Non Worksheet Morning Work

Hi guys! I am so excited about getting back to blogging. I'm excited to share some good ideas and strategies with you as we near school starting. School starts in one month for me. I'm so not ready to leave my baby but I'm excited about a new start. Speaking of new things to be excited about, have you checked out periscope? It is so much fun chatting with other teachers on this great new platform. I've only gone live once but I'm planning to do another one tomorrow. I just haven't decided on my topic. I'm thinking either something related to books or something related to technology. What would you like to see? You can check me out at Ms. Kerri's Krazy Klass on periscope.
I have been doing some thinking and reading about early childhood education. I read a post the other day from Pre-K pages about worksheets in the early childhood classroom. I tend to think that the more hands on we can be with kids at this age the better they are. In fact we all probably learn better when we are hands on. I definitely learn more by doing. I've been wanting to read the book Worksheets don't grow dendrites since I saw the book study earlier this year. But I was knee deep in mommy hood and not thinking about school at the time. It is on my wishlist on Amazon (Maybe I'll get a good deal on it on their big sale tomorrow). But until then, I'm examining my own teaching practices. I think there is a time and a place for a worksheet and since TPT I'm finding a lot better resources.  But I'm rethinking my approach to morning work.

My kids can start coming into my room at 7:50 and the bell rings at 8:00. After the bell rings, we have announcements, the pledge and such. It takes me a few minutes after those announcements to get started with my day. I need to take attendance and do the lunch count. So I need something engaging for my students to be doing during this time.  On the first day of school, I have always had the kids play with play doh. It is open ended and gives me a chance to talk to parents if needed. But after that, I have had the kids do a coloring sheet. I'll admit that this is what the other teachers do and I didn't really question the practice. Last time I was in Kindergarten I changed this some. I had the kids do a phonics sheet on our letter or words for the week. I feel like this was a better use of our time rather than a coloring sheet. But I've changed my mind. There is nothing engaging about a worksheet period. I want to come up with some better activities for my students. I asked some of my kindergarten teacher friends and they had some good suggestions.

What I am thinking is that I will have a different activity each day. Like on Mondays we do play doh, Tuesdays will be all about math, Wednesdays will be all about writing, Thursdays could be for name practice, Fridays for puzzles and fine motor. I want it to be pretty easy for me but I know for that to happen I have to do some planning. I think having a theme for the day will help some. I think at first it will be a lot of exploration and then as kids get more experience with school and the activities we do, the work will be a little more challenging. Another thing I'm thinking is to let one group of kids each day use our iPads and iPods. This could be a rotation.
I've started pinning some ideas. You can check out that pinterest board out here.
I would love to know what you have your kids do when they come into the classroom. Please leave a comment and let me know. (This reminds me of my great great Aunt Jenny. She would call companies on their 1-800 numbers on the back of their products. She always said, "They love to hear from you.") I would love to hear from you!

Morning Meeting Promethean Style

This week I'm going to share some of what I do with my promethean board in my class. I've had some people want to see my flipcharts and I think I've figured out how to share them. 

I love love love my morning meeting and calendar time with the kids. I think I love it so much because I use a flipchart that I'm really proud of. It is a combination of different ideas and trial and error and searching promethean planet for things that work for my kids. I love it because I can adapt to fit whatever my kids need. All I have to do is add another page.
When I first started teaching kindergarten, I wrote my morning message on a small white board and did my calendar time on a bulletin board. I had a good routine with them. I keep my students for two years. I have them in kindergarten and then first grade and by half way through first grade I was tired of my morning message and my kids didn't seem to need it. But by using my board, I don't get bored or tired of it. I love it!
Here's my morning meeting routine:
When they first come in they see a chart that has their routine for the morning. I use pictures of what they are suppose to do and the words. I saw this idea on Mrs. Wills blog and just adapted it to fit my needs (At lease I think that's where I saw it. I can't find it now). The students can see what they need to do. As they are working on their morning work at their table, they answer a question on the board. I started this year with their favorite color. They moved their name underneath a square of their favorite color. I started these graphs to help them recognize their names. The next one they do is if they are boys or girls. This starts to get them used to the yes/no format we use the rest of the year and they can "read" it themselves. Then they have a yes/no question they answer everyday. I use their popcorn words and different themes and concepts we're working on. I also use a lot of graphing and math concepts with this chart.
When morning meeting starts, we start with a Dr. Jean song I've embedded in my chart. Then we go over our rules which I got from The Polka Dot Patch.
Here's a list of the next slides:

• Morning message (I enjoy playing around with the backgrounds depending on the season and holdiays)
• Calendar
• Days of the week (Dr. Jean song embedded)
• Days we've been in school hundreds chart
• Months of the year (Dr. Jean song embedded)
• Weather (Dr. Jean song embedded)
• Season
• Temperature
• Patterns with shapes
• Number patterns
• Schedule

 Then there are a variety of pages that I'll add eventually and that I use in first grade. If you download my chart, I put notes in each slide to let you know what I do there. I love doing my morning meeting this way because we practice so many skills in math and in reading and writing. I try to include questions in my morning message and my question of the day that review our science and social studies themes.
If I could figure out how to show an image of it I would. Hopefully soon I can figure that one out.
Here's my flipchart for download in google docs. It took a long time to upload, so let me know if you were successful in downloading it.