Counting by 5's

" Make a straight line over, then a strait line down, then a nice big curve half way around!  It's a real cool  number, come on let's try, sing along with me and COUNT BY 5'S! "  So goes the count by 5's song on Jack Hartman's Math All Around Me CD.  To enhance this song, and make the numbers more meaningful I made count by 5's gloves.

I acquired 5 sets of orange rubber gloves and 5 sets of blue rubber gloves.  I wrote the numbers needed to count by 5's in a pattern on each pair.  For example, 5 and 10 are on a set of blue gloves, 15 and 20 on orange and so on.  I did this so that if I had a small class, each student could have a pair of gloves but the numbers would still be in order.
To use the gloves, we stand in a circle and I pass out the gloves in order.  Some students get 1 glove, some get a pair, depending on class size.  As we sing the song, the student displays the number we are counting.  (I stand behind the correct number the first few times until the kids get used to holding up their number.)  I point out that each glove has 5 fingers, so we are counting 100 fingers by 5's.  A whole lot faster than counting 100 fingers by 1's!
Later on I will let the students use the gloves independently to put in order and count by 5's.
This also makes a great small group math game or center.

April the Snowman

April 15, 2013

I am a big fan of thematic units and come April, I want to delve into spring and all the learning opportunities therein, but this year the weather is not cooperating!  My students had 1 day of recess with no snow pants, boots, hats or mittens, just regular shoes and jackets.  They were free, racing around the playground with glee!  We spend the learning day talking about the change in season, writing about the weather changes and signs of spring, reading about spring weather and doing spring related math activities.  The next day, snow!  One of my students came to school and exclaimed "Teacher!  Winter came back!"  What is a teacher to do?  Roll with it, modify and keep on teaching!  We are still keeping a tally chart of how many robins we see.  We used the snow to make clouds for our science experiment on rain.  (See science activities)  We connected with the weather by writing about what we like to do when the weather is rainy or snowy and read about characters in similar situations.  I did my best to stay optimistic and promise that spring will eventually get here.  After our 2nd snowstorm of the week another dear little learner said to me "Isn't it a pretty day!?  I'm a snow bunny, I love the snow!"
Well, this is a spring for all the snow bunnies out there.  Hang in there, the flowers are coming!

Boo Bowling

Draw a simple face on a piece of paper, attach to any type of stand alone container and you have a set of pins!

Halloween and our study of 3 dimensional shapes happen at the same time.  Here is  a fun, hands on Halloween and shape game.  Create a set of ghost pins by drawing a simple face on a white piece of paper and taping it to cylindrical shaped containers.  I used oatmeal containers and 1 coffee can.  Make 10 ghosts.

Use any ball or sphere to knock the pins down.

You can also create a graph of how many cylinders each student knocked down to teach graph interpretation and probability.

If you want to be extra thematic the students can wear a cone or pyramid shaped witch's hat or birthday hat and/or try using a cube or rectangular prism (made from appropriately sized and shaped boxes, such as a cereal box or  tissue container) to knock the cylinders down.  You can also graph which shape was used to knock the cylinders down and determine which shape is best at rolling.

Happy Bowling!

If you have feelings and you know it...

Dr. Jean does her own version of the song "If Your Happy and You Know It".

During a recent unit about feelings we did that song and I modified it a bit to include more feelings.  You don't need Dr. Jean's versions if you know the tune of "If Your Happy and You Know It."

Here are the modified verses:

If your scared and you know it hug yourself.

If your proud and you know it kiss your brain.

If your silly and you know it wiggle all over.

If your excited and you know it shout "Hooray!"

If you have feeling and you know it do them all.

We also have a song for the feeling angry to the same tune.

If your angry and you know it count to 10.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10! (repeat)

If your angry and you know it,  

It's okay, you can control it!

If your angry and you know it count to 10.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10!

Additional verses:

If your angry and you know it, walk away. (pantomime walking away)

If your angry and you know it take a break.  (rest head on hands)

Enjoy your feelings!

Personal Space

Along the same lines as controlling our volcanoes is being aware of personal space.
Another great book by Julia Cook and Carrie Hartman is called Personal Space Camp.
In the story, Principal Goodkid guides a group of kids through a variety of activities that help them become aware of personal space.  One of the ideas I adapted for my classroom is putting a hula hoop around a child to help him/her notice his/her personal space.  I found small hula hoops that I keep in a handy location near the class rug.  When a child is losing control of his/her body and bothering others I put the hula hoop around him/her and say, "This is your space, you need to stay inside this space and no one else can come inside your space."  This also works for kids who have a hard time with others getting too close to them.
So far it's really helping with a physical model of how much space a person should take on the rug.
I hope this helps anyone else dealing with space issues.

Control your Volcano

I was getting desperate.  I'm not too proud to admit it.  I have 5 kids in my class with real impulse control issues.  I reached out to my Kindergarten teacher community.  One person suggested books by Julia Cook.  I checked them out on Amazon.   My Mouth is a Volcano was out of stock and I needed something now.
So I improvised this lesson.  I took our volcano model and I brought the kids to the circle.  Each person took a small plastic person from a tub of math manipulatives.  I talked to them about how each of us is like a volcano.  We have thoughts and ideas inside us but when we erupt by yelling out, making purposeless noise and letting our bodies get out of control, it affects the learning of everyone around us.
I named specific behaviors and used the names of specific kids. (nicely of course)  I believe in corrective feedback and explicit instruction, so it was important for me to give real examples of what specific kids do on a daily basis, but in a teaching way, not a put down way. 
I had my 5 impulsive kids put their people in the mouth of the volcano (which they thought was pretty cool).  The rest of my kids and I put our people around the volcano.  Then I erupted it with baking soda a vinegar (which all the kids thought was pretty cool.)  We talked about how the eruption from a few people got all over us, and we didn't like it. When we get erupted on, we can't learn or do any of our jobs.  Then we role played disruptive behavior.  When someone "erupts" we say "Control your volcano!".  The "erupter" then takes a deep breath and says "okay".
We also talked about how we can do some erupting outside a recess.
This lesson has given everyone ownership of their own learning and a corrective statement for those disrupting that learning.  It also gives the disruptive students a calming action and the understanding that what they do affects everyone in our class, not just me.
I shared this strategy with all the teachers who work with my kids so we can have a universal statement with universal meaning.

I hope this helps all of us with impulsive kids.

The First Day of School

The school were I teach starts before labor day.  My first day of kindergarten was a lot like herding cats while running through sand.  Everything takes a long time because the kids don't know the routines yet!  Even though I know this, I always underestimate what this means until I'm in the mist of all those beautiful 5-year-olds, their shiny new outfits and expectant expressions.

This year presented extra challenges for me because I completely changed my room arrangements, which impacted how my routines worked.  I had to invent a new way to line up because of the furniture arrangement,  I had to search for my recess whistle because I stored the outside toys differently, etc.  I also have twice as many boys and I do girls.  Anyone who has experienced this type of demographic can tell you that a male-majority class requires different energy.  I will be learning a lot about that this year.

One idea that has helped me quite a bit over the years is to write myself a letter after the first day and remind myself about what to expect and what works and what I should absolutely not do!  I put the letter in box of beginning of the year supplies, on top, so I can read it right away.  This years letter was right on target.  I am so glad I listen to myself!

Have a great first day!  Don't stress and enjoy the new crop of kids.