It's An Art

When he was 3, my son would pick up a crayon or pencil and scribble. There weren't any m&m people yet. He would tell a story about this long squiggle that wound around the page. Sometimes we knew what he was saying and other times his speech and odd vocabulary (adapted to avoid sounds he couldn't make) caused us to just nod and smile. One day, he picked up a stick and drew in the dirt on the side of the ball field where his sister was practicing. There was a head and a body. Then arms and legs and a face. A life size person. How great it was to see him draw details. In second grade, he still draws letters instead of writing them. There is no stick and ball for him. Watching him draw the letters you wonder how he sees them. He uses more than the color blue now but painting and drawing don't appeal to him. He has an autism diagnosis, loves Math and is still working on social cues.

Remembering that life size drawing, it is no wonder how great he is at designing in Minecraft. I resisted getting it on my phone even with his begging. We agreed creative only and I thought he'd get bored with it but he did not. He's created and created. He has learned to use pieces in different ways. He doesn't get dizzy weaving his way around or frustrated when things don't come out the way he envisioned. He designs with humor and with love. When my grandfather passed recently, his anxiety was high and then he sat in the funeral home and built into his world. He added in the chapel and cemetery. He listened to stories about his great-grandparents and placed graves with flowers for them next to one another and explained why. He continues to add things that represent events in his life - a valentines house, a store for me to shop in, a bank to pay bills. He adds in inventions and humor: a pirate ship at the bank, aqueducts and a town wall that generates electricity. Creating and explaining his creations helps him connect with events and people. It helps his brain process.

Lately, he has added all kinds of places for family members and from the community around us. He was devastated when my phone died and he had to restart. Now he sits in the same room or very close to us when he is working which is wonderful. It is a talking point to have conversations and great to have contact from him.


How can we tailor instruction for students who express themselves in different ways? 

Five for Friday

I was only in school 2 days this week but I managed to take a handful of blurry pictures for you. :)

1 Penguin Part-Part-Whole

The kinders broke into pairs.  They chose either a dot die or a number cube (1-6 or 5-10). We discussed strategies - draw a picture, count on & numberline. They took turns with their partner "teaching" how to solve each problem. 

This pair used a numberline to help count the larger numbers and write the numerals the correct direction.

I gave this pair a number cube to guide them to count on. They added a dot die, rolled both & added them before adding to the worksheet. 

2 Tacky Writing

Yesterday, we read the original Tacky.

For Morning Work today, we wrote 2 sentences and illustrated in our journals to predict what Tacky would do in Tacky and the Winter Games based on the picture on the cover. After our guest reader read the story, we looked back in the text for details to compare Tacky with the other penguins. We drew and labeled pictures.

3 Tacky the Penguin Companion Printables Freebie

Get it here on TPT

4 Some more Math...

This year, my Write the Math Room has become Write the Sensory Tub due to lack of wall space. This month, my kinders picked cotton balls and shredded paper. Oh, my. They had two recording sheets to pick from. On this one, they count the domino or ten frame. Then they write that numeral and count on. Some of the cards in the bin have larger numbers. I may make suggestions on the recording sheet or types of cards. Most students self-differentiate. They know I check up on their work and will question them. It is great to see kids stretch themselves.

 This is a warm-up we did. Color the mittens in the ten frame two colors to show parts and write the addition sentence. We've used a similar page as a recording sheet for ten frame cards.

5. This sensory tub is from my Winter Kids Write the Math Room which is also part of my Winter Kids Math Bundle. The bundle is part of the Maryland TPT Sellers Giveaway. It is the last day to enter! 

http://techieturtleteacher.blogspot.com/2015/01/giveaways-and-collaboration-thats-what.html

I'm linking this post up with Five for Friday & Freebie Friday.

Five for Friday and A Freebie

Five for Friday, a Freebie and a Giveaway is coming soon.
January is off to a crazy start with respiratory and stomach bugs (for the whole family), snow but not snow days, delay days, my grandfather's transfer into a hospice home, his passing, car stuff, the start of January testing...and lots of learning at school. 

Here are a few things in a Five for Friday.

Tomorrow starts our Maryland Blogger/TPT Seller Giveaway. That's my Winter Math Bundle in the K-2 prize pack. Click here to check out the Bundle and other Winter items. Click here from Jan 17-24 for the giveaway.

We learned about Polar Animals. We loved this impromptu project to go along with our research. After reading about different animals on the databases, we got out some white craft supplies - paint, glue, shaving cream, crayons, colored pencils, cotton balls - and tools - straws, craft sticks, plates, paint trays.

The kinders drew the polar animals in silhouette and labeled them. Then we worked together to mix glue and shaving cream in equal parts. We started with measuring cups but moved onto estimating. They loved deciding how to spread the mixture on. Some added paint dabs and others added cotton balls for snowflakes and snow banks as their animals camouflaged. The glue/shaving cream mixture made the animals puffy and the texture is so neat.

We worked with larger numbers this week. A new favorite Math center - roll to 100. We started with everyone rolling 1 die. Then they realized the pieces were clustered together and moving slowly. They jumped at the chance to add two dice. Some of the kinders were counting the dots  and the spaces while others were able to add on the number they rolled. 

This month, our roll and covers included adding 1, 2, or10 to the roll. We still had roll 2 and add as we have been working on counting on.

We played Bump with the Roll-a-Row board. The kinders roll the picture cube and pick a space in that row to read, describe or solve. We used unifix cubes so we could stack and king the pieces. When they picked the same square twice, their partner couldn't bump them. They also tried to own four spaces in a row.

And five is for freebie.
Hot Cocoa {ELA Freebie} Here are sample pages from my Hot Cocoa Bundle. Fun CVC and Word Wall games with or without the marshmallows. 

And if you haven't taught MLK already.

Here is a great  freebie from last year (download from TPT). I left some great books with my sub this week and we did this new Morning Work to focus on teen numbers.

Linking Up with...

Five For Friday Book Style

Five for Friday - Christmas Book Style with a Freebie too.

I love Christmastime...music and movies and lights and books. I've now taught kindergarten in December at 3 different schools (not to mention teaching older students). Each one had their own approach. My first kindergarten teammate had three major weeks: Trees, Reindeer and Gingerbread. These are still 3 of my favorites. We made lots of hats and ornaments and talked about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa & Christmas as well. Another school did winter holidays as part of Social Studies and the students had a wide variety of religions. This year, my new teammates have a ton of time honored crafts including light bulb name necklaces, Kwanzaa hats and actual gingerbread houses (yum). All of my kinders this year celebrate Christmas. 
On all these topics, I have collected books...my class books, my retired teammates books, my personal books...3 boxes full of books. My daily dilemma ....which books to read. Some of the books are out for the students to go through, some are older and just for me to touch, some have tapes/cds and others are in between. This week, my love of reading December books met this pesky cold.
My Five for Friday is about a few of these books.

1. At bus dismissal, we read Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear. There wasn't a lot of reading for me. : ) I had one of my students share the pictures. As she held up the book, she asked the class -  how the mouse got to the top of the tree. She had used the picture to come up with a comprehension question. How excited I was for this evidence that she was comprehending the story. She continued to ask questions on each page after I read and the class raised their hands and answered the questions.

2. Dewey's Christmas at the Library was another end of the day read. Dewey is such a fun cat and I love that he was a real library cat. This is one that the kids like to read during free time. I brought it home one night so my son could read it. He loves our two cats even when they chewed the lights on our tree so he enjoyed Dewey's ball of red yarn. Merry Christmas Curious George  was the favorite at listening center this week. We are loving curious animals this week.

3. A Wish to be A Christmas Tree - We watched the read aloud of this book on youtube with pauses to discuss it. The tree is sad because he never gets taken home to be a Christmas tree. The animals all tell him how they are grateful for the tree because he takes care of them. We talked about why trees are important to the animals and how their actions made the tree feel. I gave the kinders green construction paper. They cut out pine tree shapes, wrote loving thank you notes to family members, and decorated them like the animals decorated the tree in the story. Our tree theme continued with The Night Tree by Eve Bunting. This is a great tale about a family who goes in the woods looking for a tree...to decorate with food for the animals. The kinders loved it. We made predictions and drew a flow map to sequence the story. 

4. Not a book ...but more trees. As our solid figure assessment, we color coded the objects as roll, stack or both. Then the kinders cut them out and used them as ornaments to decorate a "cone" hat. How cute do they look? At Math centers, the tree theme showed up with Count the Gifts. 

5. In reading group, we researched Caribou...using Pebble Go and the book Deer, Moose, Elk, Caribou After we researched, we shared with the class. We read some of the book A Caribou Alphabet. The kinders picked letters for me to read. They loved learning facts. We'd researched wild turkeys in November and bats in October. 

On our book list next to Mooseltoe. So I made a few things to along with it - not a whole unit but a little freebie. Click here.

Linking up with TBA's Freebie Friday

Friday Freebie Costume Party

I'm late. I'm late. For Freebie Friday, but I'm not a white rabbit. Who Am I? Check out my newest unit Costume Party for a Who Am I? reader, costume party write the room, writing, and write the math rooms. I love to do write the rooms for vocabulary. We're also using smaller cards in the sensory table with holiday colored streamers torn into different lengths. The preview on TPT includes a freebie.

Check out my other Halloween items as well. We are using Candy Corn sorts in workstations next week. Can't wait.
Freebie (in the preview) looks like this...

Jenn

Why is Your Graph Upside Down?

I love to throw in a graph or two ...in Science, Social Studies, Language...and oh yeah Math. We take surveys and graph, count objects and graph, spin and graph....we graph.

I decided this year to change the traditional roll and trace the letter activities I had to a spin and graph. I designed the pages in PPT so that the spinner was on the page. I made them with Capital letters on the spinners and lower case letters to trace and with initial sound pictures on the spinners. I put them in my workstations....and wondered why the kids were struggling to graph from the bottom up.

 Then as I was giving directions on it, it hit me. Here I am saying start the graph at the bottom and start at the top for the letters. 
All the time, I remind the students to write top down left to right and here they had to keep that idea and learn graphing from the bottom. We aren't going to change how we graph - but we can change to a horizontal graph. Click on the pictures below to try the new horizontal graph. Now when one bar reaches the right side, we can answer the questions. What a difference a little thing makes.

Have a great weekend.
Jenn

Fall Math Freebie

Fall Kids Roll & Cover Freebie

We have had super busy week 2 at school. We learned to play Roll & Cover. We solved problems like "what happens when we roll a number and there aren't any uncovered?" We also played around with choices for Math tools. Did we like the 2 sided counters or unifix cubes better? One allows us to stack and the other means we can share pieces.

Here is a free Fall Kids Roll and Cover for you. 

I also added these pages to my Fall Kids Write the Math Room (and Games too) unit.

Linking up with