Page 5
August 2000
A first look at the "finished" teaching wall, and it's a bit blurry. The three boxes on the floor are Literacy Centers ... one is Song & Poetry cards, one is Big Books, and one is ABC Big Books (mainly the Leap Frog Press "Apple Annie" books). The large empty spot below the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom sign will become a student quilt in a couple weeks. I'll use the space for daily graphing until then, as you can see in the picture below. The sentence strips stapled to the wall are my September Good Morning Song. Above the song is my Good Apple Behavior chart.
A close up shot of the graphs we will be doing all through the first two weeks of school, updating them whenever a new student arrives. I use post its stuck to the paper so I can easily change the number of boys/girls/kids in all. If you're looking for some new and fun graphing ideas, check out Super Graphs, Venns, & Glyphs: Hundreds of Great Data Collecting Activities to Build Real-Life Math Skills, from Scholastic ... the glyphs are especially fun, and kids really enjoy seeing how everyone's finished product is slighty (or greatly) different. Another must-have graphing book from Scholastic is Graphing Across the Curriculum Grades K -1.
Other great math resource books include Instant! Interactive! Incredible! Math Bulletin Boards That Teach for Grades 1-3, Instant Math Storymats: With Hands-On Activities That Build Essential Primary Math Skills,
Looking back towards the counters and sink ... I hang posters and charts any place I can find room, and believe in having LOTS and LOTS of alphabets around for the KinderKids to read, because repetition builds fluency and comprehension and because having many alphabet charts spaced around the room keeps the children from all piling up in one area..
A long shot looking down the teaching wall (you can see my clothesline hanging from the ceiling ... I use it to hang art projects and child-made seasonal decorations).
If you're new to the interactive Math Their Way type calendar and are
wondering what types of activities you might want to incorporate in your
calendar time (which can last from 2 to 20 minutes or longer), the following
books are filled with ideas and activities: 20th
Anniversary Edition Mathematics Their Way Package, which includes the
original MTW book and the all-important resource binder/newsletter.
You can also order just the original book, Mathematics,
A Way of Thinking, which is filled with great activities, calendar
routines, and workjobs. Another book with lots of great Math Their
Way type ideas is Beyond
the Book: Activities and Projects from Classrooms Like Yours.
My reading chair, easel, and tons of books already out and ready to read tomorrow morning, Monday August 28, 2000 -- our first day of school. We'll be reading The Kissing Hand, which is always a hit, Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten (and maybe making a class book using some of the picutes I've used on these pages), and two terrific books by P.K. Hallinan (my featured author for September) ... My Teacher's My Friend and My First Day of School.
Other first week themes are Humpty Dumpty and Birthdays, plus stories about school, all of which have wonderful follow up activities for the kids. For more info -- and links to my 7 beginning of the year themes -- visit the First Day and First Week of School page in the Back to School section on the KinderKorner website.
A close up shot of the new Birthday chart I made this week. It's laminated, so I can write on it with a Vis-a-Vis marker and use it year after year. When one of my KinderKids has a birthday, they get to choose the Birthday Book they want me to read to the class. Favorites include Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch, The Secret Birthday Message by Eric Carle, On the Day You Were Born by Debra Frasier, The Birthday Bear by Antonie Shneider, and Some Birthday! by Patricia Polacco.
Be sure to check out my thematic unit on Birthdays on the KinderKorner website. It's filled with songs, poems, stories, and fun ways to celebrate.
Another close up, this time of my brand new friend Little Leap, from Leap Frog publishing. He teaches phonics and phonemic awareness in a fun ways! I found him at Target in mid-August, and know the kids will adore him. The book to his left is my newest starting kindergarten story, and I can't wait to share it with the KinderKids. It's called Tom Goes to Kindergarten, and is a great story about separation anxiety with a very cute twist -- Mom, Dad, and Baby are very disappointed they don't get to go to kindergarten with Tom everyday.
The big easel is where I do shared reading and writing, modeled writing,
and create Language Experience charts (Month by Month Phonics for Kindergarten
is full of great ideas and lesson plans). Books that have been especially
helpful to me (and are always in a box on the floor, at the foot of the
easel) include
Getting
the Most Out of Morning Message and Other Shared Writing Lessons, Phonics
That Work! New Strategies for the Reading/Writing Classroom, and the
updated edition of Phonics
They Use: Words for Reading and Writing by Pat Cunningham.
