Playful Learning Mini-Ecourse

I'm signing up for the Playful Learning 101 mini course!

It's only $15.  I'm going to register today.  I'd love it if you'd join me!

Happy learning!

Watercolor Leaves

A few weeks ago I shared our first watercolor experience of the school year.  We looked at pictures of fall leaves, talked about fall colors, and then painted on watercolor paper squares.  The kids learned how to wash their brushes before changing colors, experienced the way the colors blend, and learned that lots of water makes the painting kind of blurred and dreamy.

We could have stopped the project right there and the kids would have been happy.



Each child painted 3 squares of paper.  Once they were dry, we used our leaf die cut and punches the squares.  Mounted on fall colored construction paper, they look beautiful lining our hallway.


I love starting off the school year with this project because there is no such thing as an ugly leaf.  All kids are successful and feel proud of their work.  Now, I know some of you truly artsy folks are questioning the artistic value in simply die cutting the leaves and mounting them.  But, let's remember... these are kindergarten students, some of whom have never held a paint brush before.  We paint ALL THE TIME in kindergarten.  There is plenty of time to paint pictures of anything they want.  This time was just a simple learning experience in the way we use watercolor paints in the classroom.  

So pretty, mixed with our sponge painted leaves in the hallway.

Happy painting!

A Few Of My Favorite Things

It's conference week in kindergarten and it's one of my favorite weeks of the year!  I absolutely LOVE talking to parents.  A lot of teachers dread this week because it's a lot of sitting, a lot of talking, and they really miss the time with the kids.  As much as I love teaching, I love talking to families just as much.

One question that I'm asked every year is, "What can I be doing with my child at home?"  Well, that's a loaded question, and I could talk for hours on this subject.  While many of my suggestions don't include things you can simply go to the store and buy, there are a few products I TRULY could not live without. 

Here are a few of my favorite things!
(Now you have that song running through your head, don't you?)

First up is ANYTHING made by Leap Frog.  I especially love the DVD's.  The Letter Factory helped my own kids learn letters and sounds when they were in preschool.  The DVD is available though Redbox, at the public library, on Netflix, and on iTunes.  There are DVD's for letters, sounds, blending words, sentences, writing stories, and even math concepts. They are fabulous and strongly encourage you to at least find them at your public library.



The Playful Learning Ecademy is a fabulous tool for parents.

 

I've taken 2 of Mariah's e-courses and LOVE them.

LOVE.

THEM.

 I recommend them to all of the parents in my class (as well as Mariah's Playful Learning book). Playful Learning Spaces was my favorite course. As a teacher, I know what types of activities I should be doing at home with my kids.  You might be wondering why a kindergarten teacher would need to take this class. I can't even begin to tell you how inspired I was! Mariah gives you terrific background knowledge about what your kids need to know, what they should be doing at home, and many ideas on how to set up spaces in your home which encourage playful learning.   If I could convince every parent in my classroom to sign up for this course, I would be the happiest teacher alive.  It's that inspiring!

You can click on the link (picture) above to register.

If you're not up for taking an online class about creating playful spaces, then this book is a good option!  Mariah wrote a book on playful learning as well.  It's available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  $13 well spent.... enough said on that.



While you're book shopping, The Ready, Set, Go series (levels 1-3) are perfect for kindergarten.  I purchased these for my own children when they were in kindergarten.  They are the IDEAL books for young readers.

Ok, enough about things you can buy.  (But, I really hope you'll consider a few of these products.) I'll be posting about free activities you can do with your kids to encourage playful learning this week.

Happy conference week!

Watercolor in Kindergarten

I'll never forget my first year teaching kindergarten.  I decided to do a fall watercolor painting activity to help students learn the rules about painting, using watercolors, and clean up.  Any time you get the paints out, in kindergarten, the classroom automatically softens to a whisper.  (I think it must be the magic we put in the paints!)  Well, during this first painting experience one of my sweet little girls whispered to her friend, "I've never done this before!" 

From that day on, I vowed to do as much painting as I could possibly fit in.  Today was our first painting experience of the year.  There's something special about brand new watercolors.

We started with a lesson on how to use watercolor paints.  Then we looked at fall pictures.  We noticed the colors we saw in the fall leaves and the trees.  The kids were given three squares of watercolor paper.

Their goal was to use fall colors to fill the square.  For their first painting experience in kindergarten, I wanted to make sure everyone was successful.  We didn't focus on painting a picture, just color.

The squares always turn out to be beautiful!  There is no such thing as a mistake in this project.

The kids had the chance to learn how to use paints, observe fall colors, and experience the way watercolor paints mix together.

I can't wait to show you what we turn these into!

Happy painting!

Apples in Kindergarten

It's apple time in kindergarten!  This week has been all about apples.  

Two of our favorite activities were making applesauce and graphing our favorite apples (after tasting of course).

Stop by my literacy blog to read more about my favorite applesauce book and see how I made applesauce with my own kids.

Here's the link to the post.

Shape Man

One of our favorite kindergarten projects is Shape Man.

We start by reading the book Shape Space and talking about the different shapes we see on Shape Man.  Then, the real fun begins.

We use construction paper to make our own Shape Man.  Here are a few pictures of Shape Man "taking shape".

 

 

The kids loved building their giant Shape Men and the teachers loved seeing their geometry, direction following, and small motor skills being used!

Kindergarten Writer's Workshop Ebook

When I started this blog, my main purpose was to communicate with families in my classroom.  Since beginning, I've also been fortunate enough to meet many kindergarten teachers too.  I had no idea how many teacher blogs were out there, when I began writing.  I've had the opportunity to share what happens in my classroom and get to peak into other classrooms, through blogs, as well.   I realize that parents out there are probably not interested in this, but I wanted to share this with my teacher friends. 

Over the past seven years, I've had the opportunity to host demonstration lessons in literacy.  I usually have the chance to chat with teachers when my lesson is over, and I'm asked lots of management and setup questions.  Well, I finally got smart and wrote it all down.  I posted it on Teachers Pay Teachers a few weeks ago and have already sold a few copies.  If you are interested, here's the link to take a look.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kindergarten-Writers-Workshop-Putting-Tools-In-The-Hands-of-Authors


Kindergarten Writer's Workshop
 

 

 

Happy writing!