Penguin Fun!

     This week we started a penguin unit in my class. I had so much fun creating our first nonfiction unit. My kinders are really enjoying the real pictures in the books and learning all of the interesting facts. To begin the unit I asked the students to share anything they already know about penguins. I put their responses on sticky notes. I then explained what a nonfiction text is, and we went through the books and looked at the labeling, close up pictures, and subtitles. I pointed out the Emperor penguin in some pictures and told the students that the Emperor penguin is the tallest penguin. We then graphed whether we thought the Emperor penguin was taller than us. The next day I told the students I had a surprise for them and I brought out a 4 foot tall Emperor penguin I made out of paper. We estimated how many unifix cubes tall we thought he was then proceeded to measure him with unifix cubes. The penguin was 66 unfix cubes tall if you were wondering :)

     I added the post-it notes from what we knew about penguins before doing any reading under What do we know about penguins? As we continue to read books and find out more about penguins we are adding more post-it notes under the new learning heading.
     After reading some more we filled in a penguin bubble map with important facts. You can download it below :) I made it into a poster using our poster maker and laminated it so it can be reused!  Also below the download is a picture of what we filled in as a class.
Penguin Information Bubble Map

     After filling in the bubble map, we began working on our own nonfiction penguin fact books. Below you can grab a copy! I copied the first two pages back to back and the second two back to back on light blue paper, so the jacket of the book would be blue. I will post samples once they finish. Penguin Fact Book

FYI for some reason the lines of the book are showing up dotted in this window but when you click download, the pdf is fine!

*If you download, please follow my blog and comment :) Thank you for visiting!

-at, -an, & -it Word Family Game

Yay! Lots of freebies were posted this weekend! After downloading one of Caitlin's freebies from Kindergarten Smiles I got an idea for a game. We will be starting on our third word family in January, so i decided to make a word family review game similar to the CVC game Caitlin posted. You can download it below. Just cut the cards, laminate, and enjoy!

Side note: I put Klatt in there because it is our principals last name. You can just not use that card :)

Please comment & follow if you download :)

 -at,-an-,it Word Family Game

At, An, It Word Family Game

Five Senses

I teach each kindergarten science unit to all four full day kindergarten classes. I have done two of the four units so far. I started with the five senses and I wanted to share some of the fun things we did. I did centers for three of the senses on one Friday and centers for the other two senses on the next Friday. I introduced the senses with the big book My Five Senses by Aliki. 

 

We started with hearing, sight and smell. I put many different items (including cotton balls) in cookie tins that I decorated. The students had to shake them and make predictions based on only what they heard. For the sense of sight I put out a bunch of picture books and textured puzzle pieces at a table for the students to look at using magnifying glasses and kaleidoscopes so they could see how sight can be altered. Lastly I bought some fruit scented playdough for the learning store and had the students form the fruit they thought the play dough smelled like.

The following Friday we concentrated on taste and touch. For the taste center I made a giant tongue with a red poster board. I labeled the different taste buds on the tongue using their names and a picture (i.e. I wrote sour on a lemon cut out).  The kids then sorted pictures of foods into how they taste (sweet, sour, or salty-I didn't use bitter because I thought it may be hard for them to sort considering I don't know many foods that are classified bitter myself!) For the food pictures I bought a food pyramid mini bulletin board aid. 

 

For the sense of the touch the students played a super fun game called Ned's Head. The students draw cards and have to stick their hands either in Ned's ears or nostrils and try to find the item shown on the card using only their sense of touch. They had a blast with this game!

I needed one extra center so I also put out a bunch of Mr. Potato Heads for the students to play with since I used him to review the senses before we starting the second set of centers. 

 

Snowman Domino Addition

Found this idea at Mrs. Morrow's Kindergarten blog, she didn't remember where she got her original so I made this one :) I think my students will have lots of fun with this!
Snowman Domino Addition

Please follow my blog and comment if you download. Thanks!

CVC Words

Ever since I discovered Pinterest I can't get enough! I have found so many great teaching blogs with hundreds of fun ideas. I made the following worksheet after seeing a similar one at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten blog. The students roll dice (can be made with card stock) with consonants and vowels on them to form 3 letter CVC words. Then they write the letters in the snowmen. The students will then decide if the word they formed is real or nonsense and color the snowmen accordingly.
Roll a Word (CVC-3 Letter Words)
Please follow my blog and comment if you download. Thanks!

Finger Spaces

I seen this idea in a Really Good Stuff catalog and then on Pinterest and I decided I had to make my own! Some of my kindergarten students are not using finger spaces when writing, so I made them these spaceman popsicle sticks to use as a reminder. I even made my own with a jumbo popcicle stick that I could use when writing in front of the class :)