Crafting and Researching for Kindergarten

As I will be teaching Kindergarten this next year, I have been aggressively making myself ready: mentally and physically. I am fortunate that the classroom that I am taking over is quite large and has plenty of resources already in it. The school or a previous teacher loaded up with puzzles, games, whiteboards, and flash cards. This is a complete switch for me from last year where I had virtually no materials (from the school) for half-a-year for my third graders in Language Arts. I very much utilized literature circles, reading a-z, library books, and online resources.

Anyway, I'll be using a mixture of curriculum and teacher-developed (and found) resources. I have Reading Street, Saxon Math, Math Expressions, Scott Foresman Science and Social Studies, a phonics program, and a writing program. In comparison to last year, this is quite overwhelming. On the bright side, I have my tentative year plan already made and won't stick to the curriculum religiously. I go by what way I best can connect topics, seasonal opportunities, integrating units, and, of course, state and common core standards. 

What I have been doing a lot recently is researching teaching techniques and classroom management ideas, making center and whole group activities, and crafting things for the classroom. I love the idea of whole brain teaching! I'm also planning on implementing the Daily Five and Writing Workshop.

Does anyone use whole brain teaching? How do you teach the rules? Do you use all of it or bits and pieces?

I had seen a number of cute chairs around pinterest and blogs and opted to create my own. I had an old chair that was worse for wear. I decided that it would be my project. 

I searched for paint tucked away in the basement and managed to find this teal and pink. I mixed the two to create the purple. 

My only task now is to find the fabric to go with it. I have a "The Frog and the Princess" fleece fabric that matches the color perfectly, but wouldn't be large enough to not show the faces. I also have a simple teal fabric and bought a green with teal spot fabric. Still, I am conflicted. Any ideas?

Another activity I got done was this number puzzle. You can choose whether or not to have the addition as part of the puzzle. It's not self correcting (maybe I'll do another that way), but allows students to match different representations of numbers 1-10. You can download it at teacherspayteachers for free if you click the picture below.

Kindergarten, Oh My!

I have recently been assigned to teach Kindergarten next year. I'm a big mix of nervous and excited. I'm hoping this will encourage me to create even more engaging activities and remain positive. I'm excited to bring music into the classroom and center activities. Both of these things were lacking dramatically in my class last year.

Since the assignment, I have been searching relentlessly through other Kindergarten, early childhood, and homeschool blogs, pinterests, tpt, etc. It's amazing how many resources are out there for these young learners. I'd say there are much more for younger students than for older students. How neat!

I've created a few things DYI and with my Cricut. I plan to make a "Rotten Apple" game for sight words with my circut and then laminate. I've gotten other sight word ideas from around the web and made these paint chip sight word cards based on one that I loved!

If you want the list of Reading Street vocabulary words that I used you can get it here on googledocs.

My intention is to make one thing a day for Kindergarten until the first day of school. With that in mind, hopefully I won't be nearly as stressed when I get the kiddos the first day. If they're digital (and worth it) I'll post them on here to share!

For today, I made some number cards through 30. I'm familiarizing myself with these new standards to ensure my students know what the need to know and more by the end of the year. At this point, here is just till 30. I hope my students can locate, name, and represent up to 100. But, this could be a stretch. We'll see when I get them!

You can click this to bring you to teacherspayteachers and download for free!