Reading at Home

Hi! It's Carolyn from Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together.  This time of year the children are really starting to take off with reading.  

They're using their reading strategies and growing each day!  I want to be sure they continue to grow as much as they can at home as well as at school. We don't send homework home with children (thank goodness), but we do send  books home with them to practice reading at home. I wanted to send home some ideas to help parents while they read at home with their children. Reading at home with children is such a huge benefit and important part of a child's reading success, but sometimes we forget that parents don't always know what we're focusing on or looking for as they read with their child. I labeled the praise points, "Wonderful," and the questions for parents to ask, "Wondering."

These ideas help parents remember to praise, praise, praise and encourage their child as they read together at home, as well as provide questions to help parents take their child deeper into the text and beyond the text. 

I thought you might like to use it with your students' parents, too.  Just click the picture below if you would like a copy!  Enjoy!

Here are some good graphics you could share with families, as well, to show the benefits of reading with their child each night at home.  This graphic is from Makayla Schenkelberg. 

This is from Perry Public Schools:

Have a wonderful week!  Thank you for stopping by!

Healthy Body! Healthy Me!

Hi! It's Carolyn from Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and beautiful New Year.  We're all going to have a great year!

I love to start the New Year teaching the children all about staying healthy.

I wanted to share this Healthy Body! Healthy Me! packet Dr. Jean and I created. It is a COMPLETE primary healthy program perfect for K-2.  The packet includes 2 Prezis with LOTS of videos- songs, stories, and anchor charts; activities; writing prompts; anchor charts; and lesson plans.  You are all set for Health with this unit! These are all of the activities and lessons I use, and my students always love them and have so much fun.

The packet covers the skeletal, muscular, respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and excretory systems with fun, memorable activities to go along with each one.

I have made Vita-men with my kids for years.  I just love them- and when the vitamin benefits are turned into people the children really seem to remember them!

I love teaching the children all about blood, because it's always something they like to learn about. 

There is an activity for each part of the blood.  This is an example of the Platelet Activity.

After the systems are covered, the packet includes two Watch Me Grow activities that you can use throughout the year with your students.  And a Healthy Habits section which includes activities to teach children about staying clean, getting rid of germs, teeth care, bedtime habits, safe foods, safety of all kinds, being kind, and feelings. Here are some samples:

I always do this activity in September and then right before our Open House in spring so I can hang it up to show the parents.  I put a photo in the smaller rectangle, and the children draw themselves in the larger one.

This goes with the hand washing/germ activity.  The kids love this one!  There are lots of healthy habit activities!

Safe and Not Safe Foods

We cover all areas of "STREAM" which is "STEM with reading and art added in- as well as writing prompts!

This packet has two comprehensive Prezis with videos for each topic to teach and reinforce lessons. These are so much fun to use during those extra minutes you have each day- or as a lesson on its own!

This part of the Prezi is great for talking about emotions. I also use this when I'm teaching the children about adding details and feelings in their writing.

This part of the Prezi helps teach the children ALL about safety in different situations. 

We watch these videos a lot as reminders...

This is the second Prezi- full of our favorite shake breaks. 

The packet also includes Dr. Jean's songs Feeling Fine and Macarena Bones.  You'll hear your students singing these songs over and over.  They don't even realize all they're learning as they sing!

I hope you enjoy this packet and these ideas as much as we do and as much as we enjoyed putting it all together!

Have fun staying healthy!

Candy Canes!

Hi! It's Carolyn from Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together.  Happy December!

Here are a couple of my favorite candy cane ideas- with a little literacy sprinkled in-  that I want to share with you today.

 

I cut out candy cane shapes, outlined them, and wrote red sight words in every other space.  I wrote white crayon sight words in the white spaces.  The children had to read the red word, then paint the white section with red watercolor.  This was actually a really good activity for following directions, too.  The kids did great!

 They turned out really cute!  

We also made our other sight word candy canes this week!

The children could choose a  white candy cane with red words- or a red candy cane with white words. That was maybe the hardest part.  They chose ten different word stripes to add to their candy cane.  After they make their candy cane, they read their words to a friend at their table. Then, they write their words on a recording sheet.  They will also read the words to me.

(I have each child put a scrap piece of paper under the candy cane cut-out so the glue doesn't go all over the table when they glue on the strips.)

After they glue on the strips, I turn the candy cane over and help the children trim the edges.

When they finish this center, they get a mini candy cane to take home and eat as they read their candy cane words to a grown up.

Here is a copy of the sight word sheet I used and the recording sheet.  Just click on the picture if you would like a copy.

Here is a fun video of Santa making candy canes!



Thank you for stopping by!   Have a WONDERFUL weekend! 

Veterans Day and the National Anthem

Hi! It's Carolyn from Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together. I found this wonderful idea for Veterans Day and wanted to share it with you.  If you didn't want to write "pray" for your public school, you could say "thank" or "think of" a Veteran.  But I just loved it- and I love to remember to pray for those wonderful people protecting our country.

Here is our Veterans Day Wall that my sweet friend Lorri, who teaches first grade across the hall from me, organized last year. We all sent a letter home with our students asking for names of relatives who were Veterans.  Families sent in the names, and we made stars to honor them on our wall.  I love how it turned out.  You should have heard the chatter of all the kids talking about the Veterans they knew. It was really wonderful, and a great way to teach children to respect what the Veterans have done to make our country what it is today.  

I always LOVE teaching my class our National Anthem, and always want to jump right in with it first thing in September, but I've found that waiting until about this time of year actually works out better. There seems to be so much to cover the first few weeks of school, that I don't want to throw it in with everything else. I love this to be special. We learn the Pledge of Allegiance right away and talk about our flag. I like starting the National Anthem about this time of year so we know it well by Veterans Day.   

I begin our lesson asking the children if any of them have heard our National Anthem.  Most have heard it at baseball or football games.  I give them this quick little history about the song.

During the War of 1812- 200 years ago- American men on a ship kept watching to see if our American flag was still flying during a battle with the British.  If the Americans saw the flag, they knew that we had won the battle.  The bombs that were exploding (like fireworks) lit up the sky, and the men saw our flag flying, so they knew we had won.  A man named Francis Scott Key wrote a poem about what happened that night, and it became a very special song for our country.



After this mini history lesson, lots of the children have questions.  Some seem really concerned wondering if the "bad guys" from that fight are now dead or at least really far away.



Next I sing the song as I show the pictures from Peter Spier's  The Star Spangled Banner book. I love his illustrations. So do the kids.

 (On a side note-every single time I sing it, I try to start in a lower range because when I get to "and the rockets red glare" it is WAY too high for me- and sounds ridiculous. Luckily the kids are five... so no one judges.)

After I sing us through the book, I go back, and we focus on one page at a time so we can delve into some fabulous vocabulary.  Here is a paper I made (just for me) with a quick history of the song (that I condense for my kids) and the vocabulary and phrases we discuss.  If you would like a copy, just click on the picture.

The children learn it so quickly- and we review it every time we sing the song, so they really know what the song means.  I think that's important for them- and they love knowing it. I remember having to look up "rampart" the first time I decided to teach this vocabulary years ago- so I tell them that maybe they can teach their mom and dad some new words, too.

I found this AWESOME Star Spangled Banner Freebie at the Crafty Classroom blog!  It is wonderful. I laminated the pages and made a couple classroom books. The illustrations are wonderful and really help with the vocabulary.

  

I also printed out these pages they have so the children can make mini books.  I wait to make these until the children really know the song and can take them home and sing it!

After our song and vocabulary lesson, we watch lots of different versions of the song sung by different artists.  I put some different versions together on this Back to School Prezi. Just click on the picture if you would like it. It is free at my TPT store!  It is part of my Fun in the Fall Prezi , but this one has more versions of the song.  The Fun in Fall Prezi got too big for any more videos, so I put them on this one.  The last four white stripes have different artists singing the National Anthem.  I sort of organized them by history, then young children singing it, then the "girls," then the "boys," as my kids call them.

You can hear a pin drop when I play the videos!  They love to hear the different people sing.   We get to talk about why people stand up when it is sung and why people take off their hats to show respect for our country.




A few years ago, one of my student's dads was stationed in Iraq.  Our class wrote notes and sent packages to his troop ( twenty six of them!) all year long.  They were awesome about writing back and sending pictures.  They sent us this very special flag that flew on Easter day in Iraq with a picture some of the men and women we wrote to holding a big THANK YOU banner.  My classes love studying this picture.

During free choice, I see MANY ramparts being built and the army guys are now a favorite.

I hope you have fun teaching the National Anthem in your classroom, too.
Have a wonderful day and thank you for stopping by.  And thank you, Veterans, for all you've done.