First Week of School Booklet - September Activities

NEW PRODUCTS:
Assessment/Keepsake Booklet                                                                                September Activities

 

If you start teaching school tomorrow (That's right, today IS Labor Day) you'll want this inexpensive reproducible from my Teachers pay Teachers store. 5 pages in 5 days makes this a great keepsake booklet from the First Week in Kindergarten plus it gives teachers a quick assessment about the skills of their incoming students.
 Go to www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/kt-education

 

 

There's also a great new packet filled with September Activities that will help you work "Smarter, NOT Harder."  This can be found at www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/kt-education   

 



Comprehension Strategies - Pretelling and Retelling

Here's an idea from:
Assessing Comprehension: Creative, Engaging and Meaningful Activities for Kindergartners
Presented by Trish Saccomano at SDE (Staff Development for Educators) National I Teach K conference, July 11th - 14th, Las Vegas, Nevada

It's difficult to assess a non or beginning reader's comprehension skills, but it can be done through pretelling and retelling stories.  To retell a story successfully, a child must be able to think in a sequential manner.  So before children begin retelling a story, have them think backwards in order to recall events in sequential order.  Then students are ready to think forward in order to put the steps in the proper order. After practicing this skill, students are ready to begin retelling stories.  More about that later!

Use simple classroom routines, games or projects with your students to practice these pretelling skills.

 

Storytelling Cards Small Station

People, Places and Things

 

Storytelling cards are a set of cards that include people, places and things.  Have students pick one of each color card - blue are the people cards, green are the places cards and red are the things cards - and use the what's on the card to create a story.  The storyteller MUST include all three cards in their story.
Small Stations are independent learning stations designed for one or two students. They require limited teacher/student directions and take up very little space.  perfect for early finishers and ideal for differentiating instruction.  All small stations are just $5.50 each.  To order go to www.kteducation.com and click on products.



 

Alphabet Big Book

 Students will go back to this Big Book again and again . . .  because they made it!  

 

 I had the fantastic opportunity to present at the SDE (Staff Development for Educators) I Teach K National Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 11th - 14th.  Wow!  Room after room of  enthusiastic Kindergarten teachers (My kind of people!) getting new ideas for their Kindergarten classrooms.  Thanks to all the great people who joined me for my sessions. 

 

Here's an idea for a bookmaking session I presented at the I Teach K conference. I'll post more ideas from more sessions as the school year moves along.  

 

 

Alphabet Big Book

Letters of the Alphabet - Bookmaking

 

Prepare 26 big book pages by gluing 2 cutout letters, 1 capital and 1 lower case for each letter of the alphabet, to a half sheet of poster board. Children work in groups to create a page for each letter. They can draw pictures or place stickers that begin with that letter on the page. Add some handwriting samples of the letter as well as matching letters cut from magazines or newspapers. You could follow a certain format for each page or let them all be different; it's up to you and your students. Put all the pages together for a class ABC Big Book.

 

I put a white piece of paper in the middle and tell students NOT to draw or paste anything in that area. To finish off each page I take and paste a photograph of children whose names begin with that letter and an item or two from the classroom that also begins with that letter.  For example: If you look carefully at the picture below, you will see Clara, Colton and Connor pointing to the clock. 

 

I also laminate the handwriting paper at the bottom of each page so students can practice writing that particular letter. Wipe it off  so it's ready for the next person. 

 



More Clothespin Fun - Make Name Squares then . . . Clip It!

 

Great Literacy Activity for the first week of school!    

 

 

 Name Squares
Name Recognition & Small Motor Skills

All you need is paper, scissors, glue and magazines. Students cut out large letters to spell their names. They glue the letters onto 9" x 9" squares of construction paper or poster boards. Children may decorate their Name Squares with markers, stickers, drawings or pictures cut from magazines.  Laminate and save the Name Squares. Use them for the Clip It! activity described below. These can be used all year long for a variety of sorting and letter recognition activities.  

 

 

Clip It!

Visual Discrimination - Letters of the Alphabet

 

After students make Name Squares, it's time to use them again - this time for Clip It! - a literacy activity.  Write all the letters of the alphabet on clothespins. You will need to have several clothespins for each letter, especially the vowels. Children clip clothespins to the Name Squares matching all the letters in their own name. For example, the name Tom would have the clothespins T-O-M attached. Children will want to match names of their classmates too. They can revisit this activity again and again using different Name Squares each time.

 





Dollar Store Challenge - Clothespin Fun

 

 Literacy and Math: A picture is worth a thousand words . . .  Buy a pack of wooden clothespins ($1.00 at your local dollar store) and a package of tongue depressors (also $1.00).  The possibilities are endless!  

 

 

 



New Product on Teachers pay Teachers - Media Madness

New addition to my Teachers pay Teacher online store! Go to www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/kt-education and check out the preview pages. 

 

Visit my website too.  www.kteducation.com 

 

 

Media Madness uses leftover catalogs, old magazines and yesterday's newspaper to engage students in the SUPER 6 areas of the curriculum. The SUPER 6 areas are: Literacy, Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies and Arts & Crafts. There are 6 complete activities for each of these curriculum areas. That's 36 activities plus lots of extensions too.  72 pages of activities, recording sheets and photographs of real student artifacts are included.

 

Using these activities frees up teacher time for individual and small group teaching.

 

All activities include hands-on components, are easy to set up (teacher friendly), inexpensive and motivating for children.

 

All use recycled materials.  



Kindergartners at Work - June Activities

 

 New addition to my Teachers pay Teachers online store. Visit the store at www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/kt-education

 

Visit my store often as I will be posting new products - including freebies on a regular basis.  Check out my website too.   www.kteducation.com

 

Kindergartners At Work -  June Activities - 63 pages packed with activities from all curriculum areas to keep your students engaged and busy until the very last day of school!

Literacy: 6 word chunk wheels

Writing: building sentences using people, places and things cards

Math: hundred chart activities and puzzles

Science: exploring bubbles - oral language, book making, experiments, making bubble blowers and bubble solutions

Arts & Crafts: printmaking/painting - lots of ideas for making prints and using them for a variety of projects