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!

Color Mixing and Freebies

Book Cover of White Rabbit's Color Book

Hello everyone!  I'm doing my color theme right now at school, and I don't think any color theme is complete unless you bring in some science and talk about mixing.  Most of you know about the book Mouse Paint - I've done a previous post about that book.  But there's a book that I think is also super cute: White Rabbit's Color Book by Alan Baker.  My kids also noticed right away that this book is very similar to Mouse Paint.  In fact, I didn't even ask them the question.  They just started blurting out "Wow!  Mrs. Dudley, did you know that this book is just like that other book, Mouse Paint?"  I just smiled and said "I wonder how that happened?"  And then the kids giggled because they knew I planned it.

The night before I read the book to my class, I made this sheet where the kids have to color the final rabbit in each row to show what the rabbit looked like after dunking himself in paint each time.

Color Mixing Rabbit Worksheets.pdf by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

x

I also have this new color series of books that I made and posted on TPT:  Interactive Color Guided Reading Books.  I've been using them in the class and they've really helped my students learn their color words as well as their sight words.

As I was thinking about this post, I remembered that I had made a color mixing guided reading book, once upon a time.  So this morning, I searched and - sure enough - I found it.

Color Mixing Bird.pdf by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

x

It's so funny to me that I have so much stuff I actually have to start cataloging what I've already made so that I don't make it again!  Do any of you have to do that?

Since we're all going crazy with Common Core right now, I thought I would also put in the language arts standard that I think relates best to this topic:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.K.3:  With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

Does anyone know if cause and effect is anywhere in the kindergarten reading Common Core standards?  It seems to me that that's actually what color mixing would be, but I couldn't find it.  Maybe it's in the first grade standards?

Please let me know if any of these freebies are helpful.

Teaching Smart

Tammy over at Live, Love, Laugh is hosting a great "Teaching Smart" linky party that you can find here:

Teaching Smart Linky Party

One of the best things that I have learned, for any grade level, is that preparation is critical to having a happy, organized, fun-loving classroom.  So, with that said, I have been working diligently on making centers that will be interesting and effective for my kinders.  The center ideas and activities that I'm going to show you are for the beginning of the kindergarten school year.

Color Pizza

The first idea is a color-matching word game that can be placed in a center or in a station.  Students match colored pieces of "pizza" to the corresponding color word on the circular "pie".  I picked up some unused pizza boxes that I thought would be a great way to store these pieces.

Shape Placemat

The second game is a shape-matching activity where children place the correct parts of a table setting on a laminated place mat.  This game really helps develop visual matching and shape identification and can be used for cutting and gluing if you don't wish to laminate the pieces.  Here is the download:
Shape Placemat Long Free

Fantasy Folder

Finally, I have found that my students at the beginning of kindergarten do not wish to go to writing center as much as math, ABC, or science centers.  Therefore I really accommodate their interests by making mini word walls that they can use to label their own drawings.  I truly believe that the beginning of kindergarten should be all about instilling in the children a real love for reading and writing.  Later months can be used more for expanding labels into phrases and full sentence writing.  I know philosophies about this may vary, but I also know that kids who aren't excited about reading and writing can only be taught so much.

I just put up a collection of 10 mini word walls on sale at Teacher's Notebook for a really great price.  I also have some free products that you may be interested in on TN as well.

Sharon's Shop

Let me know what you think!  :-)