Five Senses

I've taught the Five Senses many different ways, but I think my favorite is combining it with my Gingerbread Man unit.  Many years ago, I acquired this Gingerbread Senses booklet from Kinderlit. I love how there is a space on each page for the students to write what sense they are working on.  I use a combination of art and picture hunts in magazines to fill out the pages of this booklet.

Red glitter glue on the tongue provides
a "bumpy" surface for the sense of touch.

A bunch of toys that can be heard!

Cinnamon is added to this gingerbread girl
to use our sense of smell.

Here is the link to this booklet:

http://www.shop.kinderlit.com/Gingerbread-Senses-111.htm

Another oldie but goodie is a fun sense of smell activity from the Aims Center for Math and Science. I've been using this activity for 15 years!  It looks like it's been updated.  I like to do Eggs Full of Sound whole class.  Mystery items are placed in plastic eggs, and as I shake them the students have to guess what is inside.  Once the sound is revealed, the students glue the matching picture onto the correct space on their paper  "egg carton".  What fun!

This activity may be old, but it's still available as a digital download at

http://store.aimsedu.org/item/da1535/eggs-full-of-sound/1.html

Work Stations

In my classroom, timed "rotations" never worked.  Some students finished their rotation in 3 minutes, others still weren't finished in the allotted time!  In addition to that, if a parent volunteer didn't show up, I was scrambling to find an activity the students could do on their own.  I know most teachers make this system work, but it wasn't for me. 

Luckily, I had a fantastic kindergarten coworker my first years of teaching kindergarten. She provided projects at four different tables, and student check off sheets were available at each. The goal was to have a math, literacy, theme and independent hands on project each day.  It was genius!  For fifteen years, this is the system I use in my classroom.

The key is modeling each table activity before work stations begin, and setting clear expectations.  At the beginning of the year, this is the hardest part.  However, as the students get into the flow of this system, it becomes the favorite time of day. When the students complete all four work stations, they get to choose an activity from the free choice shelf!  I have found that this way of doing work stations fosters a real sense of responsibility among the students.  Another plus is that the students have complete choice in what order the projects are completed, and are never in the same "group".  As a teacher, I sit at one table and get to have time working with the students in small groups and always know where that child is academically in all areas. 

This is what a typical day of work stations looks like in my classroom:

"What" sight word practice.

Teacher table - number bond practice in math journals.
Fun way to work in some Common Core!

Word family book.  We learn one word family every week.
When finished, they read the book to a friend.

Winter weather is our theme this week -  adding two dice
and coloring the sum in this winter themed activity in plastic sleeves.

Check off sheets are provided at each table with an adult.

This is a day in which I had no parent volunteers.  A day with parent volunteers would include some activities that require more help.  I can often include an art project that goes with a theme into this time! 

Monthly Calendars

Every month my students make a calendar to take home. I try to tie in a holiday or current theme for the calendar art work.  While learning about winter weather, we read Snip, Snip.....Snow! by Nancy Poydar.  In the story, the main character makes paper snowflakes with her class while waiting for real snow to arrive. We followed the directions at the end of the book to make our own paper snowflakes!  At the beginning of the school year, I found  free traceable calendars on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I love the designer of these monthly calendars, because she included calendars for students to trace or fill in themselves.  Differentiation!  These calendars can be found here:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Traceable-Monthly-Calendars-2014-2015-808319

A finished calendar with traceable dates.

Some students choose to fill in the dates themselves.

Working hard and having fun!