Friday Fine Motor Activity Fun!

Today I am going to share an activity that I have used for time immemorial. I learnt about it from Dr Jean and instantly fell in love with it. And so did my kids. The activity was a hit with the little ones and they kept asking for new shapes to work with.

All you need to do is to draw a shape in the center of the paper and ask children to enlarge the shape. They can use different colors to add to the fun. You can even use seasonal clip art if children have finished working with basic shapes.

 This activity helps develop small muscles and eye hand coordination. It is also great to use as a 

pre- writing activity.

Try it out and see even your hesitant writers enjoy this activity.

Plants

I just finished a comprehensive unit on plants with my kiddos and they responded very well to all the activities. I gave them lots of opportunities to think and observe and we included many experiments to make this unit an inquiry based one.

You can find the video link for the song below:

 We read books like "Johnny Apple Seed", The Pumpkin Patch" and "The Carrot Seed" to see where fruits and vegetables grow.

You can download the free printable from HERE

You can download the printables for all the activities by visiting my TPT Store.

Click on the LINK to get my unit.

If you liked these activities, please let me know by leaving a comment. I would love to hear from you and also would be delighted to know what activities you use in your classrooms while teaching the unit on plants.

Book Talk Tuesday

I am linking up again with Deanna Jump for Book Talk Tuesday.

Mrs Jumps Class

This week i would like to talk about the book "How Children Succeed" by Paul Tough.

"How children succeed" is a book I am recommending to all for the sole reason that it reiterates my belief that as educators we are not only responsible for developing children's cognitive skills but also their non cognitive skills. Character development may not be a subject which we would teach as per the prescribed syllabus but it does form an integral part of a child's success. We all believe that IQ is crucial to success but Paul Tough, the author of the book explains that it is the non cognitive skills / personality traits/ executive functions that are critical for a child's success. I was amazed to find out that even a game like chess which is correlated with intelligence requires non cognitive skills to succeed at it. 

Executive functions ( the higher order mental abilities) is the new educational catch phrase and my curiosity of how it can be implemented in our classrooms was definitely piqued after reading the book.

 I wanted to find out practical ways of how to develop them in my students. I found some great ideas but i am leaving a link to Dr Jean's website where she shares handy tips to enhance the executive function in children.

Hope you find it useful. The book is available at AMAZON

Number Sense

You can't escape mathematics even if you want to !

On a serious note i think math is an important part of our lives and we use it all the time. (If you found the poster interesting you can click on the link :MATH-FREE-POSTER to get a copy for yourself.) I recently read a paper on number sense, assessment tool for identifying children at risk for mathematical difficulties by Nancy. C. Jordan and found out that poor achievement in math can have serious educational and vocational consequences. If a student wants to pursue college level science courses, competence in math will be a key factor in determining that child's success. And the reason why many children do not have this competence is because their foundation in math skills were never set right in the Early Years. According to the paper,weak number sense can result in poorly developed counting procedures, slow fact retrieval and inaccurate computation. And i never thought that the simple skill of counting, actually is of paramount importance. When children count objects, they get an understanding of what numbers actually mean and then they start making a connection between quantity and the number. Engaging children in games related to counting and number correspondence helps to develop a good foundation and build number knowledge.

Setting up a math rich environment is very vital to math learning and gives children an opportunity to explore, question and solve problems.

In many classrooms, math begins during calendar time and my class is no different. Children gather to do the calendar and math is very evidently incorporated while singing songs for days of the week, months in a year, finding the date and counting how many days we have been in school.

I also let children take the attendance for the day and count how many children have come to school.

I have a number line with numbers from 1-25 written on it. Every day the calendar person does a head count, pointing at each child's head. Another child listens to the number and points at the number on the number line. In this simple activity, children learn how to count, do number correspondence and recognize numbers.

We also count the number of boys and girls separately and the calendar person for the day writes the number on the chart.

Math begins in a fun way and children engage in counting with gusto.

Another idea which i implement in my class is to put magnetic numbers on the white board along with a number line. The magnetic numbers are all jumbled up and children sort the numbers in order, taking help from the number line. I wish i had a photo to upload but school is closed and i don't have any pictures to share. 

I love taking out my cupcake tray for a fun center activity. I place some cupcake paper cups for children to count and place in the correct section of the tray. Children sometimes use a bakers hat and love pretending to bake cupcakes.They take the math activity to another dimension altogether.

Another fun idea is to make cupcakes with paper and write numbers and dots on them. Children need to see the number and match it to the correct number of dots.

I love food. Its evident from the activities that i am sharing. :)

In this one too, children count the fries and put them in the correct pack. You can make the fries with foam for durability.

Children love using manipulatives to count. You can write numbers for them on a paper or give them number cards. They can count objects according to the numbers.

A similar activity can be done using bird cutouts and some feathers. Write the number on the bird template and let children count and put the correct number of feathers on the bird.

I love Pete the cat and  found a great idea to go with this book. 

I use the ten frames only for counting. Children count the buttons according to the number on the sheet.

 You can download your free copy from Groovy-Pete-Cat-Freebies and see how this teacher uses it.

There are many number songs you can sing with little children . Our favorites are:

Ten little Indians

Five little Monsters

Five good friends

Five little Monkeys

Five little ducks went out one day

A fun counting song by Dr Jean

Ten Little Indians Song

I also created some number sheets from 1-10 for my kiddos. You could use these during centers, morning work or for assessment. 

Visit my TPT store to download the pack.

NUMBER PACK

I started enjoying math when i started teaching it. Hope you get inspired with these activities and enjoy doing them as much as i do.

First Day of School

The anxiety that the first day of school brings with it can't be described in words. The first day always gives me jitters. You don't know the kids and to handle 24 of them at once can be nerve wrecking. But the first day also brings with it a newness and freshness that makes you super excited to start the year.The planning, preparation and setting up the class gives me a great high. So this year was no different and i took precisely 3 days to give my class a makeover( Thanks to all the wonderful ideas on Pinterest). My classroom is quite tiny, so i couldn't make many changes in terms of moving the furniture. But still given the space at hand, i tried making it a warm and welcoming place for the kids.

This is the view from the entrance. My co-teacher hung silhouettes of boys and girls and wrote names of children on them. 

This is the calendar and the whole group meeting area.

Months and days of the week

Helpers chart

Daily Attendance Chart. I love Owls and have placed them in different places in my class. Children read their names and turn their card around when they come in the morning. The backside of the cards have their pictures. We count the number of boys and girls and write it on the pink/blue chart.

This is the birthday chart. Dr Seuss is another favorite !

I found a very cute birthday song from Teaching Divas.

You can download by clicking on the link below.

Birthday Chart

I put up different shapes with a little poem for each shape.

Pete the Cat on the door ! 

I love this cat and i would soon be reading the book "Rocking in my school shoes" by Eric Litwin and James Dean to my Kids. It is a super cute book to introduce various places in the school.

This is my favorite space in the class. The reading area !

Word Wall 

This board is to display children's work. They made self portraits on the first day.

 This is my desk. I did mention that i love Owls ! :)

 This Owl is our class mascot. The shelves are for children to put their work.

Our brain break ideas basket and the Sound Muncher which we will be using when we study letters.

You can download the brain break template by clicking on the picture below:

Children decorated the first letter of their name.

We have been singing some fun songs by Dr Jean to settle the kids down and to help them to know each others name.

Looking through My Window 

I made a picture frame with cardboard and held it in front of my face as i sang this song to the tune of “Go In and Out My Window.”

I’m looking through my window.

I’m looking through my window.

I’m looking through my window,

And I see my friend (first child’s name)

The child whose name i said looked through the frame and took another child's name. The song continued till everyone had a turn.

Another fun movement song was

Shakey, Shakey 

Child’s name, child’s name, sick in bed.

Called the doctor and the doctor said.

Come on, child’s name, you’re not sick.

All you need is an exercise trick.

        So stand up and shakey, shakey shakey.      

               Get down and shakey, shakey, shakey,           

          Turn around and shakey, shakey, shakey,      

              Sit down and shakey, shakey, shakey.          

The first day went off fabulously for me and each child had a smile at the end of the day. I made a small goody bag for them with a poem i found on Pinterest. 

I altered it a bit since we don't get 'smarties' easily in India. I substituted smarties with 'Five Star'

You can download the Poem with the 'Five Star' version here.

You can download the Poem with the 'Smarties' version here.

I would like to end this post with a picture, my husband took of the park which is right across my home. I know it is off key in relation to the post but it is a beautiful picture because it is rare to see natural beauty in the concrete jungle that Gurgaon is ! And it definitely puts a smile on my face. :)