Subbing Adventures

Today I am so excited to present Brandi from Really Good Stuff as my guest blogger. It turns out she did some time as a substitute teacher and shares her adventures... and a poem... with all of us at Sub Hub.

March Maddness Fast Approaching!! Freebie up for grabs!

I am keeping this post short and to the point because basketball and barbeque are happening at mi casa today!  Stop by TpT for a FREE March Maddness R-Controlled Vowel Game!  Click the picture link and enjoy!

Forces and Motion

I want to share my new Kindergarten Lesson Plans for Forces and Motions. It covers motion, pushes and pulls, what things move and do not move, force, and gravity.

I have discovered over time that many teachers do not teach this unit... at all! I think this will help you so much.

I happen to LOVE teaching these ideas because THIS is when I intro verbs and collaborate with the PE teacher to do some FUN stuff. Since no one (even me!) likes to write out lesson plans, I did it for you!

 

I took the full lesson plans for FIVE days. I added charts, activities, and great links to make this unit awesome for you. I didn't have to buy any graphics for this unit, so I made it super cheap... like 50 cents a day cheap. 

I teach this after Space and in early spring.

Mary , Sharing Kindergarten Tel: | Mobile: http://sharingkindergarten.blogspot.com/

DIY Center

This is a do-it-yourself center.  It is super simple to make and you can use items that you already have at home. I will show you how to make the activity and give you a free printable to go along with it.

Find out how you can go from this:

To this:

Paleontology anyone? Free Mister Bones Activity Pack

I love the fact that we get to study dinosaurs again!  We first learned about dinosaurs back in October.  They learned that some dinosaurs were Herbivores and some were Carnivores.  This week we read about Mister Bones: The founder of the T-Rex! 

The students also got to experience digging bones themselves.  I ordered a few excavating kits for the students to practice with!  You can order these Dinosaur Fossil Kits  for only $2.99 each and they arrive really quickly!  I got mine in 2 days!  I ordered 6 and had small groups of 4-5 work together.  If you don't have time for this, you can always use a toothpick and chocolate chip cookies and dig out the chocolate chips.

Our Grammar and Writing skill was adjectives, so we did a lot of practicing during Writer's Workshop.  We started out using adjectives in sentences with this activity.  Then they began using it more in their stories.

When they finished digging for bones, they worked on sequencing this event.  They wrote about it using this graphic organizer.

Our phonics skill was Long Vowel /oa/ /ow/ and 3-letter blends.  They had fun playing the games in centers!

This is a Word Work game that I use with spinners.  If you don't have clear spinners, you can just use a paperclip with a pencil.

All these activities are FREE in my Mister Bones Literacy Pack.  Click Picture link to download



Dental Health freebie

Hey friends!  It's Erin from Eberhart's Explorers....and I'm gearing up for Dental Health week. Hop on over to my blog to snag a little freebie.

Just click on my button below and it will take you directly to the post. Happy brushing and flossing.

Download Free Animal Picture Writing Prompts

Visit Sub Hub to download a free document with eight animal picture writing prompts. Download and print the file, or visit the Pinterest board where they all live happily along with many other fabulous picture writing prompts. Many thanks to my husband who took most of the photos.

Picture This!

Let's engage little learners in meaningful discussions--using picture prompts.  Each picture includes a question that the teacher can use to initiate conversation about the topic. Capable writers will be able to write their responses to the questions.

Just click on the picture to hop on over to get these free printables:)

African Art

Hello!
I just posted some fun pictures of our African Art projects that we did on Friday. Hop on over to my blog to read and see some more of the fun that we had!

Kindergarten Makes Its Mark

Although I have subbed for four years, I have spent only three of those days in kindergarten. Yesterday was one of those days, and I took some time to note my observations and conclusions. See what you think.

Creative Writing with "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds

 This week we read the story "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds.  This is one of our stories from the Reading Street program but can also be purchased at Amazon. It is about a girl who is upset because she thinks she can't draw.  With the help of her art teacher, she discovers she is a really great artist.   

For one of our activities, the students were given a small piece of construction paper and they were to cut out a circle to represent a dot.  Then they were to make something out of it.  This is how a few turned out!

We did a little creative writing with this story as well.   

I wanted to have a way for the students to experience how the girl in the story must have felt when she tried to draw.  I gave the students a step by step drawing activity.  Some of the students told me it was hard, but I encouraged them not to give up like the girl in the story.  All of them finished and all of them were GREAT!!Here is how a few turned out.

CLICK HERE to download these writing activities

If you follow Reading Street, here are free word cards with long vowel /ea/, and inflected endings /ier/ /ied/ /iest/ to go with Unit 4 Week 2 - "The Dot". 

CLICK HERE to download.