Coloring Eggs in the Classroom

Do you color hard boiled eggs in your classroom?  I do.  We always do a little unit of study on spring and all the signs of the season in nature and the world around us.  I do not use any frame of reference to Easter other than it is a holiday that some people celebrate at this time of year.   I like to do this activity on our last day before the kids go on spring break as a fun way to end our unit.  We always talk about baby animals and baby birds.  Eggs inevitably come into the discussion as well.  

Do you know how few children are doing this at home with their families?  I have such sweet childhood memories of doing this with my mom.  When I ask my kinder students if they have done this before, most say no.  The few who say yes, have often done it in a preschool or after school care program.  That makes me a bit sad.  But, it is another reason I do it with my students.

I know what some of you are thinking, "coloring eggs has no academic value".  I disagree.  I see this as an art activity and art activities have great value in my classroom.  We want 21st century students to be creative and think outside the box.  We want them to be problem solvers finding unique solutions to difficult challenges.  I know all the art teachers in the world will agree that all these characteristics  can all be learned through the arts.  When I say the arts, I am not talking about a classroom "craftivity" where each child's product looks exactly the same.  I am talking about providing the tools and materials for students to make something completely their own.  OK, I know we are talking about coloring eggs.  Yes, it is a simple activity and will not produce a grand masterpiece.  But in kindergarten, it is practice that gets students' creative juices flowing.  All these art experiences build on each other and help students see themselves as "creative".   And when these art experiences are combined with opportunities to be creative in math, science, and other subjects, we are reaching our goals to help prepare students for a successful future.

OK, thanks for reading my rant on art and why it is still very important in education.  Coloring eggs is a very simple art project that is inexpensive and easy to set up.  Kids think it is FUN, which is another very important part of kindergarten.  I get the color pellets at the dollar store.  I got the colored egg cups in the photo at the top from a set years ago and keep them for this activity.  They are very handy and if you want to color eggs, it is worth getting them and keeping them for the future.  We just use crayons to decorate the eggs before they go into the dye.  Make sure you get the eggs out of the fridge for about 30 minutes before you color them.  If they are too cold, the condensation and temperature make it hard to use the crayons effectively.  

It is hard to see the crayon lines on the eggs, but some of them are super cute!  Each child did two and that is the perfect number of eggs to fit into the little baskets they made.  I let the eggs dry in the carton just as you see above.  I write the child's name on the lid of the carton to keep track of the eggs and then it is easy to put them in the baskets when they are dry and ready to go home.

You can see the eggs with the other goodies in the spring baskets in this shot from above.  We also put some cute baby birds and a few treats in there as well.  My sweets kiddos were so excited about their spring baskets and the "special" things they made to go in them.  That made me feel so happy as we said good-bye for our week off.  Happy kids, happy teacher, life if good!

Here is a little FREEBIE  for you that I use to do scrambled sight word eggs in my classroom.  This is a recording sheet for students to write the words they make and color the egg to match.  You will need ten different colors of plastic eggs to put the letters for each word inside.  I write my letters on colored paper squares.  You can use letter tiles too.  This activity is great because you can use it with any word list that is appropriate for your students.  I have two complete sets of eggs to make it easier for a small group to accomplish this task at a table.  In kindergarten, I find that it works best to have an adult at the table while kids are working.  Just click on the image below to go get  your freebie.  Have fun!

Happy spring!

Happy teaching!

Reading Fluency

Need some simple activities to help your young students develop reading fluency? Here are a few things I am doing with my class (in addition to our normal familiar reading practice).  We are done with CVC words and have moved on to blends and digraphs, but, it is really important to practice "putting it all together" to read and write with ease.  I have made some helpful little sheets to practice reading, sentences, and punctuation.  And it is so easy to make them into a literacy center for the class before I send the pages home in the homework.

The kiddos work together in a small group to read and answer all the questions on the pocket chart.  Then, they sit down at the table and do a little recording sheet to practice and review.  Some of the questions are silly, so it is fun.  Anytime they get to use the do-a-dot dabbers, I have happy students.  So, this little activity was a success!

You can get this little pack for only $1.00 in my TpT store.  It took me less than ten minutes to write out the sentence strips to make it into a literacy center.  Woo hoo!  Just click on the image below to go get it.

This is another activity that helps build reading fluency but also helps young students understand what makes a complete sentence.  I did the same thing as the Read and Answer center above.  I used one of the sheets from the pack and wrote out all the sentences and phrases on sentence strips.  I added a couple more into the pocket chart just for practice.  After working together in a small group to complete the pocket chart, the kiddos went to the table to do the practice page with dabbers.

I also made this mini anchor chart to introduce this concept in a simple way to my kindergarten sweeties.  The idea of complete sentences can be a bit tricky.  But this literacy center went very well and the "Is it a Sentence?" sheets will be going home in homework packs throughout the remainder of the school year.

This was a standard 8.5 X 11" sheet that I enlarged to ledger size paper (11 X17").  I put it on the yellow construction paper and laminated it.  It was a really helpful tool to help students with the activity, and you can get this for FREE down at the bottom of the post.  Just sharing the love.

You can get lots of practice pages for this concept.  I have two 6-packs!  Just click on the images below to go get them.  Yes, they are only $1.00 each.

The last item I made to help young readers cover a big concept is Pick the Punctuation!  I know it will be helpful to both kindergarten and first grade teachers.  Students need to read each line and choose the correct punctuation to end the sentence.  I will introduce this just a bit later in the year, but we have already been working on these concepts for quite some time.  This is an example from the pack:

This activity helps with so many areas of reading and writing.  It helps students understand and differentiate the end marks and read with appropriate expression, which in turn helps reading fluency.  These can also help kiddos improve correct usage in writing as well.   This would be just as easy to turn into a pocket chart center like the ones above.  You can get these sheets in my TpT store by clicking on the image below.  Yup, you guessed right, only $1.00.

 
I have lots of little 6-Packs! in my store.  Each pack is a single skill with a single format and includes six different versions.  I think $1.00 is just the right price and hope that it makes your life easier to be able to get just what you need in little packs.  I hate nothing more that paying for a big pack and then only using a few pages. 

OK, here's your freebie!  Click on the image to go get it in my TpT store.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope these ideas help you in your classroom!
Happy teaching!

Snow Much Fun!

We are having so much fun with SNOW in our little California classroom!  I grew up in San Francisco and I remember being fascinated with snow as a child.  My sweet class is too!  I suppose if we had to deal with the realities of severe winter weather it might not seem so special, but it is a fun topic to come back to after our winter break.  We are reading great stories, and enjoying our winter snow theme as we work on teen numbers, cvc words, and color words among other things.

Yes, that's right, those are paper snowballs!  We are using paper snow balls for reading and writing cvc words and matching teen numbers with ten frames and base ten blocks.  My kiddos are LOVING it!  The pictures above are from a center activity where students had to choose a snowball,  say the picture word, and write the word on the snowball recording sheet.  The recording sheets came from my Print and Go! Winter Math and Literacy (NO PREP).  You can get that in my TpT store.  This is what the recording sheet looks like:

My Print and Go! Winter pack includes sheets just like this for sight words and numbers too!  We will be using them all winter long.  I am so glad the kids had fun with this activity.  These are the two products I made for our snowballs.  Just print and crumple up the papers into "snowballs".  Then you are ready for lots of winter classroom fun. 

The other  super fun thing we do with the paper snowballs is have snow ball fights!  Yes, that's right, and they are lots of fun.  A snowball fight takes about ten minutes and it is a fun learning game for your whole class.  You need to start with an even number of kiddos and the same number of matching snowballs.  You could use cvc picture and matching words or numeral and matching ten frames, etc.  I split my class into two even groups sitting across from each other on our big rug.  I pass out the snowballs so each student has one.  These are the rules I give for snowball fights in my classroom:

1. When we have a snowball fight are we really having a fight?  No, it is really a fun game.
2. Wait to throw your snowball until I say GO.
3. You may not throw your snowball hard.  Do a gentle toss.
4. You may not throw your snowball directly at a person.  Just toss it in the air.
5. You can only throw the snowball one time.
6. Once everyone has tossed the snowballs, calmly and carefully pick one up.
7. Unfold your snowball and try to find a classmate that matches your number, word, etc.
8. Once you find your match, sit down in a circle so we can all see your number, word etc.

When everyone is sitting, we quickly go around the circle and partners share the word, number, or other concept they had.  My kiddos are begging me to do this activity every day!  You can easily make your own snow balls for your class with sight words, addition or subtraction problems with an answer, or other concepts.  There are lots of possibilities.  These activities do use some white copy paper, but I would easily trade a ream of  paper for all the fun my kiddos are having.  I hope you will give it a try with your class.

We also did sweet snow art for our January calendars.  We just used sponge stamps with white paint and white glitter.  White glitter is the perfect addition to make any white painting look like sparkly snow.  You can get the monthly Calendars for Number Writing in my TpT store.  We do one every month for number writing and pattern practice.

Yesterday we read Snowballs by Lois Ehlert and my kids made lists of all the "good stuff" they would use to make a snowman.  You can get this snowman list paper for FREE in my TpT store.  Just click on the link or the photo above and it will take you to get it.

We have also been working on color words and my sweeties have been making an emergent reader to go into their book boxes.  I will try to add some photos when they are all done.  You can get the cute mitten book here: Colorful Mittens Emergent Reader.

I hope you have some winter fun in your classroom this year!  Stay warm.
Happy teaching!