Simple Science

Hi Everyone! I'm Kristen and I'm excited to be sharing some simple science ideas with you today!  I am a BIG fan of Science in the early childhood classroom (K-2).  In this day and age, Science is often the first thing to get booted out of our busy schedules, but I find it so easy to incorporate and it fits in with so many subject areas!  I recently presented a session at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference in Chicago and thought I would share a few ideas with you!

I love to start out my Science units with a great piece of literature; but if you don't have a copy of these, substitute your own!

This idea is all about camouflage! I like to read this book first:

 Then I pass out squares of fabric (I got these at Jo-Ann's and they are precut fat quarters for quilting--so no cutting necessary!) and a variety of plastic bugs/amphibians purchased from the Dollar Tree.  The children work with the plastic critters to find the best camouflage for each one!  As an extension, the children get a critter cut out (fish, butterflies, etc.) and try to camouflage it in the classroom.

My students are always amazed that on a days when we have a rainy morning, the puddles are gone by our sunny afternoon recess.  They love learning about the water cycle and how a drop of water travels.  

I start out with a book about the water cycle:

Then, we do this activity.  I have pony beads in several different colors and location cards that show the different places a drop of water can travel (dirt, plants, animals, pond, lake, cloud, etc.).  The children roll the die; pretending they are a drop of water, to determine where their droplet will travel.  Each time they visit a station, they place one of the pony beads on a pipe cleaner to form a water droplet travel bracelet. They keep rolling the die until you tell them to stop.

 

This last idea, is one of my favorite! My Kinders and I do a big study each year about the Monarch Butterfly.  I read any one of my favorite Monarch life cycle books and then we make these life cycle bracelets.  I place the pony beads in plastic containers so the children can walk down both sides of the containers as they make their bracelets. I label each container with what part of the life cycle it contains and how many of that bead the child needs to take and add to their pipe cleaner.

I get all my pony beads at Michael's or Jo-Ann's and use my 40% of coupon, wait until they are on sale, or use my teacher discount card.  I also always buy the largest bag possible because I won't have to buy that color again for a long time! :) 

You can get the handouts from my session here.  They contain all the directions for the two bracelets as well as some songs and other ideas for teaching Simple Science in your classroom!

I hope you'll try some of these ideas in your classroom! Follow my blog for more Simple Science ideas!

Roll and Color ~ Making Math Fun!

Do you use roll and color activities in your classroom? We LOVE them!! In fact, the children love them so much, that they cheer when we add a new one to centers. Haha! You just have to love the enthusiasm of 5 and 6 year olds!! 

 Last year we found these adorable eggs at Walgreen's:

Using these egg shakers for inspiration, 

we made three different roll and color papers: 

Roll a Chick, Roll Some Carrots, and Roll a Rabbit. 

These games have been so much fun all year long and have really grown with our children! They began with matching a set with a numeral and now they are working with the dice to practice addition of sets, numerals, and also counting on from a given numeral. These fun containers have definitely increased the level of enthusiasm even more!!

One of the ways we play the game is for the children to practice counting up. Some of them still struggle with this skill, so this is a fun way to get in some more practice. We give each group two dice, one with a numeral and one with dots on it. They shake, spill, add and color! The children touch the numeral and say its name and then count up using the dots on the second die.

Another option we offer the children is to use a ten frame and counters to determine the sum shown on the dice. 

We also use our number line to find the sum:

Sometimes, we just simply use our fingers!

SHAKE

SPILL

ADD

COLOR

Here is a completed example of each activity:

You can get these adorable roll and color activities here for free!

Thanks for hanging out with us today! We hope your students enjoy our roll and color games as much as ours do!

Happy Easter from Kelly and Kim!

My Favorite Apps for the Classroom!

Hello there! It's Molly from Lucky to Be in First! As you may know, I'm a HUGE tech nerd. I love gadgets and gizmos of all types for my classroom! I am super fortunate to work in a district where technology is embraced and encouraged.

In each of our classrooms, we have a set of six iPads.  I use our iPads during Daily 5, as well as during our Math time. There are so many great apps out there that it can be overwhelming

Today, I'm sharing my list of favorite apps in the classroom!

First up is my very own app, Smart Cookie Math! In my classroom, we use the Smart Cookie Math paper and pencil program to work on our math fact fluency.  Parents were always asking, "How can I help my child at home?" In this digital age, an app was my solution!

 The app mirrors the program exactly! So, when a child may need some extra practice on Level 6, they can use Level 6 on the app to squeeze in a little practice!

You can read more about my Apps {here}

A great reading app is Rhyme to Read.
You can read my post about it {here}. Make sure to check out their website to learn more! It's a phenomenal app at a great price!

When I was at the EdExpo in Atlanta last month, I was fortunate to meet the amazing creator of the Touchtronic apps, Duncan! He was so humble about this incredible system!

Basically, you tap the letters and numbers directly onto the iPad to play games and create numbers and words.  It's amazing!

You can read more about it on my blog {here} or head over the Junior Learning website for the letters {here} and the numbers {here} This app will seriously BLOW your mind!

During Daily 5 time, my students "read the newspaper" each day through the News-O-Matic app. Every evening, a new digest is delivered to our iPads. It's filled with five headline news stories...but in a very kid-friendly format.  I LOVE hearing the students discuss the news!

There are multiple editions to choose from for various grade levels.  Check out their website {here} or the app {here}

During Math time {after students have finished their "work" for the day} they are allowed to use the iPads for Math games.

One great app is called Kodable. It's a programming curriculum to use with early elementary students. What I love is that students can begin their program in the computer lab {or at home} and continue their progress on the iPad.  Check out their website {here}

I'm sure most of you have heard of RAZ Kids but just in case, it's worth mentioning how fabulous it is! To use this app, you must already subscribe to RAZ Kids.

The RAZ Kids App is filled with TONS of leveled books. You can assign students to a specific bookshelf.  From there, they can have a story read to them, read it on their own, take quizzes, and even record their reading! This is well worth the price tag!

Do you remember those fun magnetic letters we all had on our fridges growing up? Well, here's the 2015 version of Magnetic Letters! I give my kids a list of sight words and let them go crazy!

I've mentioned that we use Everyday Math for our curriculum. The best part of this curriculum are their games they have embedded into the program!

A few years ago, they added digital versions of those games! My favorite is Top-It, but they have a huge list! Even if you don't use this program, the apps are great reinforcement for basic math concepts!

And lastly, who can forget the Osmo?! We love ALL of the apps for Osmo! I'm so excited to get the kids started on their latest, Masterpiece! Yippee!

Do you have apps that you can't live without? Leave me a comment - I'm always looking for new apps to check out!

Using Jar Activities in Workstations

Hi, it's Aimee from Pencils, Books, and Dirty Looks.
Workstation time can be a hectic part of the day.  It can be impossible to keep all students engaged and on task while you are trying to work with small groups.  Through lots of trial and error, I finally found a way to make stations fun and to keep students learning.

I've been using jar activities in my classroom for several years.  Activities in a jar seemed like a great way to focus on certain skills, make stations portable, and keep students engaged.  I get most of my jars at the Dollar Tree.  They are the perfect size, and they're only $1.00!

I keep the jars that students are using at the time for ELA workstations on a shelf in the room that is easily accessible.  

I store jar activities that aren't in use in plastic storage containers.  This makes them easily accessible throughout the school year since I rotate jars about twice a month.

I started with my Voice Jar.  This is still a favorite of all my students.

This jar activity can be used across grade levels to work on fluency through expression.  Students can use this jar with any genre.  They simply choose a voice card out of the jar and read their passage in that voice.  When I taught first grade, I would use this jar during shared reading time.  We would use our different voices to read poetry and other short passages.

I have made 62 jar activities for students to use throughout the school day.  Many of the jars are ELA topics, but I also use them for math workstations, early finisher acitivities, and community building.  One of my favorite jars is my End of the Day Jar.  The end of the day is one of the most hectic times in my classroom!  This jar encourages students to pack up quickly, so they can have an opportunity to pull a question from the jar.  It has been a life saver!  If you would like to try this jar for free, you can download it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Check out my blog for other jar activities!

Have you tried Kahoot? 46 Easy Step by Step Directions To Help You Get Started Today

Hi guys, Anita here from I Live 2 Learn I Love 2 Grow 

I'm a Kahooter! You may ask, What's a Kahooter?  If you haven't heard of Kahoot you absolutely have to try it. "Yeah Kahoot! Can we do that again? I wish there were more questions. I love Kahoot! Wooo Hooo!!" These are things my students have said when doing a Kahoot. I saw a tweet about Kahoot this past summer and immediately knew I had to try it in my classroom. We have been using Kahoot at least once a week since the first week of school. If you want 100 percent engagement in an activity then Kahoot is for you.

This fall I taught a technology session with teachers from area schools and one of the things we covered was Kahoot. Teachers loved it!! This winter I taught a Kahoot session during our tech fair and teachers loved it. I have had many teachers try it in their classroom since the tech fair and all of them say their kids can't get enough of it. Kahoot is just plain FUN, FUN, FUN and totally engaging.

When I taught the second tech session on Kahoot I added more to my original downloadable directions. Keep reading to see the new directions and get your new file below.

What is Kahoot?

Kahoot is a game type quiz, discussion, or survey created by you. You create an account. There are tons of Kahoots already created that you can use or you can type in your own questions for  your students to answer.

What device do I need for Kahoot?

I love that Kahoot works on all devices. You display Kahoot from a computer and the students can answer using iPads, iPhones, or computers. No matter what device your school has it should work for you. Since we have 1:1 iPads we added a Kahoot button to the home screen on our ipads by going to Kahoot.it This makes it easy for my students to connect to Kahoot quickly.

Ideas for using Kahoot 

The first day of school I always have a power point to tell about myself. This year I made a Kahoot to test the kids and see how well they listened to what I told them about myself.  It was so fun. The kids loved it and it seemed they did listen pretty well after all.  

Take a quiz you already have and type it into Kahoot. I have used questions from our weekly reading stories, questions from Scholastic News, and quizzes from books that I found online. 

Share a Kahoot. You can create a Kahoot and share it with other teachers at your school or in your grade level. I shared Kahoot with my 2nd grade team and we make quizzes to share with each other. We have shared math quizzes and end of math chapter review questions to review for chapter tests. 

The newest thing I tried in my classroom was using Kahoot to create surveys to use with our math chapter on Data and Graphing.  For this I turned the sound off so that students would understand that it was more about putting in the correct data than being first. I created some surveys and then created blank paper pencil graphs for them to record the data. Before the Kahoot survey I had students mark their favorites on their paper so they would know what to answer. Then we went through the Kahoot survery and filled out our data with tally marks and total numbers. After the Kahoot survey was over we returned to our seats to graph the results.

Click the link here to get the papers we used so that you can use them with your students. 

I am sharing my Kahoot link with your so you can survey, record and graph some favorites with your students.

Click here to get your NEW STEP BY STEP Google Drive Downloadable Doc  that shows you how to set up your own Kahoot Account and make and play a quiz. NEWLY ADDED How to Save and Edit Kahoots that others have made. There are so many quizzes on topics you might need that are already made. You can tweak them and make them your own quickly and easily. Also added directions to share your quiz with others. 

NEWLY ADDED PAGES TO FILE BELOW!!!