Brain Sprinkles

Cover a small Pringle's can or similar container with shiny paper. Put a tablespoon of rice in the bottom of the can and glue on the lid. Make a label that says "Brain Sprinkles". When you have something special you want the students to remember, pretend to shake the "brain sprinkles" on their heads. The students will LOVE this!!

Taken from Dr. Jean

Feature Friday: Halloween Sensory Tub

I absolutely LOVE sensory materials. They are good for children and should be included in our classroom practices. Why??

1. Children are wired to receive and utilize sensory input from day one.  This is why children will dive in hands first, exploring a new substance.  The senses are their most familiar, most basic way to explore, process, and come to understand new information.
2. Children need to use their senses and be engaged in meaningful experiences.  As we talk with them about what they are observing and sensing, we give them new language tools to connect with these more familiar sensory tools, building language as well as supporting cognitive concepts specific to the experience.
3. As children are better able to use their senses, they are then better able to learn through their senses. Just as children learn through their senses, they also are developing the ability to use those senses and are building the neurological pathways associated with each one.  With added sensory experiences, combined with the scaffolding of adults and peers, children become more perceptive.  Their sensory intake and processing becomes more acute.
4.  Sensory play is really part of the scientific process.  Whether out loud or within the internal dialogue of the mind, children have developed a question, leading them to investigate- by grabbing, smelling, listening, rubbing, staring, licking , what have you!  They are using their senses to collect data and from that, attempt to answer their own questions.
 

Here is your first of many sensory activities to use in your classroom!!

Halloween Sensory Tub
Black beans or black pom poms
Plastic skeletons (3) (Dollar store)
Foam shapes/letters (Dollar store)
Plastic pumpkins (Dollar store)
Scoops or tongs
Plastic suction cup spiders or spider rings (Dollar store)
Plastic mini light covers
Plastic candy corn
Trick or Treat bags

Activities:

1. Simply play with the materials.
2. Use with counting cards.
3. Add letters on pumpkin/ghost shapes and invite the student to find letters.
4. Add Halloween words and invite students to find them and read them.
5. Add a sheet with pictures of the itmes in the tub. Students can match objects to the pictures, 
6. Add containers or small tubs and invite students to sort the objects (by color, size, shape, etc.)


The possibilities are endless and children LOVE it!! Plus they are learning!!

Thoughtful Thursday

"Teachers have daily opportunities to be the catalysts for spectacular developmental advances for children who otherwise seem destined to end up in a developmental wasteland. We help provide love and attention, a healthful environment, good nutrition, and appropriate interpersonal interaction day after day.  So, whether we think of these dramatic changes as miracles or simply developmental advances, they are all around us, just waiting for a chance to happen - and waiting for us to help. The opportunity to be part of such miracles in the lives of young children is a bonus of our professional work that should not be taken lightly." How many lives have you touched today?

Taken from "Frankie's Story: Early Experiences" Matter by Bettye Caldwell

Read Aloud

It's fun. It builds community and a sense of belonging. It strengthens vocabulary, language, grammar and writing. It makes us aware of other places and other lives. It creates life-long readers. There is a great deal of research that shows it to be the most effective part of any reading program.

We're talking about reading aloud of course. And, with effects like those above, you'd think that teacher's reading aloud to students would be front and center in every classroom, at least from kindergarten through 8th grade. But it isn't. Too many teachers feel "the basics" have crowded reading aloud out of their classrooms. Far too many administrators these days are discouraging such "frills." (Not at MPP of course!) It's hard to believe, but there are actually supervisors out there who say either directly or in effect, "If it isn't on the test, don't teach it." And, as far as we know, reading aloud is not on any of those tests. 
However, its results are in those test results.

The read-aloud program can and should be pointing the way to almost any area of study. Name a topic and there's a good literary work that can take you and your students there full of motivation and ready to delve into the research and activities. Also, think about your own school days. We'll put money on the fact that, if you ever had a teacher who read to you consistently, you have never forgotten it. His or her well-thought out, challenging and carefully planned lessons are probably long since forgotten, but the story read aloud and the feelings and knowledge it created in you are still there at the edge of memory.

Not just any book will do for the read aloud programs. Read aloud must be as carefully thought out as any other part of the curriculum. The aim is to find the perfect book to read aloud at any given moment. Aim for quality and variety. If your first book is a fantasy, try for realism next time. If your first main character is female, the boys should find a hero in your next choice. Keep it varied. Keep the reading level one half step above that of the average reader in your class. Read aloud choices should open doors and help the kids reach for the best. 

The purpose of the read-aloud is to model appropriate reading behaviors and reading strategies.  It is also a time to expose children to a variety of genres and literary styles.  The teacher has an opportunity to show students the joys of reading and teach them how to think and discuss text. Teachers should have a set purpose for each read-aloud and should read with the proper fluency, rhythm, and intonation.

Remember: "Few children learn to love books by them-selves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word; someone has to show them the way."

—Orville Prescott

The Listening Center & Phonological Awareness

Phonological Awareness is a critical skill in early reading. I was reminded of this as I studied the new SC Readiness Assessment and reviewed current AIMS Web data. As I thought about phonological awareness I immediately thought of a great technology tool - the good old fashioned listening center.

Let's look at the Phonological Awareness continuum. It shows essential stages in order of difficulty, starting with the first skills to develop and moving towards a more complex set of skills. Each level contributes to building a strong literacy foundation. The phonological activities used in the classroom should change and vary by stage as well as difficulty. 

For the next several weeks we will look at listening center activities that foster the development of each skill on the continuum.

Listening: The foundation of phonological awareness is listening.  Being able to attend to sounds in the environment and the spoken word promote phonological awareness.  Activities help children identify sounds, find the source of a sound and listen to sounds in a series. 

1. Same or Different: record sounds of everyday objects, i.e. animals, household tools, musical instruments, nature sounds, etc. Play 2 sounds at a time. Ask students to identify if the sounds are the same or different. Students could record their responses on a sheet by circling the happy or sad face. 

2. Name that Sound: using the same sounds, play 1 sound at a time. Students identify the sound by placing a marker on a sheet with pictures representing the sounds (like Bingo). Start with 5 sounds then gradually increase the number.

3. Sequencing Sounds: play 3 sounds and invite students to indicate which sound was heard first, second, and last.  Picture cards representing the sounds could be used and placed in order or a worksheet in which the students number the pictures 1,2,3 based on the order the sounds were heard. 

Apple Drop Counting

Apple Drop Counting is a great game that focuses on simple one-to-one correspondence skills, but can be adapted to include skills like more and less, composing and decomposing, subitizing, and even addition and subtraction.

Materials:

• Apple tree mat (can be made of paper, felt, or foam)
• Apples (red pom poms, big red buttons, small wooden apples from craft store) The key is you must be able to drop, so some land on tree and tray.
• Tray to keep "apples" from rolling in the table, desk, or floor.
• Container to hold apples (small basket, cup, margarine tub, etc.)
• Paper and pencil (optional)

Directions: 

• Invite the student to grab a handful of apples, hold several inches above the mat, and drop them. (See why you need a tray!)
• The apples will scatter. Some will land on the tree and some off the tree onto the tray.
• Now invite the student to count the number of apples ON the tree.

Extending the Learning:

• One-to-One Correspondence: Give only a certain number of apples. Invite the student to count, pointing to each apple as the number is said.
• Number Values: After the student drops the apple onto the tree and counts them, ask him to identify if there are more apples on the tree or off. If he is unsure, have him line up the apples in two rows (a row of apples from the tree and a row of apples not on the tree) and have him compare length.
• Composing/Decomposing Numbers: Have the student count the exact number of apples to drop onto the tree. Let's say 10. Then, after each drop, ask her to count the number of apples on the tree and record it on a sheet of paper. Let's say 4. Then have her figure out how many apples must have fallen off the tree. Six. Together all the apples on the tree (4) and off the tree (6) equal 10 the number with which she began.
• Subitizing (Number Value Fluency): After the student has dropped the apples onto the tree, give only 3 - 5 seconds for him to look at the arrangement of apples on the tree and identify the number of apples. To make this game more challenging, after 3 seconds, cover the tree with a sheet of paper and invite him to identify how many. 
• Addition/Subtraction: Have the student count the number of apples on the tree. Then count the number of apples off the tree.Add the number of apples on and off the tree to determine how many apples all together.Invite the student to write the number sentence. The student can also use this game for subtraction.

Creative Book Displays

Today's feature is an inexpensive way to display books for your classroom..
You will need the following materials:

• Plastic rain gutters from the home improvement store
• Special scissors to cut your gutters to the correct length, or a very helpful home improvement store employee who will do it for you
• End caps for the rain gutters
• Screws
• Electric screw driver or drill for attaching the gutters to the wall
• Measuring tape
• Books and stuffed characters to display

First, measure the area you will be using to display your books. Next, purchase and cut your rain gutters to size. Now, attach the end caps to the rain gutters. Finally, attach the rain gutters to the wall using your electric drill or screwdriver.

A great idea if you don’t have a lot of storage space – but have plenty of wall space.

Taken from Pre-K Pages