Differentiate With Beads? Yep! And A Freebie!

What little one doesn’t love beads?  Really!   They're colorful, they come in different shapes and sizes, and they literally can hold a kiddo's attention forever!   I don't think that fascination for beads goes away for a long time.  

In my own house of three boys,  this is the collection of the bead activities that have been completed just in the last two weeks and they are 5, 7 and 9. 

Don't get me wrong.  I love the idea of just PLAYING with beads, but if beads can motivate or engage a child to learn something they might otherwise find mundane, shouldn't we give it a try?  That's what I was thinking when I started using beads to differentiate my instruction.

Not only do beads provide fabulous fine motor practice for little fingers, but you can use them for counting and sorting and making patterns  . . . and they're fun!  So several years ago, I thought, if kinders like beads so much, how can I use them better and more effectively in my classroom.  Little did I know they would end up being one of my favorite tools for differentiating activities.   

Of course I'm going to give you a little review.  When we differentiate, we do so in response to:  interest, learning style or readiness.  

So beads can provide an engaging activity for students who might not otherwise be interested in spelling or word work.  Beads are appealing to students who are spatial and kinesthetic learners , who like to work with their hands and prefer to move.  

And finally, we can offer students activities based on their readiness levels by working with beads... It's true... and I'll show you how I do it.

I think the majority of everyone has letter beads of some kind or flavor laying around their room somewhere.  It doesn't matter really what kind you have.  Some are the small square kind with a letter stamped on them while others are shaped like the letter itself.  

I personally prefer the shaped kind and have become quite a collector.  

Here's why I love them so.  In my kindergarten classroom, letter beads can be used from the first day of class with activities like sorting...

to the last day of class with students using them to write digraphs.

In the beginning when I'm setting up my bead station, its mostly about those early activities that encourage exploring and building good routines and procedures with the beads.

We sort by letters in our name.

We sort by capitals and lowercase letters.

We match up letters.

And we use a ABC chart to match up letters and sounds (click on the picture to get a copy of your own).

These are very basic activities that will allow your students to practice the expectations of your bead station and the routines for taking care of it.

You'll want to set up a way to organize your beads.  I have used both a small portable plastic divided container 

and a more stationary container will pull out drawers.

I honestly prefer the smaller plastic containers, because they are very mobile and students can basically pick up an activity and move to any space in the room that is available for them to work.  They quickly set up their cookie sheet and playing cards and are ready to go in seconds.

The beauty of beads for differentiating, is that I can have several students using them at the same time, but they can be doing very different activities that at their readiness level.  While some students might be working on a CVC production activity another student can be working on a digraph activity like the one above.  

Providing 'I Can...' sheets and self-correcting playing cards, make it an incredibly independent station for my kinders.   

So if you're looking for new ways to engage students, consider the power of the differentiating bead!  


If you'd would like to see other ways that beads are used in my classroom, please stop on over to A Differentiated Kindergarten.

And stop over and grab your own free Bead Starter Kit.

Hallelujah for the Hallway and a Freebie to Help You Differentiate.

I'm back!  First it was clipboards for differentiating, then a sensory table and now . . .you guessed it . . .the hallway

I've often mentioned that I have the world's smallest kindergarten classroom.   So I'm always looking for ways to combat any restrictions I have in teaching because of the size.  It's also always a concern for any teacher newly embarking on differentiated instruction as well . . .'will my classroom be big enough?'  I always answer as positively as possible with a resounding 'NO.' Which is why you need to get creative. I have lots of space saving tricks up my sleeve, but for today how about just one way to combat close quarters and meet the needs of those kinesthetic learners by sending them to the hall.

If you remember, I'm always harping on you about how we differentiate in response to

And if we differentiate in response to learning profile, we have to consider our students' multiple intelligences, right?

That means those little Bodily Kinesthetic have to move!  They don't care if you have an arena sized classroom or a closet-sized classroom.  So you can either make room for them to move, develop routines for them to move and get creative, or they're gonna find ways to move all on their own.

So if you do decide to venture into the world outside your classroom, what could they possibly do that would be academic, developmentally appropriate, safe, engaging and fun?  Well, let's take a look and find out.

 I was fortunate enough that when I arrived in my building my neighbor teacher, Kerri, had already started a tradition of using the hall with her students.  Each month there are die cuts with various letters, words and numbers written on them depending upon the time of year, readiness levels, themes and skills being introduced.

These die cuts hang from our hallway ceiling and our kinders can use pointers to tap them or point as they read them.  It is HUGE to give them a different environment to work in and to have it be kinesthetic to boot.  And tell me, what kindergartener doesn't love to use a pointer . . .I have a wide variety from which to choose. 

My letter pointers are a favorite.  Yes, they are just some SASSY bathtub letters on the end of a rod with some rhinestones for effect and bling, but my kinders LOVE them.

So these are used daily for 'tapping' out words, numbers or letters depending what's 'hanging.'

I know what you're thinking, 'How do we get them to hang?'  Well, there are these little clip hooky thingys (that's a technical term)  you can get from Home Depot that work great. Don't pay attending to the S hook.  What you'll want to do is thread a string through the end and tie a clothes pin or binder to the end.



click on the picture for a link

 Students can also read other parts of the hallway . . .

fluency charts with a sand timer can be utilized and changed out as students' abilities change.

other seasonal die cuts are used for basic sight words

and 'popcorn words' are placed in a popcorn container where students can pick a card, attach it to the front of the container (we use velcro)

then tap out the letters to spell the word with their pointers.  (I wish I could tell you where I acquired these cute little letters, but I couldn't find it on my computer so if you know who I can credit, please drop me a line.)

We also purchased two oil pans to velcro up in our hall from our local Walmart (approximately $10.00) so that we could extend not only our math stations to the hall,

Number Squeeze is a local favorite.  Pick copy up from Over The Moon by clicking on the picture above.

but also use it for word work. 

On this oil pan we use elkon boxes (by the way, those are picture frame mats with magnets on them) and large (like 8 inches tall or so) foam letters that you can purchase from Lakeshore. 

We can store everything for this station easily in a crate/seat (Yes! That is a total Pinterest inspiration.)



They just grab their seats and go.

If you're looking for more ideas for oil pan uses, check out my friend Julie's blog at Make, Take & Teach.

At the beginning of the year we use our alphabet area a bit more than it is being use these days, but my kiddos like to take different flash cards

or in this case, environmental print and put them in alphabetical order.

Lately, my write the room activities can also be found out there on occasion (this is one called 'Bug Inspectors' where my kinders use magnifying glasses to find the hidden picture within the picture and then write the word they see- you can click on the picture if you want to learn more about it). 

When you suffer from small room syndrome, you need to be creative and think outside the box . . . or in this case, think outside the classroom.

To get you started, I've whipped up some cards for you to hang from your own hallway ceiling.  Make sure you grab your copy.   Then leave me a note to let me know how you use YOUR hallway. 

Have fun!

Sensory Tables Gone Differentiated! And a Freebie...

I have a mission! This post is a crusade of sorts.  I am here to in an effort to plead with teachers, administrators and anyone who will listen . . . "Please do not neglect your sensory (sand) tables."  I am serious.  I can not even tell you how many times I have heard from other early childhood educators that they have had to remove sensory play (and housekeeping but I'll save that for another post) from their classrooms because they are NOT academic.  

Seriously?  Not only are sensory tables 'academic,' but they are also a vital tool in differentiating! Yes, you heard me right.  Sensory tables are absolutely essential for differentiating instruction in an early childhood classroom. 

I know I'm always pulling these little visuals out (because I'm a visual learner) but they help me remember what differentiated instruction really is and why we do it.  So here you go:

Notice that we don't just differentiate in response to a student's readiness.  We also consider their interests-that's the HOOK!!!!   And we look at their learning profile.  Learning profile, of course, is the way we learn.  It's our learning styles and our multiple intelligences  . . .

  Looking at this chart, I can identify several MI learners that benefit from sensory table learning.  These kinds of activities will appeal to your kinesthetic learners who NEED to move.  It is ideal for you the linguistic learner who enjoys the dialogue associated with this kind of learning, the interpersonal learner who is working with other children and even the spatial learner who is coming up with the visual scenario of their 'story' in their mind.  It's differentiated instruction at its finest.  

  

I get it though.  I know that there might be administrators that see sensory tables as 'fluff.'  So I offer you some ideas that might help you on your quest to differentiate and align your instruction especially for all you sensory table lovers like me.

Don't have a sensory table?  Use a short sided plastic tote.  It works just as well and your kiddos will love it.

You can purchase colored sand and paint dog biscuits for a dinosaur feeling (in response to a learners 'interest.'  Here, my kinders are excavating real and nonsense word bones.  Depending on their level of readiness, some searched for three-letter words and others searched for four-lettered words.

Once they sorted them out, they recorded their findings, separating real from nonsense words.

You can grab this freebie that goes along with this activity for your own classroom by clicking below.

I'm sure your little paleontologists will love it.

Here I created plaster of paris stones with little dinosaurs hidden inside.  Students used excavating tools to claim the little dinos and then used books to identify which dinosaur they found.

Or how about something a little green for St. Patrick's Day.  I always have dyed rice laying around.  A simple favorite sand/sensory table filler.  This time I was given these little yellow tokens that I thought looked just like 'pieces of gold' that a leprechaun might have left.  I wrote real and nonsense words on them for my kinders to sort.

I know that not everyone has access to some gold pieces, so here is a little freebie that you can use in your in their place.  Just click on the picture.

How about rhyming!  I made of these little bugs for a rhyming activity in my sensory table.

Students find the matching bugs in the green grass (shredded green paper) and then clip them together with a fun clothes pin and foamy stuck to the end.

If you need a copy of this one, click on the picture below to get it.  It's FREE!!!

In the fall their is corn for shucking (love this fine motor activity to build strong fingers) and weighing. Students love to see how heavy a cup full of kernels versus an entire ear weighs. 

At Easter, we add eggs with a rime on one end and an onset on the other.  Viola! An aligned and fun word work activity.

I tier this activity by having some student word with only the CVC word combinations and others working with the CVCC word combinations.  They record the words they make.

Even polar animals can be a sorting activity (they that's a common core standard folks).  At this table my students sorted the Arctic and the Antarctic animals.  One little guy told me he 'had to sort them because they would never play together in real life.  They live to far away.'

These little butterflies had hidden pictures on them that my students would observe with their magnifying glasses.  Once they found the hidden picture, they would record the word on a recording sheet.

And finally, I love these little Dollar Tree orbs that you add water to and they expand.  These were great beginning of the year sensory table fun.  I had students sorting them and counting them, identifying which number of colored orbs was great and which was less.  All these activities align to a common core standard.  So how can so many classrooms being shying way from this great differentiated instructional tool?  

I hope before you toss aside your own table, you consider trying out a few of these activities.  If size is a factor (believe me I have the world's smallest kindergarten classroom), try a plastic tote for a substitute.  Sometimes I actually have my sand table and a tote going at the same time, I love it so much.

And just to maybe give you an added little nudge . . . I have one last freebie to offer you as the Valentine's season approaches.  So this one is for all you Sensory Table Lovers out there.  Just like me.

Enjoy!

I am gradually getting my own "products" uploaded over to our EEE 

Early Education Emporium. 

Follow this direct link to find my little shop under the polka dot umbrella!