Kindergarten Step by Step: Week 1- Rainbow Fish
Up first is calendar and morning meeting! Wait a second! You skipped morning work! Yes, at this time in this series I will be skipping over morning work as my kiddos have breakfast in the classroom the first 20 minutes of the day! If you are needing some quick morning work ideas be sure to search “morning work” in the Facebook group! It’s calendar time and honestly you most likely got started with calendar day 1 of school so you have already started your calendar routine! This week you will be spending a lot of time still just going over calendar expectations. When do we come down to the calendar carpet, how do we sit, how do we interact to the questions being asked, what do we do if we have something additional to say about the calendar routine, and so on!
For week 1’s poem the kiddos will be introduced to Jack and Jill! For the most part all KinderLiteracy poems match the theme of the week… weeks one and two are an exception as I felt the kiddos needed time with some “good ol’ rhymes” as well! With Jack and Jill of course you can also work on listening for rhyming words and placing the kiddos names back into the poem as well!
Below you can view the ‘spread’ of the first week lesson plans! I like to keep my lesson plans in this two page binder so I can easily see the skills/topics as they progress through the week! However, I generally will remove them from sheet protectors and place them onto my clipboard for easy access!
Along with printing your plans you will also need to write your essential questions on the board and display the vocabulary words and definitions! It’s completely up to you if you want to write the entire definition beforehand or wait until the kiddos are there with you!
This first week you will be mainly modeling the process of the weekly close read. We will do that knowing that the kids might or might not have a lot to say. However, we will continue to follow the same routine and just do more teacher modeling when necessary! For example, when posing the question, “Where did the story take place?” you can model this. “Well boys and girls, I know as we read the book I saw lots of fish! I know that fish have to live in water, but I think I can tell even more about this water. I believe all of the fish lived in the ocean… What do you think? What other animals live in the ocean?”
This first week you will want to have had partners established. This should be two students that are either sitting next to or in front/behind of one another. Instead of jumping right into literacy based questions…take time for students to become acquainted with their partner and ask fun questions! You can have the students turn and talk about topics like: favorite color, favorite animal, who lives at your house, what pets you have, what you did over the summer, and so on! We want the kiddos to be comfortable enough with their partner and talking about settings and characters probably isn’t the most comfortable HA!
Still… do not feel defeated if you do a fun or academic turn and talk and it’s crickets! It really does take a while for young kids to get used to talking to a partner. I mean imagine when they are asked what they want for dinner does mom and dad ask them to turn and talk to a partner about their choice? HA! It’s most likely very foreign to them! Take the needed time to teacher model…. answer the questions aloud to them by showing your thinking!
Week one of KinderLiteracy your main goals are to get the kids semi-comfortable with turn and talks, establish what a ‘character’ is, have students gain one piece of evidence from the text, and make one personal connection to the story! Most likely they will gain a quick understanding of who the main character is from the text. For the piece of evidence, this simply means that they can state an exact “snippet” of the text. For example, “I know Rainbow Fish was happy at the end because he was smiling and playing with his friends!” Students generally make personal connections to stories as well! You can leave it at a personal connection from Rainbow Fish or allow students to make personal connections from Little Critter I am Sharing as well.
A huge part of KinderLiteracy is also the push on vocabulary! I will try my best to remember and share with you the vocabulary action movements! Below are this week’s:
shimmer: do “spirit hands”
glide: show your hand in a gliding movement through water
admire: put your finger to your chin and pretend to ‘look up’ at someone you admire
wise: tap both sides of your head showing how you think smart
shocked: hands to cheeks
Each week we wrap up the close read with a fun and exciting craft! The kiddos have always enjoyed making these Rainbow Fish crafts! I give them an assortment of tissue paper and then they also get one foil ‘scale’ to resemble the shiny scale! Below are some additional pictures from KinderLiteracy teachers last year!
Again, download the above material for Rainbow Fish HERE. You will click on the PREVIEW to download!
Guided Reading/Literacy Centers
You can see from the video that the first day we are really just getting them introduced to what their main job will – -building stamina and being INDEPENDENT! We want them to know what it means to be independent and how they can be successful at it! That first week my ‘literacy center’ time is only about 10-15 minutes at the most. I start by introducing/reviewing the three ways to read a book, the ‘rules’ of literacy center time, what it means to be independent, and practicing building that stamina!
You can see from the video, I teach my kiddos these important four rules; work the whole time, work quietly, get started right away, and stay in one spot! I created this life-size poster to display! There are directions in the free download to explain how you can print it to be large! You can click below to download the freebie poster! It’s also available in multiple colors as well!
Up next I would like to explain how I ‘prepped’ for my first week of literacy centers! In my classroom each kiddo have their own labeled book box! Inside their book box I would go ahead and place 2-3 books. Each night I will swap out the books so they aren’t reading the same set of books each day! This helps them to stay more engaged! Other than the student book boxes you will need chart paper to chart student/teacher responsibilities for read to self (or you could just display the poster above).
We then jump right in and build our stamina! On day one we read for 1-2 minutes and then add one an additional 1-2 minutes each day! We also track our stamina on our stamina graph. You can download that for free HERE. I ask that the kiddos find a quiet reading spot and read silently. I walk around and encourage students to build that strong stamina if they should say their are “done.” You can see us busy reading from our reading tubs below!
This first week of literacy centers is really just teaching the kids what that time of the day is used for and getting them to understand your expectations! In my classroom I prefer a 100% silent and independent approach. However, you might prefer partners and allow talking… it really just goes on your personality and what you like best!
I have a 60-75 minute block for guided reading/literacy centers. However, this first week I am not meeting with groups and as I mentioned we are only spending about 10-15 minutes to build stamina. The rest of that time block I allow the kids to free play! If you have KinderStart you might also choose to use that then! I will explain how I use it during my intervention block next! These first few days they are still getting into the routines of school and it’s tough work! I enjoy giving them this time and I can then call back students to my table to do letter assessing! We enjoy blocks, play dough, and lots of fun explore tubs!
As I mentioned above… during their “free play” I like to call them back to assess them on their letters! You can download the freebie HERE!
Intervention
Following my guided reading/literacy center block we go into grade level intervention! You can read all about how we run our grade level intervention block in detail HERE! However, the first 8 weeks of school we do not switch kiddos… as there is still SO much learning happening over 8 weeks… a lot can change! The first 8 weeks we keep the kiddos in our own rooms and use KinderStart! KinderStart is broken down into three major areas: oral storytelling, phonemic awareness, and phonics!
For week one of KinderStart the students will be introduced to Brisket!!!! Each day the kiddos are introduced to a story about Brisket! They get to hear all about him as a puppy in week one! The teacher reads the story script and then asks two-three quick comprehension follow-up questions! Each week they will get to listen as Brisket goes to doggy school, has his first birthday and more!
Along with the oral storytelling the students also will be practicing their rhyming skills! This first week the students will be simply identifying word pairs for rhyming matches. The unit contains all necessary rhyming cards! You can place them into a basket to pull and find matches or place them onto a pocket chart!
For the phonics section this week, the students will be working on their names! You will place all student names into a pocket chart and students will work on their individual name as well!
Math
YAY It’s time for Unit 1 of KinderMath! This week is all about learning those numbers to five in fun and engaging ways! The students will be introduced to numbers 1-5! They will practice counting those sets and the path of movement for the numbers! The lessons are paired with fun and engaging read alouds… number talk images as well!
This first week we are wanting to get the kids EXCITED about mathematics and know that math is all about exploring numbers in a hands-on way! We know that they learn the best by being able to touch, move, and explain what they see before them! They are only able to do this when we let them get up with their partners, grab their supplies, and explore! It’s just so hard for the teacher to be able to reach every kiddos at the carpet when not everyone has in their hands what the teacher has! Below is a great example…. these little girls have their five frame cards and are talking all about math!
Daisy Days for Learning
This week we also jump right into unit 1 of KinderPhonics! I always feel strongly about taking that first week to work on strokes. However, once it’s time for letters I am SO excited for them! If you haven’t read up on my phonics units here is a quick over! Unit 1- we introduce the letters QUICKLY! We do a letter a day and the students get to hear the letter sound and practice the path of movement! So, we start right on letter A! I have always loved sharing the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD in my room along with the letters as well! We have the action that matches and it increases their ability to retain the letters AND sounds tremendously! As I introduce the letter we also watch the DVD to that given letter. So, on day three we watch A-C! There are also practice sheets within KinderPhonics as well that the kiddos complete!
I wanted to also to discuss progress reports in this first week! I have had a lot of requests for my progress report system so I wanted to share that here! We decided a few years ago to move away from weekly newsletters and go to quarter approach! This would cut down on paper and allow the teachers/parents an opportunity to see student success over a quarter! We fill out the progress report and send it home each Friday. The parents then initial and send back on the following Monday! I have included a PDF and editable version below!
Thanks so much for joining me for Week 1 of Kindergarten Step by Step! If you have suggestions/questions you would like to see answered in the next post… please comment those below!
Thank you! This helps a lot with my flow using all of your products. I haven't started yet but feel better prepared for what I should get prepped to use after KinderSurvival. You are putting a ton of work into this and I thank you!!! Andrea 🙂
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This is awesome! I love the video examples because it reassures me and/or gives me new tips of things to do when teaching my own littles! I feel much more confident going into our first full week seeing how you laid everything out. Anything like this for other weeks would be super helpful in the future! ~ You are amazing for what you do and are impacting so many! ~ Crystal
Thank you for doing this for us Tara! With this being my first year back in kindergarten after several years away this is a life saver for me. We had our first week last week with kindersurvival and kindermath getting started, and it was a huge success. You are my mentor this year, and I am so happy to be talking this walk with you right there each week! Thank you so much again!!
Do you sell the alphabet chart that goes along with the Leapfrog video?
I have an alphabet chart that is part of my KinderPhonics bundle 😀
Let me know if you decide to sell it separately – I would absolutely purchase it! Thank you!
The video is requiring a password? It there one or is this a problem on my end. Confused. 🙂
How did you make the poster for KinderPhonics? I really need that in my classroom.
It’s pages 212-215 in unit 1 🙂 You glue the page together 🙂
Hi Tara!! I loooove your products!! I was just wondering about the progress report above. Neither one of the files will open when I click on it. Is it on your TPT site by any chance so I can try to download it another way? Thank you!!
Yes, that is the link! It’s a zipped file so make sure you’re not on a phone 🙂
Tara
I love the weekly progress report. We don’t sent home a weekly newsletter anymore wither due to paper shortage and time it takes, so this will be great to let parents how things are going. Wish I would have had it at the beginning of the year, but this wll help for the last two quarters.
Your products are all so amazing!! Bravo to you!!
Do you sell the alphabet poster separate from the bundle?
Thank you oodles!!
Hi there! I’m sorry I only sell it with my KinderPhonics program. Thanks!
Tara, in regards to your progress report, do you change it as the year progresses? Add the more academic skills? I know that the Powerpoint is editable just wondered what you do with it.
Hi there! We kept it the same 🙂
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