Monthly Archives: July 2019

Daily Calendar Math for Kinders

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Before I tell you all about this new bundle of DAILY CALENDAR MATH for KINDERS, hop over to my store and grab this freebie. It is yours, free, until 1 August!

As you download each month, you will notice that you receive 3 files: 1. The DCMK file has all of the student worksheets. 2. The TLK file is a colorful Talk-To file that you can project via your Smartboard, or onto a white board and work the problems with your students. 3. The DailyLabel file has a set of Melonheadz day of the week cards (for your pocket chart calendar) and the yesterday, today, tomorrow cards for that month. These cards use direction and sequence to help teach your kinders a sense of time.

You will begin each month by introducing its essential components: how to spell the month, its abbreviation, its ordinal number, the months before and after it, its season, the year, the number of days in the month, what day of the week the month began and finally, how many months are left until your students’ birthdays.

As I mentioned before, each month has a TALK-TO file. These you can project and “fill-in” with your students. Or you can simply use them to go over the directions. These TALK-TO sheets match the ones your students will be completing:

You can use manipulatives to help your students solve the daily math problems. This month focuses on the classroom, so they will count crayons, pencils, math cubes, Cuisenaire rods, Play-doh containers, kids, bikes, their fingers and pennies. They will need a die, paperclip–to spin, scissors, glue, and a crayon or pencil to complete each sheet.

There is at least one sheet each month that has a Cuisenaire rod problem. For August, the Cuisenaire problem focuses on identifying the value of each rod. Future months will ask your students to find rods that are +1 the number they rolled; find rods that =10; color the rods and skip count the number they rolled, etc. So, it would be helpful to have these rods available to build the Cuisenaire image.

Since every problem uses dice or a spinner, you can re-use these sheets throughout the month–each time with new results. You could also have a small group MATH CHAT and discuss the unique results group of students had on the same sheet.

Finally, each month has its own set of daily labels. August focuses on direction, but subsequent months include sequence cards to teach a sense of time. Your students will use the daily labels on a few of their worksheets. But, you can use them with your pocket chart calendar. The calendar we use with DAILY CALENDAR MATH for KINDERS is called the KINDER CALENDAR and it is included in the bundle!

If you haven’t grabbed AUGUST, what are you waiting for? You are going to find this pack is not only a good teaching tool, but also a great way to assess your students’ math skills!

NEW! Beginner’s Dictation Pack

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Our dictation packs are under renovation! The renovation process has begun with a new addition: DICTATION DONE RIGHT for BEGINNERS. It has all the great features of the other dictation packages: the Dictation Worksheets with excerpts from books your students have read, Punctuation Practice sheets for your students to edit and Punctuation Rules to help them understand the HOW, WHY and WHEN of capitalization and punctuation. Yet each of these parts have been modified for easier use (and more learning!) by young students.

On the new DICTATION WORKSHEET, your students will (1) highlight the punctuation in one color and capital letters in another. Then they will (2) practice spelling words from the passage. Finally, your students will (3) give the PUNCTUATION/CAPITALIZATION RULE number, or reason, for seven examples from the passage.

If there are spelling words that are particularly difficult for your students, or punctuation rules that they need to review, they can use the WORDS to PRACTICE bonus tri-fold to record the troublesome words and rules.

A punctuation guide has been added to this BEGINNERS EDITION of the PUNCTUATION PRACTICE sheet. Your students can check-off the punctuation as they edit the passage. HOW your students edit is up to you. I like my kids to double underline capital letters, circle misspelled words and then add the punctuation–all with a colored flair pen.

I do have my students check their work by comparing the passage on the DICTATION WORKSHEET with the one they just edited. Any corrections that need to be made should be done with a different colored Flair pen.

After this focused preparation, your students are ready to write! I record the passages on Garage Band–pausing between phrases and re-reading the passage with lengthy pauses for sentences and shorter pauses for commas/semi-colons. My kids then listen to their specific passage when it is their turn at the computer. You can also read it aloud as they write–just do your best not to give away the punctuation :).

Sheets for writing dictation are included in the BEGINNER’S EDITION. They include punctuation guides similar to those on the PUNCTUATION PRACTICE sheets. There are also weekly headers and punctuation guides for notebooks in this set.

Your students will interact with a lot of capitalization and punctuation rules as they complete the weekly passages (snapshot of the rules below). I am certain you (and your students/parents) will find the PUNCTUATION RULE STRIPS helpful for all of their writing exercises this year, not just dictation.

DICTATION DONE RIGHT for BEGINNERS contains excerpts from many of the books seen in the photo below (Sonlight Core D).

Get your copy while it is half off!

UNLOCK IT 1:1 Expansion Pack

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If you are like me, you love Lakeshore Learning–especially when they have a sale! Last year, I grabbed my first UNLOCK IT set (Matching Numbers). It was fun…for a couple days. I found myself wishing it had more options; more ways to develop 1:1 correspondence.

Instead of just wishing, I created this expansion pack:

All you need is a little clear Velcro (just one dot per side of the lock). Cut it into quarters and place it in the corners of the lock. Do the same with the fuzzy Velcro on the backs of the 1:1 images.

Add a ticket for a bit of extra fun! Your students will work to make the most matches.

This expansion pack includes a bunch of 1:1 correspondence that you can use any day of year. Each set has images for 1 to 20, except the analog hours and dominoes.

It will be on sale this weekend. So, grab it while its 50% off!