Sometimes You Just Need New CENTERS!

Sometimes you just need new centers!  Yes, I get bored with the same ol' same ol'.  Do you?  I do typically use the same things year to year, but every now and then I gotta try something new.  And, for some reason, I had an "extra" week with no theme this year, so that was the perfect opportunity to quench my need for something new.  So, I came up with ANYTHING GOES centers.  I was really focusing hard on introducing the alphabet and counting to 5.  So, I just wanted basic centers where they were doing letters, sounds, and counting; letters, sounds, and counting; letters, sound, and counting!  Ok, you get the idea.  These are very basic.  I want my students to feel successful in what they do, especially at the beginning of the year.  A lot of children have no concept of letters, sounds, counting, or writing.  So, we do a lot of tracing and then trying to write letters and numbers.  As far as beginning sounds, most of my students don't know this skill yet either so I make it easy for them to be successful.  I think that's super important!  There will be plenty of opportunity for them to show us what they know!  Here's what I came up with!  Click the image below to check them out!

If your kids love to roam around the room this is perfect for them!  Tape up the letters and let them go on a letter hunt!  

Plus, these GIANT magnifying glasses make it 10 times more fun!  

Aargh!!  We practice finding and labeling beginning sounds with this Shiver Me Sounds game.

This game is self-correcting which I love for beginning of the year!

Here's a cute pirate ABC book.

A lot of kids do not know one letter when they come to kindergarten so this one is perfect for showing students which letters match!  

I love reading the book LMNO-PEAS.  It's adorable!  So I came up with this center...all you do is grab a pea pod and then find the matching sound and letter peas.  So cute!

I had to do at least one center based on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  No kinder teacher can think of the alphabet and not think of that book.  

I love for my students to see words and letters in different fonts because they won't always see them in text the same way.  For this game, you get a tree and read the sight word.  Then, match 3 coconut sight words that match...all in different fonts.

Ok!  Math Centers!

I think this one was my kiddos' favorite one!  The cheese doubled the fun factor!!  

Counting is so much fun adding pepperoni and cheese!

To make the cheese I just cut very thin strips off of a foam sheet then cut the strips into little pieces.  They just grabbed a handful and sprinkled it on AFTER they counted the pepperonis of course.

 This one students had to use a car/bus to drive and count the dots along the road.

I got these little transportation counters from Lakeshore Learning.  I use them for everything!!!  

 The boys and the girls both liked this one.  I love how these one reminded them of their softball or baseball teams they played on this summer.  

This game is for working on number sequence and counting in order.

 And, for a just print, no prep, this one turned out pretty cool.  I've said it before, but if you do not have Pocket Dice you need to get some asap!  I use them all. the. time.  For real.  You can find them on Amazon!  Click on the picture below to check them out!

So, the kids just roll the cube, count the dots, and dot it with their bingo dotter!  

And, this one made us hungry every single day!  HA!  I kept forgetting my real candles for them to use as counters, but cut up pipe cleaners work just the same.  :)  

I chose to (before laminating) draw little black dots with a marker on the cupcakes so students knew exactly how many to put on each one.  I have several students who do not count to 5 yet.  This gave them a little guidance as to how many and what that number looks like as a set.  

There you have it!  Anything Goes Centers!!  

Write Your Heart Out!!!

I've had many requests to write a blog post on how I run my writing center.  As you can see by some of the pictures, I've been meaning to post this since October...well that didn't go so well.  But, I was able to snap a few more pictures of our writing center in action since then so here we go.

You can find August/September Here.

October

November

December

January

I totally revamped my writing center before the year started.  It was in need of a major overhaul.  My writing center has always suffered a little because honestly I didn't have what I needed or wanted to keep my students engaged and busy the whole time.  I'm embarrassed to say that they usually ended up just doodling or coloring and not actually practicing writing.  Sad, but true.

I knew some things that I wanted my students to be doing there, but just didn't have to materials to get it going.  So, I created my Write your Heart Out monthly units.  

Here's the jewelry holder writing rings holder that hangs in my writing center.  TJ Maxx Score!

Each  month I switch out the rings to go with each activity.  The only rings that stay are the basics which are alphabets, colors, shapes, etc.  Each ring is organized thematically.

Each week my students have the option of making an alphabet letter book.

I have all kinds of letter stickers that they can choose from to put on the cover.

The kids like it because it's quick and easy and fun!  Then, they can do more!

Sometimes my units have thematic puzzles of some sort and this one is in January.  They loved this one!

 January rings...

And, this is a labeling sheet that is in each month to match each theme.

The kids simply find the ring of words, and label the pictures.

Do you want to build a snowman labeling...Um, this may or may not have prompted a Frozen sing along competition.

 I honestly think this is one of their favorite writing center activities!  

I run out of copies of these flip books every week!

These began in October and they fell in love.  They are super fun to make and write in!

 There is a Make a List option too for each theme.  

 This little craft is in the November pack along with these little I am thankful cards.

The kids enjoyed these because they could pick and choose and make them personal.

And, another craft from October.  This was S is for...and they had to pick and choose "S" words.

 Here's another puzzle activity.  :)  Always need to practice CVC.

 Something else my kids like are these Sound Superhero cards.  They have to use beginning sounds to figure out how to spell each word for the picture.  It's interesting.

If you have my Brown Bear activity you have some color word versions of this same activity...so I though why not bring it back!  Oldies are goodies right?!?!

 Counting and writing!

 Here's another activity.  Notice how pretty much every activity is based around the writing rings.  

So many options!

So, hopefully if you have my writing units this helps a little to see it in action.  If you don't have any of them I would like to give you an opportunity to win one of your choice!!  

Just leave a comment below this post telling me what you'd like to try and don't forget to leave your E-MAIL address.  

I'll choose a winner...or two tomorrow night!  

If you already own one, go ahead a comment too telling me what you like about it and you could win another one!

Gingerbread Activities and Centers

I LOVE Christmas!  It's my most favorite time of the year.  I Love everything about it...hot chocolate, the lights, my Christmas tree lit up in the dark, Christmas movies, Christmas music, and everything else.  Especially the REAL reason we celebrate Christmas!  So, with that said, it's beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas in our classroom as well.  This week we have been doing gingerbread activities and learning about our five senses.  I won't list everything we've done because we've been busy little kinderelves, but I will post pictures of some of the things we've been doing.  This week has been a blast!  Our tree is up, there are a few ornaments on it with more to come, and the Christmas music is on....ALL the time. 

*New!  I've just uploaded my gingerbread unit to my tpt store HERE!  Check it out!  It includes tons of literacy and math center ideas.  (2011)

Here the kids are spinning a candy spinner and graphing what they spin.  They play until one column reaches the top.  This determines the winning candy.  Last they count each column and record the number.

This math center is a roll and cover game.  They roll the cubes, count the dots, and cover that number.

A friend of mine told me about these kind of Math Their Way games.

She counted and realized she already had four covered.

In this game, the kids have to roll two dice, count the dots, and write the number.

This game requires counting, recognizing numbers/number words, and color words.  

For writing center this week, they had to catch the gingerbread men around the room and record the word to match the picture on their sheet.

We charted our five senses then made our own mini-sized 5 senses gingerbread men.

The cotton is sprayed with a body splash.  I adapted this idea from a Mrs. Estes.

They had to "catch" gingerbread men here and find the matching letter and dot it with a bingo dotter.

For fellow teachers who may be reading this...after paper-clipping all of those ginger people last year and the clips falling off after every "catch", I had the idea of just stapling a staple in each one.  It worked just as well and so much easier than paper clips.  

Our first ornaments for this year...beaded candy canes.

Here we are painting our gingerbread men glyphs.

This was probably our most favorite literacy center.  They pulled an object (from our Lakeshore sound tubs) out of Santa's hat and graphed it on their paper.  Which one will win...D or K?  So much fun!

Stamping rhyming words

making gingerbread men ornaments

This is our countdown to Christmas activity.  Parents, help your child remember to cover one number each night and they can countdown to see how many more days until Christmas.

The kids loved this.  They had to measure the gingerbread man first with peppermints then they had to compare their own height to the gingerbread man.  Are they taller or shorter?  I think we actually had on little one that was shorter than him.