A few months ago, I discovered a few of my favorite bloggers adding pictures of their read alouds for their units. I LOVED the idea because I could quickly see all the texts that were recommended for a topic. So here's my first..... Thanksgiving and Turkey Research read alouds. Don't mind the few others... those go with our Traits writing program....
We ended up not reading Three Young Pilgrims due to its length, but the children loved having access to it to gain ideas and knowledge from pictures. Also not pictured here is The Littlest Pilgrim, which is a classic and is PERFECT for talking about the jobs of all members of a pilgrim community. To aid our curiosity and attention span... we added many videos about turkeys into our science unit. Videos made it possible for ALL learners to reach parts of the research unit. My ELLS could use videos to access the sounds, movements, and characteristics of turkeys that they could not understand from the jargony text.
As always, here's a look at our literacy centers for the unit!
Sight word bingo! A classic... but i just wipe and rewrite to add new or especially tricky words. And NO they do not wipe right off while the children are playing.
Here, the bees are using Lakeshore's Fill In The Blank Phonics Stamps. One of my FAVORITES! Each stamp set is separated by missing beginning, middle, or ending sounds. This makes for easy differentiation. And who doesn't like fill in the blank stamping??
Another Kindergarten Smorgasboard creation in our classroom! Here, we are identifying the picture word on each card and circling the letter that represents its beginning sound. When we finish, we've go to record it!
My on-level students here are filling in both the beginning and ending sounds to words. They choose a picture card, identify the word, and write the beginning and final sounds they hear. Obviously this bee needs help with tomato, but he's got "krab" !
For some on-level work, some onset and rhyme solving and picture matching
We love our Cookie Monster sight word grab game, but this week to add some rigor, the kids were tallying how many times they read each sight word.
My below level students are still working on fluently naming letters and their sounds, so here we are, feeding the letter monster. The kiddos pull the letters out of his mouth and say their name one at a time around the table. When each letter is picked, they feed the monster back by saying the letter's sounds!
This is my highest reader. Here, she is extending her knowledge about dinosaur fossils AND nonfiction texts by rereading for information and taking notes on four fun facts she learned.
My above level readers began reading responses this week! They FLOORED it! Go readers! These readers are at a level C (the beginning first grade level). Here they are checking their comprehension of the events in their text by seeing how many types of costumes they saw. This reader is checking her spelling of the costume "princess"
This sort categorizes pictures by their medial vowel sound. Definitely tricky the first time around!
Tackling ending sounds using clothes pins!
Love these cards. The kids place a bingo chip on each square that represents a sound in the given picture word. For more advanced students, we are using markers to write the words in the squares and are up to 4 letter words with digraphs and blends.
Higher level students are beginning to sort words by real and nonsense. This was tricky!
Some turkey sight words! I let the students take this sheet home after they finished coloring so that they could use it to study from.
Thanksgiving syllable stamping...although this bee reached into the wrong bin and is working on Halloween words....again..
Simple alphabetic sequence sheet for the day before our break. Actually served as a great assessment of who is incapable of following ABC order.
October and November Math Stations:
Number id to quantity coloring
Id to quantity in ten frames WITH number vocabulary. This proved tricky for some of my less talented direction followers...
Turkey addition roll and cover! Such a hit, found it for free on teacherspayteachers and you can fill it in with whichever numbers (or letters) you want!
Our Lakeshore Number Comparison game. Such a great way for the bees to understand and visually see number comparisons. Also goes well with my explanation of that symbol as "eating" the larger number!
Addition ice creams
Thanksgiving count and write to 20.... great assessment for one-to-one correspondence past 10.
Love this freebie I found on Kindergarten Smorgasboard. It was a different and mind stretching task for ALL my learners. The children roll the die, identify the amount and write it in the first box in a series. They then count on from that number two more times. The higher students were given two dice and asked to count on from that sum!
Turkey Towers to 10! We then lined up our number towers from most to least and fewest to greatest.
Thanksgiving patterns... where we practiced some much needed fine motor activity.
Visual discrimination and graphing!
Thanksgiving count the room thanks again to the Kindergarten Smorgasboard! It was even differentiable as the simpler sheets covered numbers 1-10 and the advanced sheets had students counting through 20.
And now... to our Turkey Research Project!
Each of the students received their very own "research journal" that I found from Brigid Ann. We used this journal in combination with videos and nonfiction texts to learn and record as much as we could about how turkeys live, act, and look. We had SO MUCH FUN!
Thanksgiving in 143
Our very own Pilgrim story timeline
And of course... we are here doing our real life Venn diagram! With Pilgrim E and today's kid R!
The two students stand on either side of the Venn diagram (made with yarn on the floor) and the class decides which of the picture items or activities is characteristic of pilgrims, today's kids, or BOTH. Who knew pilgrims also played hide and seek??
R and R are here making Native American pendants!
Native American Tee-Pees covered in symbols representing our stories.
One of our best charts for the unit. I LOVE the way the kids are capable of putting themselves in the shoes of people over 400 years ago to feel what they feel. Some of their answers are so sweet!
What do we think the Indians (Native Americans ) and Pilgrims were thankful for on that very first thanksgiving? Agreed !
Too funny... what would you bring? Dog, crayon, submarine (?), and paper.
Our Pilgrim KWL
Then.... we cook! On the day before Thanksgiving vacation, the bees help me cook both homemade applesauce and cornbread. I have never seen them so excited!
And.... we have to wear Pilgrim girl, boy and Native American hats!! Happy Thanksgiving!
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