Easter Inspiration

"Pete the Cat: Big Easter Adventure" Book Cover

This is an EGGcelent book!  Ok, I'm sorry, but it is about Pete the Cat helping the Easter bunny with eggs, so I couldn't help the pun.  We can't use candy this year at my school :-( so I decided to have the Easter bunny wrap a gift and leave it with a note for my students.  They had written letters the day before to the Easter Bunny, asking him to stop by our classroom.  Here are different levels that you can use with high, middle, or low kids.  Choose the paper that is right for your class.

Letter to Easter Bunny by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I also wanted to do some patterning with my children, because I really think it helps with problem solving and logical thinking.  You're probably thinking "But it's not in Common Core, so why do it?"  I don't entirely agree that patterning should have been taken out of the kindergarten curriculum in the first place, and I know they still teach it in pre-k (at least in my school system).  We sang a song called "Everybody Do A Pattern" by Dr. Jean.  The song uses clapping, snapping and stomping, so it's very kinesthetic for wiggly kinders.  Then the children made different patterns by using pastel-colored, laminated eggs that I made the night before.  If you don't feel like cutting out paper eggs and laminating them, simply use the plastic eggs that you can buy in any grocery store around this time of year.  I think that would probably be better for the children anyway, but I just didn't have time to go to the store that day.  As an assessment to see if the children understood the lesson, I used this paper:

Pattern Egg by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I also sent home these two different levels of sight word board games.  My higher students got the first grade board game, and my on-grade-level and below-grade-level students got the kindergarten board game.

Easter Sight Word Board Games & Worksheets

I'm going to the Poconos this week for a little rest and relaxation.  I would love to hear what all of you are doing with your students for Easter this year!

Integrating Spring

"Hopper Hunts for Spring" Book Cover

I'd like to start by thanking Linda at Primary Inspiration for hosting her Primary Math Linky Party.  What a terrific idea!  My contribution to the linky party is this integrated post featuring several freebies including addition bunnies.

I love using the book Hopper Hunts for Spring because it can tie in math, science, language arts, and writing all in one beautiful spring package.  The story itself focuses on a young bunny's confusion about who "Spring" is.  I think this book is fabulous for starting discussions with your class about the spring season.  I try really hard to encourage higher-level thinking by asking open-ended questions such as "What do you think Hopper is thinking?", "What kinds of things do you like to do in the spring?", and "What would you see, hear, smell, and taste in the spring if you were a bunny?".

For writing and art, I'm going to have my students use these differentiated spring cut-up sentences that they can also illustrate.

Spring Sentence Worksheets With Drawing by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I've taken a few classes this year that say it's really important to use sentence starters for ESOL children.  Since my class is almost entirely ESOL, I've really embraced sentence starters throughout this school year.  Here is an example of one of them, with a picture word bank.

Spring Writing Prompt by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley


Even though Common Core has taken time and money out of kindergarten, I still think that a short calendar time is important.  I still use my calendar and I use different songs to represent special times of the year.  Some songs that I will use in April are:

"Five Little Bunnies" by Mar Harmon
"5 Little Bunnies" by Joanie Calem
"Celebrate the Spring" by Jack Hartmann
"It's Spring" by Tiana

I feel that my children focus much better when we sing and dance to bring us all together on the carpet and to transition between subjects.  I think all four of these songs give details about spring that some five-year-olds aren't yet familiar with.  They also provide a nice baseline to make connections between the book, what they're writing about, and what they're hearing.  The bunny songs are nice fingerplays for those students who still don't have one-to-one correspondence - I still have two in my kindergarten class who are having trouble with this.  It's still good for the other children in my class because they can focus on the rhyming parts of the song.

I'm going to cut up these addition bunnies, laminate them, and put them in my math center for further practice.  My children are going to use manipulatives of their choice from the center to check their answers.

Addition Bunnies by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

Please let me know which ideas you like from this post.  Your feedback really helps me to decide what to write about next.