balloons also make our classroom look festive for the evening. 

Finally, prior to the event, I send home a couple of reminders about the format of the Student-Led Conference.  I always mention that "because the children need the undivided attention of their parents, siblings are not invited to attend the activities".