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Saturday, December 14, 2013

LEMONADE FROM NORTH CAROLINA


The North Carolina Kindergarten teachers are rising to the challenge by making lemonade with the lemons they have been given.  One of the first things we all learned in early childhood education was the significance of going from concrete and hands-on to abstract.  You’ll discover some awesome examples of that in the ideas below.

Cooking Up Yummy Words  (Mindy Lane)
1.    Write sight words on recipe cards.
2.    Put magnetic letters in a soup bowl with a ladle.
3.    Children pull out a recipe card, scoop out letters, and place the letters on a cookie sheet to spell the word.

Mega Blocks for Mega Learning (Kendra Wolfe)
Buy Mega Blocks and write letters on them.  Put them in a basket by the word wall.  Students can build words using the blocks. 
*You can also write words on the long blocks and students can build and read sentences.

2-D and 3-D Winter Pictures  (Bridget Groce)
Make winter 2-D pictures using black construction paper, glue, and spaghetti noodles.  The children use the noodles to make simple shapes (trees, houses, etc.)  Next, give them miniature marshmallows to construct three-dimensional shapes.

Letter Necklaces  (Dana Sampson)
Make letter necklaces by punching holes in letter stencils and tying on a piece of string.  (Do vowels in red.)  Spread the letters on the carpet.  The teacher says a sound and a child is chosen to find that letter.  Put the children together to make words.

Sight Word Accomplishment (Kyleen Douglas)
You will need long paint chip samples for this activity.  As students learn a sight word, they get to write it on the paint chip.  When their chip is filled up, they can add to it with another chip and continue writing words as they learn them.  Students try to see who can get the longest chain.

Yellow Pages (Lisa Johnson)
Make your class yellow pages with a page for:           
Shoe tying
Jacket zipping
Milk carton opener, etc.
Students sign their name on the page when they master the skill.  Students who need help can look up a helper’s name in the yellow pages!

Extension/Bottle Activity (Lisa Sawyer)
Place small objects in a bottle.  Children write sentences with “a” or “an” using the objects.
I see a ________.  (consonant)
I see an _______.  (vowel)

Behavior Bracelet  (Trammonnieo Cooper)
Cut a strip off an envelope to make a bracelet.  Give dots, stickers, stars, stamps, etc. on the bracelet to reward children.