Teaching Graphing in FDK

Hi friends!
I'm super excited to share with you how I made graphing in Kindergarten fun and independent this year!



Every year my kids find graphing super fun and engaging but teaching JK/SK (that’s Pre-K/K for my American friends) it was always hard to make this an independent centre.  


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Five for Friday: January 22

Hi guys!

I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 things from this week with you :)

Read on for 2 freebies!




CVC Lego

I found this lego set at Dollarama last weekend and since my kids love lego and they need practice with hearing sounds in words I made up this CVC lego word building centre! It's been a hit all week!

You can download the labels used for free by clicking here or on the image above!



Decomposing 5 On Your Hand

We have been working on decomposing numbers to 10 this week and I introduced two new activities! This is the first one.  I had them put yellow and/or blue unifix cubes on their fingers to decompose 5 with their hands.  Then they recorded how they decomposed 5 on the recording sheet.

You can see my sample below :)

I've added this printable (and the number bracelet printable you will see below) to my decomposing numbers unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.  If you already own it you can redownload it to get the updates for free! If you want to check it out you can click here or on the image below.



Decomposing Number Bracelets


Another new decomposing strategy I tried with the kids were these number bracelets! I love these because it is so tactile and it makes the concept so clear.  I made bracelets from 2 to 10 to differentiate for the different abilities :)


Graphing

We have also been learning about graphing in math and I can't wait to share with you in a full blog post all the details!  The kids are especially loving these differentiated graphing sheets that allow them do graphing independently at centre time.

If you would like to check these out you can click here or on the image below to see it on TPT.



Sight Word Roll & Graph

Since the kids love graphing so much I decided to integrate some sight word practice into graphing and set it out as a literacy centre.  

If you would like the recording sheet and the dice inserts you can click here or on the image below to download them for free.


I hope you can use some of these ideas in your classroom!
Have a great weekend!
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Five for Fraturday: January 16

Hi friends! Long time no blog! I'm here to share some centres that my kids have been loving this past week and link up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teachings for her Five for Friday linky!



Can You Make a Play Dough Snowman?


Materials needed: White play dough and an assortment of loose parts.  I used goggly eyes, brown pipe cleaners, peppercorns, dry corn kernels and buttons.

I set out the materials with the book "Snowballs" by Lois Ehlert to inspire some snowman creations! We ended up getting some creative snow creatures such as a snow pig and snow jelly fish lol.

Another good book to set out with at a centre like this is "The Biggest Snowman Ever" by Steven Kroll.




Patterning with Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes

This was a super popular centre the whole week!
I set out blue, white and shiny blue/silver pony beads with pipe cleaners shaped into snowflakes.  To make the snowflakes I just cut a pipe cleaners in half, held 3 pipe cleaners together and twisted them in the middle a few times.  Then I stretched out the arms to make it look like a snowflakes.

The example above was made by one of my little kiddos.  He impressed me by making a different pattern on each arm: ABC, AB, AAB, AAABBB, AABB and ABCD.  He isn't a kid that chooses centres like this very often so I was so happy to see him engaged here!


Snowflake Count & Make


I set out these snowflakes with rhinestones and had the kids count the number of rhinestones and make the number in the ice cube tray with snowflake erasers.  I also told them that if they put the snowflakes in order from 1-10 they will discover a pattern.  So some kids were also busy trying to figure out the pattern :)


Can You Make a Snowman?
Cotton Balls Edition


This was a surprisingly popular centre!
The kids were asked to fill the water bottle snowman with cotton balls using only the tweezers.  This was a great fine motor centre and I also put sand timers out so that they could measure how long it took them to fill the water bottle.



ABC Tracing Book


I finally finished up this little project I had been working on.  Some of my JK's need letter formation and drawing practice and the the alphabet tracing book I had out in the fall/winter was popular but I felt it was time for something new.  So I whipped up one of my own!  If you are interested in checking it out on TPT you can click on the image above :)

That's it from me for this week!
Now I'm off to make a coffee and write some report cards! Eek!
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