Water painting

Right now the Pacific Northwest is experiencing some beautiful weather so my lesson plans have been altered to make room for our favorite outdoor activities!

Painting with water is an idea that I learned about when I was in college and I've used it every year. All you need are:

• larger paint brushes
• buckets/cups
• water

Buckets work the best because the handle makes it easier for the kids to hold and harder to spill but if you don't have enough buckets regular paper cups will work just as well.

Fill the cups 1/2 full with water, give them a paintbrush and let them outside! They can paint ANYTHING they want!

SWAT

I found this idea on Pintrest (see my "I tried it and they loved it" board). There are many GREAT things about this activity:

1. It can be used to review any number of topics (phonics sounds, sight words, opposites, etc)
2. It uses simple materials
3. It is different than any other review activity I do!

What you'll need:

• 1 fly swatter for each student
• larger sheets of paper/construction paper

Print out pictures of whatever topics you'd like to review. I chose telling time to the hour on one side and opposites on the other side. Glue the pictures to the paper leaving room in between each picture so they can be more accurate with their swapping.

Today we tried the clocks for the first time!! Each child received a fly swatter and a paper. First, I let them all practice swatting the clocks at random so they could get some curious energy out right away. Then, when I called out the time they had to look at their paper and if they have the correct clock, SWAT it!

The whole class.

They helped each other.

This activity was a little chaotic at times but it certainly was a new way for my students to show what they know!

Three dimensional shapes

I have a couple very bright kindergarten students this year so I decided to teach them about 3D shapes!

I purchased a container of plastic 3D shapes the the kids could use. http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca|searchResults~~p|EE498~~.jsp. This is a little pricey but worth letting them each have the 3D shapes to touch. We started by looking at different 3D shapes that we had, telling what we noticed, what 2D shapes we see in the 3D shape, and learning the names. They even remember tetrahedron! After they were quite comfortable with identifying them we made our own 3D shapes!

You need:

• toothpicks
• mini marshmallows

I chose only 4 shapes for them to make so it wasn't overwhelming - tetrahedron, pyramid, cube and cuboid. I gave each kid the 3D shapes to use as a guide and let them explore! They were able to make all the shapes!

Here are a pyramid, a tetrahedron, and a cube that I created as I demonstrated to the kids how this will work.

This was an awesome activity and really made the 3D concept come to life for them!

NOTE: You can buy a similar kit fr $40 http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca|searchResults~~p|GG458~~.jsp. But toothpicks and marshmallows were more fun AND they got to eat a marshmallow at the end of each constructing period!

Beginning sounds

I saw this idea at a learning store and knew that I could make it myself for much cheaper!

Things I took into consideration:

• I chose picture-word that I KNEW the kids would have no trouble identifying (so they wouldn't need my help all the time). 
• I also made sure that the clip art I chose CLEARLY identified what the word is. All you need are letters! These are magnetic letters but I don't have them on a magnetic surface in this station - you could adapt it though.

I make sure not to give them too many to figure out otherwise they become frustrated and want to quit. Because the kids are working on this station independently I try to make sure the activity will keep their attention.

What are stations? Stations are activities that I've found/created for kids to use independently while I'm working with another set of students. The topics of the stations generally build on a topic that we've already learned about in class so there isn't a lot of new teaching that needs to be done.