New Number Activities (a freebie too)

December is just around the corner, and so is Christmas. 

I am getting ready for our new December Christmas theme in JK,

so I've created a BUNCH of new Christmas-themed activities.

Here are just a couple of the math activities.

(You can find the rest of them in my on-line TPT and Teacher's Notebook shops.)

The first is a number sorting activity.

I love using these activities for math centres.  

(We have done the same activity sorting letters.)

The children get some wonderful fine motor skill practice, cutting and pasting, 

as well as number matching practice.

You can find this activity {here} or {here}.

The next free activity is a numbers hunt write-the-room activity.

You just hide the number cards around the room, 

give the children a recording sheet, 

and let them hunt for the cards, 

match the picture, 

and write their numbers 1-10.

They LOVE going on scavenger hunts, and now instead of words and letters,

they are hunting for numbers.

This free activity can be found {here} or {here}.

Teddy Bear Day

Last Friday was Teddy Bear day in JK!

We all brought in a stuffed animal friend to spend the day with us.  The children were so excited to have a friend from home that they could hug and share their day with. 

 Even our EA brought in her special teddy bear from home! This teddy bear moved, talked, danced and sang!  It was a wonderful surprise!

 Most teddy bears behaved themselves......I think only one needed a "time-out".  

 We started off our day by observing and comparing all of our animal friends. 

 We talked about how they were the same and different, and then we took some time to sort our "bears" in a variety of different ways.  All suggested by the children: 

~Some were brown, and some were not.

~Some were bears and some were other kinds of animals.

~Some had bows or ribbons, and others did not.

~Some had holes in them, and others were whole.

After making different sorting piles, we lined up our bears and made an AB pattern with them......brown/not brown/brown/not brown...

Lastly, we lined them up on the counter from shortest (smallest) to tallest (biggest).  

We did a number of bear themed activities throughout the day.  After hearing a different rendition of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears (there are a few out there), we sorted items into small, medium, and large categories...much like baby bear, mama bear, and papa bear.

During our literacy centre time, some children coloured a brown bear book, some played alphabet games, and others did name activities, all with their furry friends by their sides, on their laps, or on the table.......

Much to the disappointment of some, one of the rules for the day was that the bears were to remain in the classroom for the day.  They weren't allowed outside for recess, or in the wash-room......they were part of our gym class though!  In gym we involved our bears in our warm ups, played "What time is it Mr. Bear", and we did some teddy bear relays.

By the end of the day, the JK adventurers and their furry friends were ready for a bear nap.  

After a little Teddy Graham snack, everyone went home donning their lovely bear headbands/hats.

(Okay, maybe not everyone......a couple of the children were sick of the head-wear and wanted the hats packed in their backpacks...)

Teddy Bears, Weather and Push Pins?

The new month brings with it new themes, and this month our themes are "Teddy Bears" and "Weather Watchers".  These themes are interwoven in our math and literacy activities throughout the month of November.  

Here's a peek at some of the things we are doing in JK this month:

You'll find a few FREEBIES along the way...

The first is a literacy activity that I am currently doing with my class.  

They use Teddy Bear flashcards, this highlighting worksheet, and they all need a highlighter, of course!!  The flashcards are placed upside down in the centre of the table.  

Students in the group take turns drawing a card, reading the letter (if they can identify it), then they show everyone in the group and they all highlight it on the teddy bear recording sheet. 

 I had a good laugh when one of my students piped up and said that she didn't think she was big enough for highlighters.  

I put her fears at ease and told her that I thought they were ALL big enough to use them...

Bear Highlighting Worksheet freebie can be found {here} or {here}.

Teddy Bear flashcards can be found {here} or {here}.

We started a new unit on Weather, so I created a few things to use in my class to go along with this unit.  

The first is a self portrait frame to be used during the introductory lesson on the different types of weather.  After talking about the different types of weather, we made an ideas "map" together as a class.  Then the children went to work making a picture of themselves "outside in their favourite type of weather".  The pictures were hung in the hallway on our new WEATHER bulletin board.  Most children like sunny warm weather the best, but some were rather fond of rain and storms!

Here's the self-portrait sheet:

I will have to post a picture of our bulletin board when I remember to bring my camera to school!

Along with this unit, we will be recording the types of weather that we are experiencing this month.  The children will have an opportunity to make pictures of our weather, recording it on a chart.

The children will also participate in some literacy activities related to our weather unit.  The first is a "write-the-room" activity where they can hunt around the room for the weather words:

and then write them on the recording sheet:

The next literacy activity is one in which the children use letter tiles to spell weather words.  I made my own letter tiles out of card-stock paper and laminated them...much cheaper than the ones I found online...we shall see how long they last.

The weather activities can be found {here} and {here}.

The next activity is another freebie.  It involves push pins 

and little children.  

I know that sounds a bit scary, but with supervision, I'm quite sure they can handle it.

The children are given worksheets that have different shapes on them.  They use a push pin to poke holes in the paper, all along the outline of the shapes.  It's great fun, wonderful for fine motor development, and the kids love it when they can hold the paper up to the light and see the great shape that they made!

Let me just reiterate, that SUPERVISION is vital...

This shape activity contains 9 shapes:

octagon, heart, diamond, square, rectangle, oval, pentagon, triangle and circle.

You can find this freebie {here} or {here}.

The last freebie today is a collection of teddy bear ten frames.....great for a math centre!

You can find this freebie {here} or {here}.

Happy November and Autumn Art

First of all....HAPPY NOVEMBER!!!

Where did October go?

Secondly, I just want to say that I have the best EA's ever!!!

Yes, its true!  They are so very helpful, patient, and loving!  We are so blessed to have them in our class!

They anticipate needs and quietly do their thing to make my class run smoothly.

One of the other reasons my EA's are the best is that they are always willing and happy to make a mess with the kids.  

This week, we made our tissue paper leaves.  (I gotta be honest......I loved the mess the best.  In fact, I wished we could have left the coloured tissue paper all over the floor of our classroom......it was lovely!)

I cut out black outlines of a few different types of leaves.

Next we stuck them on to contact paper, which we then taped to the tables and counters so that they would stay in place while the children placed the tissue paper on to their leaves.

Some kids were so very careful while they placed the tissue down......and then there were others that just grabbed fists full of tissue and just dumped them on.  

When the leaves were covered, we put a second piece of contact paper over them, trimmed them and hung them up!  

The children keep asking me when they can bring them home.  

My answer......after we enjoy them at school for a while!

(Maybe when the snow starts flying......)

 Now the finished leaves are gracing the windows of our classroom and the hallways outside our room.  

The trees outside our class might be finished dropping their leaves, but we still have autumn colours in the school. 

 I imagine the snow will be here soon enough, so I want to enjoy as much "fall colour" in our class for as long as I can!

Have a blessed day!

~kim~

Pumpkin Fun

Last week, our class went to visit a pumpkin patch!  We were blessed with relatively dry weather, and those of us who were in our rubber boots had a blast mucking through the muck.  We enjoyed an educational show all about the life-cycle of a pumpkin, met Mrs. Scarecrow, walked through a corn maze and a straw maze, went for a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch where the children got to pick out their own pumpkin to take home, and then had a lovely "fresh" apple snack from the orchard.  

The children had such a wonderful time.

We brought a "class pumpkin" back with us to school, so yesterday we did a few things with our pumpkin.

For our first activity, I asked the children whether they thought our pumpkin would sink or float if we put it in water.  We have quite a large sink in our class, so after the children had the opportunity to vote one way or the other, we marched off to the sink and gave our pumpkin a bath.  There were a lot of surprised faces when they saw the pumpkin float like a boat!

After our pumpkin was cleaned and dried, the children estimated/guessed

how big/tall they thought our pumpkin would be......

After guessing, we counted and measured using linking/unifix cubes.

Next, the children guessed how much our pumpkin weighed......

Lastly, they guessed how many seeds were in the pumpkin (before I cut it open)......

After all of that, the children were itching for centre time, so while I had fun scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, the children enjoyed some creative play time.

Did I count the seeds?  Well, I roasted them last night......

Guess what's on my to-do list today......

Storming Centres

What an amazing day I had today!!!  We had what I would call a wonderful breakthrough in the centre department.  

I've tried on a number of occasions to have the children work and rotate around to math centres, with limited success, (they could never handle all the freedom) BUT today was a seriously wonderful display of team-work and cooperation in my JK class!!! 

I wanted to have a party to celebrate! Usually when the weather is crazy outdoors, the atmosphere in the classroom is a reflection of the outdoors, but today was a different story.  

I had 6 stations set up and gave the children the opportunity to choose which ones they wanted to go to.  They were permitted to move around from one station to another, the only stipulation being that there was a limit of 4 children at each station.  

They worked so well together, making shapes with play-dough, clipping patterns, sorting colour activities, playing file folder games and puzzles, and playing a memory game.  

It was a joy to see that all the routine practising of the past 2 months has finally paid off!  

There were a few exceptions, of course~a few who could not quite handle some of the activities, (mostly because they needed more help to understand the pattern activity,) but for the most part, the children worked independently and had a great time.  

It may have been storming outside, but in this JK class today I was experiencing some teacher heaven!

Autumn Is Here (2 freebies too)

Autumn is most definitely here......cooler nights......shorter days......my drive into work is much darker......but it's still one of my favourite seasons......(I don`t exactly have a favourite, 'cause I like them all for different reasons).

It is Autumn in our JK class and we have been busy with themed activities related to fall.  We just finished celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving, and the children had fun making hand-print turkeys and decorating thanksgiving leaves.  The hand-print turkeys were a keep-sake for mom and dad, and the leaves are decorating the hall wall and our "Fall in Love with Jesus" bulletin board outside of our classroom.

I have been busy creating more autumn themed resources......autumn ten-frames and pattern cards to be used in centres and small groups, adding and counting printables, and some follow up activities to go along with a book we read entitled, "The Pumpkin Patch Parable."

The autumn-themed ten frame cards are so easy to use.  Just supply the children with items that they can put on the frames, either small dollar store bugs and counters, or they can make balls or creatures out of play-doh......just let their imagination go!  I love it because it's a great fine-motor activity that gives them opportunity to be artistic and creative too!

There are three sets included...two themed and one blank.

You can find the ten-frame sets {here} or {here}.

Kids love to clip-a-pattern!  It's a simple math centre activity that they can do on their own or with a friend.  Just supply them with clothes-pins and they are ready to go.....Cute creepy-clipping fun!

 

You can find the pattern clipping activity {here} or {here}.

This collection of Add 'em Up Preschool math activities is multi-themed for use all year long.  It contains themes such as fall, Halloween, winter, Christmas, bugs, dinos, bears, service/community helpers etc.  They are simple counting activities with both tracing and non-tracing number pages for children at a variety of skill levels.  There are also cut and paste activities included for the children who love to get busy with scissors and glue......great for developing those fine-motor skills!

These printables can be photocopied for the class, or if you like to save the trees (and paper), you can print them on to card-stock and laminate them so that they could be reused by the children in math centres with dry-erase markers or crayons.

You can find the Add 'em Up activities {here} or {here}.

If you'd like to try out the Fall Add 'em UP freebie

  it's {here} and {here}

Towards the end of October, we read the book, "The Pumpkin Patch Parable" by Liz Curtis Higgs.  It's a cute story about how a farmer works on a pumpkin to change it into a wonderful sight.  There are lessons and parallels to draw from the story to teach the children about how God changes us, 

takes out the "yuck" and makes us beautiful. 

I created the following follow-up activities to go along with our book of the week.   There are activities that involve drawing shapes, tracing letters and numbers, and a pattern page that involves scissors and glue (something my JK's need lots of practice with.)

You can find these freebies {here} or {here}.

It is time for me to go out and enjoy the awesome autumn colours while they last!!!

Until next time......Have a blessed day!