Week 4 Lessons in October - FREEBIE
Welcome to the last week in October!
Teaching on Halloween, in the classroom or at home, along with the day after is whirlwind. Do you push through content, or just get caught up in their excitement and have fun with it?
I uploaded a FREE game on this blog post to play with your kids that works on making inferences and drawing conclusions that is so perfect for Halloween.
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We have come so far by the end of October. Have you printed my FREE lesson plans yet for October?
I feel like now through Christmas, and then again January through April, my kindergarteners literally make leaps and bounds with what they can do.
Suddenly, these five and six year olds realize a whole new world has opened up to them with reading, writing, and the ability to count, recognize numbers and solve problems. I love being a part of this process!
What do I have planned for the last full week in October?
Let’s get started!
I start my day with morning work (print a free week HERE) and calendar (learn more HERE).
Since switching to a digital calendar and morning meeting, my mornings are so much easier.
Here is a quick video that shows how my digital calendar works!
This program is titled "Learn at Home” because I created it in spring 2020 when suddenly students were all learning at home. I knew I had to create a program that was standards based, but easy for parents and students to use.
But the beauty is that is can also be used for an in class warm up, review, quiz, homework or for fast finishers.
It covers so many of the important kindergarten standards in a way that students feel confident because the skills and format stays the same for a week or two at a time. This builds fluency and confidence.
It is perfect for:
daily review in class
distance/virtual learning
homeschooling
This week we are focusing on letters J-N (handwriting, name, sounds), first sound matching, syllables, sight words, 3D shapes, missing numbers using a number line and counting.
I uploaded a week for FREE from every month to the freebie library, so you can see how the program progresses.
For more info and to print a free week CLICK HERE
PHONICS
This week, we tackling sounds /k/, /v/ and /g/.
The beauty is I do not have to explain directions to my students - they know the format of these activities because it has stayed the same for the past few weeks. Only the letter and sound changes. This saves me so much time!
We are nearing the end of this first sounds phonics unit, and this week we are learning /k/ /v/ /g/
I always warm up my phonics lessons with whole group phonemic awareness activities, and picture card games.
Then we play sorting games, guess the sound, first sound matching and more with the picture cards in a pocket chart (shown to the right).
This really helps with student vocabulary as well. Most of my kids do not know what a kettle is when we start the week!
After we do this, we complete the printable activities shown above, starting with the first sound bubbles.
To see my phonemic awareness activities (let me teach for you with Boom cards!) how I used Elkonin boxes to segment the sounds in CVC words, and our favorite Jack Hartmann phonics video, CLICK HERE to read my blog post from last week.
MATH
In math this week, we are focusing on numbers 1-10 - 1:1 correspondence, how they look and how to spell the number words.
I want my kids to be able to instantly recognize numbers - shown on dice, ten frames, number lines, etc. This is an incredibly important skills for number fluency and counting - and later with adding and subtracting.
Here is a great review video to watch every day this week.
Start your math lessons this week with this video, and then complete one of the printable cut/paste activities shown above.
I am a huge believer in using movements, songs and chants to learn new content. This is just the way their brains are wired, plus it saves my voice for a few minutes each day. It is a GOOD THING to show the same video/song multiple times a week.
To see my complete blog post on our counting and cardinality unit, please CLICK HERE
READING
Guess what?! The entire week of reading activities are FREE!
My format stays the same each week, but the theme changes and the materials increase in difficulty as the year progresses.
But the students and I both love knowing what to expect with the format, and the expectations stay the same each week.
I actually start my guided reading with sight word fluency passages. I put the color versions in page protectors and every day we warm with these reading passages.
This is my daughter practicing the word see. We just started these and she is doing GREAT!
Rereading each day for a couple minutes works on so many important skills. We usually review one or two passages we already know, and then read the one we are currently work on (whatever sight word we just learned.)
To read my blog post on how I teach sight words, plus print free flash cards and assessment checklists CLICK HERE
After we warm up with fluency passages, we do our weekly themed activities (shown above.)
For the entire school year, my guided reading consists of the same three materials:
Comprehension and fluency passage
Mini book
Sentence builder
The vocabulary and sight words, along with the theme, changes each week and the difficulty increases throughout the year.
Just like all of my resources, students love the routine and structure of my reading program.
I love that once I have them trained in how to use these resources, I do not waste precious time explaining directions and expectations.
I use these three resources throughout the week. Personally, I prefer this schedule:
Monday: introduce theme, vocabulary/sight words, I read the passage, we read it together
Tuesday: review words, we read together, they read on their own (whisper/buddy), answer comprehension questions
Wednesday: Sentence Builder
Thursday: Mini book, Review CAP skills - front cover, turning pages, holding a book properly, I read the book to them
Friday: We read the book together, buddy read, answer comprehension questions
Visit my reading homepage HERE, or print this free week HERE
My sweet friend, Devin, who uses my curriculum in her own classroom put together this video to share some helpful tips!
Reading and writing should be taught together, and finally I created a program that does exactly this. You’ll see so much growth, and you’ll see it QUICKLY using this program.
“A huge staple in my classroom for building reading/comprehension skills! I have nothing negative to say about these. They WORK.”
ALL ABOUT PUMPKINS - WEEK 4
This week we are reading Pete the Cat and the kids love this book! I made some cute book companion activities to go with this story and it is the perfect book to read the week leading up to Halloween.
I save this book for last in our enrichment series this month for a reason! It is the week before Halloween and the kids are a little wild with excitement.
This is such a cute book and lends itself perfectly to numbers and counting (matches our math lessons the week too!)
Plus, there is a cute little video that reads along with the book. I usually read the book first, and then the next day your voice gets a break by showing this video!
This mini book helps students practice numbers 1-5 along with 1:1 correspondence.
We have so much fun with the silly pumpkin theme!
We match the 5 silly pumpkins (way harder than it looks for some of the kiddos!) write numbers 1-5 on the gate, and then students get to finish the sentence about what the silly pumpkin says.
Here is another way to practice numbers and counting to five, plus if you’re heading to the pumpkin patch this week, students can complete this sentence (for a lot of my kiddos at this point in the year, I have them tell me what they want their sentence to say and I write it in highlighter. Then they can trace the words and be successful!)
Read the full blog post, print FREE pumpkin life cycle cards and see all the read aloud books I use this month CLICK HERE
Goodbye color printer and laminator for classroom centers!
I use these no prep activities throughout the month, and now I have added another no prep center - BOOM CARDS!
I target the exact skills we are working on, and I love how versatile these are. They can be used in math and literacy centers, sub tubs, for fast finishers and so much more.
Read the no prep blog post HERE to print FREEBIES and see all of the activities I use throughout the month.
We absolutely love these Boom cards! They help students so much and I love that they are mastering the exact standards in math and reading that we are working on.
They make distance learning, classroom centers and homeschooling so easy. Plus, Boom keeps track of data for me on each student!
CLICK HERE to visit my Boom monthly homepage to try two decks for FREE.
I love teaching poetry each month. I display the poem all month, and we read it every morning. I actually think memorization and poetry are so important. By the end of the month, almost all my kids know this poem by heart.
Then the last week of the month, we dive deeper and explore and write our own poems.
You can make each child a poetry folder and watch their skills progress throughout the year.
Read my blog post to see how I do this HERE
The entire month of March is FREE so you can see how the program works.
Did you miss my tips and tricks for teaching the last week? CLICK HERE
These FREE halloween goodie bag toppers can be found on the blog post linked above!
Ready to plan for the first week in November? CLICK HERE for my free lesson plans and to see what I am teaching!
I hope these teaching tips make your life easier!
My goal is to share ideas and tips every week on a blog post for the week coming up. This will hopefully take some stress off of you and make it even easier to use my FREE lesson plans.
See you next week ❤️
Blessings, Michala
FREE HALLOWEEN GAME!
I put different things, like skinned grapes (eyeballs), cooked spaghetti noodles (hair), sand paper (skin) etc. in paper bags so my kids couldn’t see what was in them.
I put the cute, colorful labels on the outside of each bag and say, “Reach in and feel the witches hair! What do you think it is?!”
Then they had to reach their hand in the bag and guess what was in each bag. They write their guess on their recording page.
Photos courtesy of @chasingfeenerella
You can use anything you want, but here are some ideas:
Hair - straw, yarn
Brains - cooked spaghetti noddles (put a tiny bit of vegetable oil if you don’t want the noodles to stick together)
Teeth - candy corn, dry beans
Fingers - bugles, plastic witch fingers from the store, pretzel sticks
Tongue - string cheese, piece of bread
Eyes - grapes, cherry tomatoes
Heart - tomato (peeled or not), orange, apple
Skin - sandpaper, Saran Wrap, bubble wrap
I absolutely love playing this game and so do the kids. Their reactions are the absolute best! I love watching them feel what is inside the bag and then guessing what it is.
Their facial expressions are priceless, and so are the guesses.
You can play that whoever gets the most right wins a prize.
This game is a FREEBIE! Thank you for being part of our community.
