November Resource Round Up

November is one of my favorite months of the year to teach! So many kid friendly, naturally engaging things to do! The cooler weather helps my mood too! I just want to do all of the fun fall things! Here's a little round up of quite a few activities and resources that I have created for this season! Hopefully you can find something to have some fun with your kids and save you some time! (All of the pictures are clickable links)

Our Thanksgiving Uncovered is a large resource with LOTs of activities! Close reading, many writing prompts, story of Thanksgiving retelling story sticks, games, centers and more! This is the perfect resource for teaching all about Thanksgiving.

Our Thankful Headband is fun and meaningful little craft for your kids to make for Thanksgiving! They draw what they are thankful for on the feathers, color and decorate the headband, then attach to make their thankful headband! I love how proud they are of their headbands, and what a great conversation piece to take home and get their families involved with taking an attitude of gratitude!

Included in this resource:

•Elements to create a thankful headband

•What I'm thankful for writing prompt (great for early finishers!)

Our Pattern Blocks Work & Play Kit for Kindergarten 

Perfect for using with:

• Instruction

• Literacy Centers

• Math Centers

• Math Stations

• Small Groups

• Sensory Play

• Self regulated work & play 

• Fine motor, busy box, or morning work activities

•Counting practice pages for follow-up, math stations, morning work, assessment

Included in this EASY TO PREP & EASY ON THE INK resource:

•10 Thanksgiving themed Pattern Block Work and Play Kit Cards

•10 Counting Practice Pages- one for each puzzle card

•Pattern Block Cards for playing as a card game OR for stuffing clear pocket stuff-able dice

•Spin It! Game Board for playing with a game spinner OR pencil & paper clip spinner

•“I CAN” statement card for displaying at center or station (2 options, whole sheet and half sizes included)

•Question prompts to engage little learners and promote inquiry and learning

Pattern Blocks Work & Play Kit THANKSGIVING
Work & Play Cards Letters Kit ( letters pictured above t u r k e y)
See more about Pattern Block Work & Play Kits here

I love to create invitations to play for little learners. It inspires curiosity, engagement and wonder to gather interesting items and place them in and inviting arrangement for littles to discover, play, work, and learn. I love how quiet and thoughtful they are at these stations. You can almost see their little wheels turning in their head. This little inspiration page has several resources, so the photo is not linked, but I'll add links to all of the resources below the picture. Products without links are coming soon! I just love this so much.

Work & Play Cards Letters Kit

Work & Play Cards Sizes & Positional Words

Pumpkin, Pumpkin Miles on the Tongue Emergent Reader

Fall Ten Frame Number Center

Natural Wonders Work & Play Posters

Close reading is a strategy to help kids engage closely with text. I love using close reading passages. I have written dozens of passages and created hundreds of activities to go with them. The language, vocabulary, stamina, comprehension and text feature skills they solidify from doing close reading are just amazing. When I write my passages I work hard to use interesting vocabulary, and engage little readers! These photos are from my Quarter 2 Close Reading Bundle, there are 6 passages and activities, this is from the Owls passage. They get so much out of annotating the passages! I include lots of tips and directions about this, but in short, you start slowly, doing it together, and they quickly get the hang of it and start finding words to annotate on their own! How cute is the annotation and pictorial representation for "parliament"? (All the heart eyes!!)

The   o w l   letters are from our Work and Play Cards Letters Kit.

Close Reading for Kindergarten & First Grade Quarter 3 Fall Bundle

Want to read more about Close Reading? Click here!  OR Here!

I love simple little math centers that I can add to my existing stations or add to a small group or

morning work tub. Our Turkeys to 10 Just Right Activities & Centers are so much fun! Simple to prep and easy for kids to play independently, with partners or in small groups. They're just right!

I hope this resource round up is helpful and gives you some ideas for fall!

xo,

Pam

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How To Line-Up Invitation to Play

We all know how the first few weeks can be rough! I don't know about you, but lining up is quite a foreign concept to most of the littles who have walked through my door! There is this sweet unawareness that comes with being a new kindergartner! As endearing and innocent as it is, it's our job to help them along and learn how to be a school kid! I have found as with every other classroom/school procedure that it works best when I break it down and speak their language. Meaning that we talk about it, we practice it, we read about it, and we act it out! Here are a couple of ideas for establishing foundations for learning how to line-up:

• Talk about it: As with anything else, meaningful discussion goes a long way in getting them on board with whatever you are doing. If they know the why, it's much easier for them to understand the reasons we do things. I always explain that when we line-up it helps us to be able to move as a group of people from one place to another in an organized and safe way. I use my felt board and model what a line looks like and facilitate conversation about how much easier it is to go all together to the cafeteria or playground when we are in a line. I use my Duck Tails and Bubbles Anchor Chart as a model too. We talk about how "duck tails" help us remember to keep our hands to ourselves, and how "bubbles" help us to remember to be quiet so that we won't disturb other classes as we walk by.

• Read about it: I have been reading The Line Up Book by Marisabina Russo. It is simple, engaging
and physically shows what a line is. Another cute book about a line is The Line by Paula Boss. It's cute for a discussion about lining up because it leaves a lot of room for discussion. The kids really love both books!

 

• Practice it and act it out: So much grace and patience is required when learning how to be a big school kid! It takes a lot of practice and it's so easy for them to forget, but with all of the discussion, practice and concrete experiences they will quickly remember and it will soon become habit! The practice comes everyday when we go places and practice using our "duck tails and bubbles" and say our little rhyme to help us remember. I post one of the anchor charts near the door and sometimes just give a little point as we walk out the door. We even have posted the anchor charts at a few spots in the hallway to serve as little reminders when there are lots of bodies and movement in the hall.
Creating a little "invitation to play" can be SO helpful for the littles that have never been to school and need a little more concrete practice. Here are the elements I used to create this provocation:

The Line Up Book by Marisabina Russo
Duck Tails and Bubbles Anchor Chart (from our Classroom Management & Behavior Anchor Chart Bundle)
random figurines ( I used some wood animals, bear counters, monster finger puppets)
black beans for another object to line up
washi tape to create a couple of lines
a white board, marker and eraser for doing a pictorial representation of a line )if they wish)

I'm sure you'll think of other great items you have on hand to add to your provocation! If you create a line up invitation to play please keep in touch and let me know how it goes or send me a picture or two!

Link to resource:
Classroom Management & Behavior Anchor Charts & Slideshow

Here are links to a couple of books I love about lining up!
(Just sharing ... I am not affiliated with Amazon!)

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