Well, I'm Hadar from Miss Kindergarten and I'm excited to share with you some ideas about how we make our days entertaining and FUN! I might be one of the only schools left in the world who does half-day kindergarten, so we definitely have to find ways to squeeeeeze it all in!
I like to integrate fun throughout our day using games and songs. Here's a fun game we play at the end of our shape unit. The kiddos love singing and playing this game, plus we're reviewing our shapes at the same time!
{click here to download the shape game}
We also love to sing all the live long day! Here's a fun song we sing during calendar time after we check the weather.
{click here to download the seasons song}
We make learning letter sounds fun with this fun chant! We recite the chant together, the one student gets to come up to the front of the room and choose an apple from the basket. They hold up the apple and we all say its sound.
{click here to download Alphabet Sounds freebie}
We also love to have fun when learning to read and write! Here we are using letter beads and pipe cleaners to build sentences. The center was intended to simply practice spelling sight words, but when my students asked to build a sentence, who was I to say no?! #happyteacher
Using HUGE foam dice really makes reading word families fun! Roll the dice, find the number, and read the words on the row! My kids ask me to play the "dice game" EVERY time we do reading groups. They feel so successful reading these words and that makes reading fun!
{click here to download Fluency Families freebie}
We love using stamps to make learning fun! In this center we're using stamps to practice spelling our sight words.
{click here to read more about our stamping centers}
We also love using playdoh in our classroom! Play while you learn!
{click here to download a playdoh freebie}
And finally, who wouldn't want to use toy cars while learning!? We use the cars to help practice path of motion as we are learning our letters.
Today I wanted to share with you some fun things we do in our classroom. One of my favorite things we do is Go Noodle.
What is Go Noodle? Well, Go Noodle helps take all that energy that the little ones have and channel it into something fun. There are many ways you can do Go Noodle in your classroom. When I started using it I had the all the letters to spell "Go Noodle" out and every time I caught the class being good we would add a letter to the board until we spelled it out and then we would perform the activity. But...... as you can imagine, sometimes that takes a little longer than expected and the kids need something fun to do everyday to get their wiggles out so we started doing it in the afternoon every day. It was something that they looked forward to and I saw a huge improvement in their afternoon performance. (we had a really long afternoon!) The kids love it because they get to
choose a character and watch the character grow. If you have never heard of Go Noodle, you definitely need to check it out.
Another way I incorporate positive behavior is by using Class Dojo. You can set Class Dojo up to suit your needs. You choose what you want your students to get points for during the day and then you can have them go up and give themselves points or you can do it right from your small group using an app on your phone. In my school, all of the classes connected together so if we saw another class being really good or we saw a child doing something kind or showing fabulous behavior, we could give the class or a child in another class points too. It is a fabulous teaching tool. You can even set up parent accounts so that the parents can see how their child is doing.
Now for a few freebies from my store that the kids love to do. If your students have a hard time learning their right from their left this is a perfect game for them. The children will all start with three counters and depending on what they roll, they will either keep their counter, pass it to the right, pass it to the left or place one in the center. The kids love it and I love it because everyone always stays in the game until the final counter is placed. It really keeps the kids on their toes and they learn their right from their left really quick. Just click on the picture to grab this freebie.
Another thing the kids love to do is practice their numbers especially their teen numbers. We all want them to be able to say them quickly without thinking so this fun Speedy Race game featuring Pete the Cat will certainly help them. The students roll a dice and whatever number they roll, they go to that line and say the numbers as fast as they can. I also have this for lower numbers, letters, sight words, sentences. They never get tired of playing this.
We hope these ideas helped you think of some FUN ways to help your kiddos learn! Don't forget to link up and share your fun ideas with us below!
