September Week 4 Lesson Round Up
How is it the last week of September?
I am always ready for October, because then it feels like we are out of the back to school season and really humming along. I am thrilled with where my Kinders are at by the end of September.
If you haven’t printed my free lesson plans yet, you can grab them HERE
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All that work with routines and procedures has paid off!
We are heading into October knowing how to behave at school, and it makes being in the classroom so much more fun when my students know my expectations.
If you’re homeschooling, then you are probably getting your routine down and have settled Ito your new normal. This always feels so good.
I try my best to focus on routines and not schedules. Flexibility makes your day so much easier. Let’s get started!
Phonics and Phonemic Awareness
I hope you’re having fun at calendar and morning meeting time! I have shared tons of our favorite songs and videos to sing every morning. You can see them in previous weeks less round ups here: September Week 1, Week 2, Week 3.
Getting your kids up, moving and singing is the best way to keep them focused. Little ones have an attention span of 5-15 minutes tops, and they thrive on mini lessons.
On my lesson plans, you’ll see I start my phonics with phonemic awareness and stretching out words on a slinky.
This video shows you how to do this. The slinky gives kids a great visual of how we can stretch words out, and then quickly blend the sounds together.
This video is also a great example of how to stretch words out, then blend them together.
This is so magical because you see students understanding that words are made of sounds, and sounds can be manipulated, segmented, and blended together.
Here is another great one… we love Heidi songs!
We are also still practicing onset and rime.
My kids love when I talk like a robot and they blend the onset and rime. I have a Boom Deck that practices this, and you can play it whole group and they can do it individually.
Continue doing first sound picture matching this week.
Put three cards in your pocket chart and say the pictures out loud - annunciating the first sound. Have a student come up and choose the two pictures that have the same first sound.
This week we are focusing on the letters: h,d, j, t.
This makes it easier for children to understand by using a targeted approach.
We focus on these same four letters all week! We love the phonics quilts.
I love that they know how to complete these activities, because they have seen them before with different levels.
You know I am a huge fan of predictable routines and activities, so you won’t have to explain directions or expectations - they already recognize the format from previous weeks. You can do these activities in any order throughout the week.
Math
We are continuing with counting and cardinality this week. We have now had a lot of practice with numbers 1-10.
I can go quicker through these lesson when I am homeschooling, but in the classroom with 25 kiddos, I really take my time to make sure every child can:
count and show me a specific number of objects (0-10)
count and tell me how many (0-10)
write numbers 0-10 with correct directionality
This week is a “review week” where we rotate centers and repeat a few activities for extra practice (it is GOOD to repeat some activities!)
There are five pages of these - perfect for one per day! Copy them and don’t cut apart - have students review two numbers each day this week.
After this, I have students play all the centers. If they are at tables, you can keep them there and put each center activity in a tub. After fifteen minutes, move the tubs.
While the kids are doing this, I can sit with 1-2 students and help those who still need help with moving their finger as they count objects, writing with correct directionality, etc.
When writing, I always say, “Start at the star!”
***With Covid restrictions, this may look different. Each child may need a manipulative box with ten unifix cubes.
Reading
Have your kiddos gotten into the routine of reading and writing groups yet? Having the same routine each week saves so much time in explaining directions and expectations. Our system stays the same all year, only the difficulty of the material changes.
Our theme this week is Animals, and the kids love to share about their animals and pets. I love getting to meet with them in small groups to build relationships and rapport.
You can do reading groups in about 10-15 minutes each day. I can get through my entire class in 45 minutes-1 hour.
I like to warm up each day with sight word fluency pages.
I can model and then make sure children are pointing to each word as they say it. We call it their magic reading finger. Their mouth can’t say the word until their magic reading finger touches it. This ensures they aren’t just saying words, but actually looking at the sentences.
I introduce 2 sight words each week usually.
I put these in page protectors and put them in three ring soft folders. At reading groups, we warm up with these for a couple minutes. The students will get faster with them as they become more fluent and know the routine.
To see my reading group schedule, please go to Week 1 in September lesson round up.
To print a week for free to see how this program works, please CLICK HERE
All About Apples Week 4
You know how much I love thematic teaching, and we are in Week 4 with our All About Apples Unit!
Thematic teaching is how I incorporate science social studies, reading, art, math and real literature into our day. It is so fun, and the kids absolutely love this time block each day.
I love using Our Apple Tree to wrap up our apple unit! It is an easy read, and it ties everything together. If you need a print out of all the read aloud books I like to use, you can print the list on THIS PAGE (scroll down a little ways.)
It talks about how the apple tree changes throughout the year, what we can eat from an apples, making artwork using apples, etc.
Our first enrichment activity is to try apple treats! I bring applesauce, apple cider, apple donuts, caramel apples, etc. for us to try. Needless to say, the kids LOVE this day!
We then graph our results… what apple treat is your favorite?
Then, the next day students use the word bank and finish the sentence starter, “My favorite apple treat is….”
The apple art page can be used in so many ways (and a number of times!) I like to cut up apples and we paint with the. I cut them in halves, quarters, shapes, etc.
Then we paint different apples with watercolors.
Students enjoy the open ended art with apples, but they also like to paint these silly apples using watercolors.
I love to watch different personalities paint - those who take their time and those who can’t wait to hurry up an finish.
These are adorable to hang in the hallway.It is so fun to incorporate math, art, reading, writing, science and social studies together around one theme.
The kids love these activities, and we have so much fun learning.
Watch this video for a quick and easy science experiment that the kids think is so cool!
This tops off our All About Apples Unit! This unit is designed to enrich what you are learning about through reading stories, watching videos and hands-on activities.
You can do this unit in the classroom or if you’re homeschooling, and many pop these activities can be used for virtual teaching too!
If you haven’t used our All About Apples unit yet, here is a quick video of the unit.
I love our read aloud-enrichment time each day.
Next month our enrichment unit is All About Pumpkins!
Centers
These are the no prep activities we have planned for the week.
In September, centers are tricky for sure. Kinders will need your help at the beginning of the year, but they will start to recognize the pattern and repetition with these no prep packs, so in the coming months they can be independent with them.
Right now with Covid regulations, no prep centers make it super easy. The kids can just use their own supply box - no sharing material.
I organize my no prep printables with page protectors in a soft folder, so when I need to make copies, I can quickly flip to the activities I need.
I love using these for homeschooling too, and in the classroom they can be used for sub tubs, fast finishers, intervention, small groups and so much more. Each pack comes with so many math and literacy skills we are working on for the month.
For management ideas, and tips and tricks for running your centers, please see THIS blog post - scroll down to centers for the cute tier and tickets I use.
Writing
We do lesson 21 and 22 this week for handwriting. Then I spend a couple days catching up and reviewing. I make copies of the pages certain students struggled with.
Doing the same exact activity a second time is actually a great teaching tip. I do this all the time!
For more info on handwriting, please CLICK HERE
In writing, we are finishing up labeling.
By now, I bet your kids are rockstars at labeling! This can be used as a literacy center all year, since the unit comes with a turkey, leprechaun, etc. But we are finishing up labeling this week.
We match the labels one day, and the very next day they do the same picture but label on their own (either with sticker labels or cut and paste).
For your fast finishers, have them try to write the word on their own underneath the label or draw a picture and label it on the back of their paper.
On Friday we do a mini book.
My recipe for success: same structure and routine, repeated practice, build their confidence and fluency = confident writers and readers.
If some kids need a challenge: write a word bank on the board, and have students write in the labels!
Have you been using the Boom Cards to practice labeling?
These digital task cards make distance learning and homeschooling so much easier!
We are almost ready to start grouping words together to make lists.
All the resources shown on this blog post are now available in my September bundle!
I hope these teaching tips make your week go smoother! My goal is to share ideas and tips every week on a blog post for the week coming up. This will take some stress off of you!
I can’t believe next week is October!
CLICK HERE to visit my October lesson homepage.
Blessings,
Michala