Hey and hello almost February! Today I will be sharing the ins and outs of four KinderLiteracy themes! President’s Day/American Symbols, Dental Health, Kindness and Bodies! I’m going to jump right into the first theme!
It was requested to add a KinderLiteracy President’s day units soooo here you go! This close read read is set up completely different from my other weeks! I help to walk you through that! This week uses TWO books! Both of these books can be purchased from Scholastic or Amazon! So sorry it took two … I just couldn’t find one nonfiction book I liked that covered both topics!
On Monday, you will be reading about the president and his job! You will also discuss the vocabulary words for this book on Monday. (This is different from all other KinderLiteracy weeks.) On Tuesday, you will read the second text and discuss the White House! You will also discuss the vocabulary words relevant to this book on that day as well!
Law: use your hand to represent a gavel
Speech: use your hand to make a pretend microphone
Countries: Use both arms to represent a giant sphere (Earth) and spin around to represent the Earth spinning
Military: marching motion
West Wing: Point west and then use your fingers to represent ‘walking’ as the presidents walks to the West Wing to work
Oval Office: use your hand to pretend that you are busy working and signing papers
White House: Use your arms to make a “roof”
Carpenters: use a hammer to build
On Wesdnesday, you will be completing the text dependent questions for book 1 and book 2! The essential question for this week: How can we use the text features to expand our learning? The students will be focusing in on text features! On day 3, the students will answer a mixture of text-dependent questions and text feature questions! On day four, the students will go on a “text features” hunt! If you have a doc camera then you can place the book on that so students can really see those text features: captions, labels, digraphs, headers, table of contents, etc. The students will also help you create a text features anchor chart!
To follow up with the reader, the students will help you to label each of the American symbols!
Up next is Dental Health week! This is another edition to Unit 8 of KinderLiteracy! This week pairs the main text, Bear’s Loose Tooth, with a nonfiction selection! This week’s essential question also focuses on looking closing at text features! With this week, the students will be noticing text features in both a fiction and nonfiction text! Below are some suggestions for the vocabulary words!
Nibble: pretend to eat something
Savor: save a bite and then make a satisfied sound
Fret: put hands towards face and look scared
Perch: extend one arm out and use other hand to pretend to”land” and sit on the branch (arm)
Pry: pretend to use a hammer to get a nail out
Flutter: use your hand an sway it back and forth
As mentioned above, this week the kiddos are focusing on text features! I include the pieces needed for your nonfiction anchor chart. However, I would also illustrate some additional fiction text features examples!
This week’s craft is just TOO CUTE!
The next two weeks are AWESOME for Kindness month! These two close reads ask that the students look inward … this can be TOUGH for kinders and can need a lot of modeling and front loading from us! Up first is A Bad Case of Stripes!
This close read week hinges on the use of the main text, A Bad Case of Stripes! You are also asked to use the nonfiction book, My Amazing Body! This week’s essential question: How do the illustrations alone tell the “story” in our texts? Again… working on using the book itself to gain additional learning! We learn from the words in the text, but we can also learn from the pictures alone! The “life-based” essential question tugs on the heart strings… How does the way that someone looks affect the way that you treat them?
Below you can see the included vocabulary words and optional vocabulary actions!
Ointment: squirt ointment out and pretend to place it on your arm
Contagious: pretend to cough
Fret: pretend to be worries
Sob: Pretend to cry
Below is a look at the listen and draws (lawn and sob)…
Using the book, My Amazing Body, the kiddos will learn the different parts of the body and the body functions!
In writing, the students will be writing information reports about their bodies!
One of my favorite writings for this time of the year is The Best Part of Me! The books is great and so powerful!
I then take a quick picture for the kiddos and they write their own stories to match!
On Friday, it’s craft time! There are many different ways you can do this craft but this has been the easiest I’ve found! Give each kiddo a set of colorful strips. They will glue them down onto the paper.
Looks how adorable Daisy Days for Learning’s turned out!
Up next is one of my favorite books! It’s not a traditional kid book so make sure you read it before reading it to the kids or you might all end up crying haha!! Not really but the book is POWERFUL! I feel that with young kiddos they need to “see” situations to full grasp them and apply them to their lives! The week we pair two fiction stories, both revolving around kindness!
On the bubble chart we wrote ways to show kindness!
Below is a look at the day one independent task! The kiddos are asked to represent the changes throughout the book.
The poem for this week is about treating all friends the same!
There is also a piece for the students learning about their emotions!
Below is this week’s vocabulary words and optional actions!
Brilliant: pretend you are seeing something shiny or bright
Ragged: pull on your clothes
Thawed: Make a fist to show an ice cube and then slowly open your hand to show it melting
Ripple: Use your hand to make a wave/rippling motion
Announced: Use your two hands to represent a megaphone
*Vocab Tip* tab your book so you know what pages you’ll find a vocabulary word! Move the tabs on day three to match the text-dependent questions!
This week also offers a couple powerful whole-class activities! Up first is the “wrinkled heart”. For this activity you’ll need to cut out a large heart! Each kiddo will come up and tell a time someone wasn’t kind to them. They will then get to wrinkle the heart. After all students have had a chance to tell their story… you’ll try to smooth out the wrinkles. The students will see that no matter what you try… the wrinkles remain! This helps kids to understand that unkind words can never truly be “erased”. Often times kids think a “sorry” makes everything all better. We want them to take responsibility for their mistakes and apologize… but stopping to think before actually making the mistake is even better!
The Ripple Effect, is the next activity! For this activity you just need small stones (can be purchased from the Dollar Store) and a bucket of water! I chose to do it outside because it will make a small splash! For this activity, the students will state something KIND they did for someone. As they throw the stone into the bucket they’ll watch and see the “ripple” the stone makes! This ripple is the same in real life. When you do something nice for someone they feel loved and will do something kind as well. This ripple continues on and on!
Let’s keep our February chat going with some freebies and fun!
Up first? How about an instant freebie! Download these adorable number puzzlers **HERE** or by clicking below!
You are able to purchase each month separate but I am also currently running a special on both bundles! The kindergarten bundle is on sale for 50+% off! You can view that bundle more **HERE**
The first grade bundle is also on sale for 50+% off! You can view that bundle more **HERE**
Last but not least… the second grade bundle is also on sale for 50+% off! You can view that bundle more **HERE**
Alright, let’s talk CENTERS! I’m excited to share with you a set of freebie PREVIEW centers for Valentines’s Day! Having a set of hands-on and engaging centers is a must to get through the month! All of the centers I share below will be part of the free preview! Please note that these are a condensed version of the centers meaning the actual center will have several more pages/pieces! My center bundles are HUGE and all deeply discounted! Each of the center bundles are on sale for $50 from the $125 regular value! The packets are linked below!
Up first are my Pre-K centers! This center is called Petals Full of Love! The center covers letters A-Z and includes sorting font letters and a beginning sound picture!
Let’s talk kinder centers! Up first is Roses for My Valentine! This centers helps student work on number sense for numbers 1-10!
Each of the centers come with an included recording sheet!
Now it’s time to snag your FREEBIE! Grab all of the centers pictured above by clicking HERE or on the image below!
All of my themed center bundles are currently on sale for $50 …an absolute STEAL! You can view more of them directly below!
I also wanted to share with you about FREEBIE these skill focus sheets! They contain the skills covered in each of the center packets! They are great to reference for a quick way to see what skills are covered in both the kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and K/1 themed centers packets! You use the quick access guise to click and go directly to the grade level you need!
Once you have clicked on the grade level you want, you’ll then hit the landing page like this! You’ll want to click on the theme you’re accessing!
You will then be able to visually see what centers are included in that packet and read to see what skills are covered!
You can download these FREEBIE center skill maps for all of my center packets HERE or clicking the image below!
If you remember back to my post after Christmas, Amber, posted a teacher life-changing video in our Facebook group! Amber introduced us to the Brother Scan and Cut machine! The machine is just about as amazing as it sounds! Amber said, “My mom gifted me a scan and cut- I had no idea such thing existed but I’m in love!!!”
Of course the Scan and Cut wasn’t necessarily designed with teachers cutting centers in mind (darn) but it WORKS for that! You can use it for many additional crafting projects! Just a FYI that I am not sponsored for this post, just something that I can see being beneficial for teachers! I also want to advise that it’s possible that is might not work for every job you have, but it worked perfectly for the samples I tried! I found this additional video to assist in additional options for cutting centers! I purchased this model from Amazon! OH YEAH! DID I MENTION THAT A LUCKY TEACHER WILL WIN A SCAN AND CUT?
I’m also giving away a $100 shopping spree to Amazon to one lucky winner!
Finally, I’d love to share this adorable freebie from A Teachable Teacher! Snag these freebie Valentine’s Day cards **HERE**