Counting and Cardinality

This summer I am learning more about technology and relating it to the common core standards.  For my first project, I created a podcast explaining KCC 5.  I have never created a podcast before, so this was a learning curve for me, but I think it turned out well enough to post so that perhaps someone else can benefit from this.  I wrote it with both parents and teachers in mind. I hope someone finds this helpful.

KCC 5 Counting and Subitizing
 

Leveling Books

This coming school year, I will be implementing Reader's Workshop in my classroom.  Our District is moving towards the reader's workshop/writer's workshop model of teaching as part of our balanced literacy program. I implemented writer's workshop last year, but reader's workshop will be new this year.  In order to get ready for this change, I decided to take home every somewhat-leveled book in my classroom this summer to really level according to guided reading levels. I figured summer would be the best time, right? This has not been an easy task. Finding the levels of each book has been tricky to say the least.  As I am winding down my leveling job (only 4 more buckets to go) I thought maybe there is someone else out there who could benefit from some of what I have learned:

1) I Bought a Fountas and Pinnell leveled book website membership.  http://www.fountasandpinnellleveledbooks.com  It is $25.00 for a year and has been helpful, but....

2) Their "old" book that I have has been most helpful - I guess I must have "old" books

http://www.amazon.com/Matching-Books-Readers-Leveled-Reading/dp/0325001936

3) Also somewhat helpful is the Scholastic Book Wizard, but many books I have seem to come up with no guided reading level.  http://www.scholastic.com/bookwizard/

4) Thus I have been typing in the publisher and series i.e. Newbridge Discovery links, and getting all the titles and levels from the publishers sight. This even seems to work for books via Scholastic - strange but true

5) I have also found that typing "guided reading level for (insert name of book here)" into Google sometimes yields results.  

The last thing I struggled with was what criteria to use to level the books if you just can't find the guided reading level out there anywhere (thus the last 4 buckets I have to work on)

Today I found something on Mrs. Wills Kindergarten blog that was not meant for this purpose, but will be most helpful. http://www.mrswillskindergarten.com

The date of her post was June 20 2013, as I am not sure the above link will take you directly to the correct post.  She has leveled reading brochures for parents posted as a freebie.  In the brochures, she describes the different levels in a way that I find helpful for leveling my own books.  

I also found cute labels for my book buckets and books (I didn't actually use the  book labels.)  I found that after many years stickers seem to fall off, so I put a sticker dot on the front of each book with the level and wrote the level on the back in case the sticker fell off. The labels are from Ladybug's Teacher Files http://www.ladybugsteacherfiles.com/2011/03/leveled-bin-and-book-labels-letters-to.html

That's it in a nutshell.  Hopefully this is beneficial to someone else too.

Presidents' Day

In a half day program it is always a challenge to find the time to fit in a social studies or science theme.  Reading, writing  and math seem to just take a lot of the time out of the day.  These next two weeks, however, we will be learning about presidents and national symbols.  I really love the online resources for the Scholastic kindergarten magazine Let's Find Out.  This month there is a particularly good video about George Washington.  Sometimes they offer them for free even if you are not a subscriber. You can check to see at http://letsfindout.scholastic.com.  These movies are short with just enough, but not too much information for kindergarten.  (and short is always preferable in half day kindergarten)  I am also planning to use the Washington/Lincoln movie from last February in their archive.  It is also good and will help us complete a Washington/Lincoln venn diagram.  Along with the Let's Find Out resources, I have found two good free online activities to use for math stations and of course Mr Harry's Presidents' Day song/video.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Flip-That-Penny-A-Presidents-Day-Graphing-Activity

http://livelovelaughkindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/02/presidents-day-math-and-freebie.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDJB0QbT32A

I also made a couple of grab and count sheets to practice our penny counting, adding and subtracting.  I have not tried the adding and subtracting version at any time yet this year, so I am only posting the counting version until I can give them a try with my students.

Grab and Count (credits to dreamstime for penny clip art, Carson Dellosa for hand, Hello Fonts for hello spot font)

100 Days!

I tried my new schedule this past week and it worked very well - yea!  This coming week it will be our 100th day of school, so I have been planning stations for math revolving around the number 100.  After pursuing several blogs and not really finding what I wanted, I went back to some great websites that I have always referred to and got the ideas that I needed.  Here are the math station activities that I will be doing  3-4 days this week:

100 Tally Marks Game
I am planning to have a parent help with this partner dice game as it can be a little tricky for my students
100 Board Puzzles
I made several different color-coded puzzles of varying difficulty
Counting to 100 by 10's or 5's
I do not have the discs that are shown on this website, but thought I'd try using pennies
100 Gumballs in The Jar
I'm planning to use the numbered jar and have the children find the numbers 1 to 100 as they cover each number with a dot of paint using dot paint markers
Large 100 Board Activity
I have a large vinyl 100 board and thought that I might try my own kindergarten style version of this activity

On the actual 100th Day we won't be doing math stations, but will be making necklaces with 100 beads by counting 10 groups of ten beads and placing a divider between each group.  We are also making 100th day hats and a super large hundred chart with numbers that the children are decorating for homework.  Hopefully I can snap a few pictures to post soon, just in case anyone is actually reading this :)

                                                      
                                   

Starting Out

About this Blog

I am a half day kindergarten teacher.  I enjoy reading blogs of other kindergarten teachers, but feel discouraged sometimes as it seems that everyone teaches a full day program.  Although I taught full day and extended day kindergarten programs at one point in my life, I have been in half day kindergarten for the last 12 years and it does not seem to me like that is going to change any time soon.  With  the new common core standards upon us, I wanted a place to connect with other half day kindergarten teachers and brainstorm ways to keep the fun and the play in half day kindergarten.  I can show you some ways I fit in as much as possible - I can't say I ever feel like I really fit it all in - but most of all keep it balanced.