Together We Are Better

Our district has a Thanksgiving Unit of Study that kindergarten teachers implement during this time of year. It is the story of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag working together to reach common goals. We open up the unit with collaborative activities in groups of four but I will talk about that in another post. Here is the pictorial I made to help the children retell the story. If you are not familiar with this GLAD strategy I recommend learning more about it. It is great for ELL's. Each title and picture has velcro so that I can hand out the pieces and make the learning more interactive!
The Mayflower is on a stick so a student can show the journey the pilgrims took. All of this helps to build oral language.

To help support this unit I made a few extra activities I thought my students might really enjoy. There is a lot of new content vocabulary they need to know so I made a separate set of cards just for this unit. We can refer to it as we travel through the unit and it will help support their writing. I attached all the cards and it is a mobile that can be moved around the classroom. What do you think?

We are continuing to work on syllables and I thought they would love to do this in a pocket chart as drum beats. I better look for those musical instruments that I packed away. I thought it would be fun to stay with the Native American theme here.

Here is another version of our pocket chart sight word game but this time I am hiding a wetu behind one of the Wampanoags. I better think of a good chant for this before tomorrow!

This is just a simple math game 0-10 showing a variety of ways to express a number. I thought it would be fun to do this on the sails of the Mayflower and add Pilgrims and Wampanoags to the pictures. 

There is so much more I could add but I have too much to teach in just five days so I think I better stick to just these few but I also have a packet that I use during this time with great little emergent readers: I made this last year but I love many of these ideas

Both of these are available in my store if you might need a little extra for your math and literacy stations. Click on each picture to find them. What Thanksgiving activities do you love to do? 

Have a great week of learning!

Please Label Your Parts... A Lima Bean Pictorial and Cut and Paste Freebie!

As you move along during your Plant Unit your beans will begin to grow and once they start sprouting leaves I like to create a pictorial (GLAD strategy ) in front of my students so we can talk about the parts of the plant and what it needs to grow.Use large chart paper for this. Remember to just outline your picture in light pencil so you can draw it with marker or crayons while the students are watching and you are talking and confirming their knowledge of  each part. Add the details of the picture by asking questions such as, "What does our bean need so it will grow?" and you can even invite students up to add rain, sun, soil, etc. This will keep them more engaged as you are working on the pictorial. Some teachers allow students to color the pictorial later but often I just fill in the color with scrapbooking chalk which fills it with color quickly and effectively. I love the soft look of this. Be sure to label the parts to build academic vocabulary and review this daily, adding on as you see fit.
At this time I often hand out white boards and markers and do a guided drawing of this with the children. Sometimes I will do it the following day as a review.
The follow up to this is a cut and paste that the children do independently after we have gone over the parts of the lima bean plant numerous times. They have to follow the key on the right to color it properly and this is  ideal for reviewing color words. Have you "bean" growing lima beans in your room? I hope so! Would you like this little cut and paste? Click here but please remember to leave a comment and share your planting ideas. Thanks so much.

GLAD to see a Common Core Strategy Return

How many of you are familiar with GLAD strategies?  GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design in case you have never heard of this. These are being used again in our district as part of of our lesson designs when building Common Core units. Why is this such a big deal. It works!
Teachers often put these pictorials on large sheets of white butcher paper and use a projector to lightly trace the image with a pencil. This is then put up in the classroom and created in front of the students using markers while you are talking about what is being created. This might be the only time my students are quiet. This process fascinates them. Now to make this more dramatic I use scrapbooking chalk to add the color quickly and easily but I am asking them for their input..."Hummm I need to make this an ocean  so what color should I use?"  The first day might just be the map but as I teach them about the journey the Pilgrims took on the Mayflower I am adding labels. This can be done right on the paper but I have mine color coded and on velcro so it can be more interactive. Notice that the Mayflower is on a separate stick that the children can move across the ocean to show the path they took.  I have have students come up and add pieces as they become more familiar with the story. Make them think. When the Pilgrims got to America what do you thing they made their houses out of? There were lots of trees in the forest. Who wants to put some of these on my pictorial? Where did they find food? Do careful questioning based on the story you have read and you are using a non fiction piece of text to build their understanding and they are putting evidence on this picture to support their comprehension. Our curriculum specialist came up with this idea and I loved it! The labels help to build academic vocabulary. Clap out the syllables and pay attention to beginning sounds. Students can add their own pictures to this unit as you move forward and it stays up while you are teaching about an important American holiday. What do you think about this?