'Twas the Night Before Halloween

Ok, so, it's not exactly the night before Halloween, but it's getting close! Since my school spends all day Friday celebrating the holiday, I decided to spend Thursday doing fun Halloween activities in class with the little ones. This week has been out of control with Red Ribbon Week events, activities, dress up days and more, so I'm ready for a fun-filled day in Kindergarten.

Most, if not all, of what we will be doing I got for free, so I'll include links to everything in case you are interested in using it yourself! Here is our plan for tomorrow:

Math

Count to 100 Every Day

(we literally do this every day and they still love it)

After this quick warm up we will be doing some Halloween hundreds chart pictures:

Next, we will review patterns (which we have been working on for a while now) and complete this Halloween pattern worksheet: 

Reading & Writing

Next, we will be reading Aaaargghh, Spider! (if you don't have this book there are plenty of read-aloud videos on youtube of the book) and completing a graphing and writing activity from this mini unit created by Miss Kindergarten.

Art Project

Just for Fun

Happy Halloween!

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PALS

I recently earned a Master's degree in Reading Instruction which has been so, incredibly useful for me as a Kindergarten teacher! In one of my classes, we were introduced to a strategy called PALS that I want to share with you today.

PALS = Peer Assisted Learning Strategies - a.k.a. students helping each other to learn.

I never thought that I would allow Kindergartners to play teacher and help each other learn before I learned about and tried out PALS, but now it is one of my favorite ways to work on reading skills. 

Before giving my students an activity to work on together, I model how PALS is going to work. I ask a volunteer to be my partner and I have him or her read aloud to me (they could be reading letters of the alphabet, simple sentences containing sight words, or more advanced text depending on grade level and reading ability of the students). While he or she is reading I say "great job!" at the end of each sentence. If he or she makes a mistake I say "Stop! Try Again". Then, I ask the student volunteer to listen while I read and give me feedback. He or she tells me that I am doing a great job and corrects my mistakes by telling me to stop and try again (which they all find hilarious for some reason). After modeling the voice level (WHISPER) that I would like them to use, I assign pals and pass out the reading passage for the day. 

Today we did a fun Halloween reading passage that began with very simple sentences such as, "P is for Pirate". Once they showed me that they could handle that, I let them do the next page with passages that were a bit longer and said things like, "P is for Pumpkin. I see 5 pumpkins". They spent about ten minutes taking turns reading these to their pals and all really enjoyed not only getting to read, but also having the chance to correct and give feedback to their partners. 

I got today's reading passages from this awesome Freebie made by Common Core Connection.

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