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)
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 :)
