Ready, Set, Kindergarten! — Fairy Tales

To start, I went over our mobile classroom items of the week (Color: Yellow [like Goldilocks’ hair!]; Shape: Square [like the base of the Three Little Pigs’ houses]; Letter: E; Number: 3 [like the Three Little Bears or the Three Billy Goats Gruff]). Our concept of the week was STEM.

Then we started circle time:

Song: Days of the Week (to the tune of The Addams Family)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
There’s Sunday and there’s Monday,
There’s Tuesday and there’s Wednesday,
There’s Thursday and there’s Friday,
And then there’s Saturday.
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, (clap, clap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week. (clap, clap)
Source: Ms. Brown’s Classroom

We looked at our calendar and discussed what day of the week it was, what month we were in, and what day of the month it was. Then we moved on to the weather:

Song: What’s the Weather? (to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine)
What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it sunny? Is it windy?
Is it rainy? Is it cold?

What’s the weather? What’s the weather?
What’s the weather like today?
Is it snowy? Is it cloudy?
Is it stormy? Is it hot?
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/460563499387764713/

Then it was time for our theme discussion. I started with a slide show detailing what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale and what a “fractured” fairy tale is. (I created the slides using Canva.) I found some fairy tale details here and here.

I didn’t read a non-fiction book this week. Instead I read a classic fairy tale and a fractured fairy tale.

Classic Fairy Tale Book: The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Jerry Pinkney

I love the page foldout that comes with the largest billy goat. This story related to one of our centers so I decided to read it to remind the kids of the story (and maybe introduce it for some of our youngest “kindergartners.”

Next I read our fractured fairy tale:

Fractured Fairy Tale: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

When we were finished with our story, I polled the kids to find out whose story they believed …

Turns out that wolf tells a convincing story! In a close race, the kids believed the wolf six votes to five. I got the idea for this activity at Mrs. Lee’s Kindergarten.

Then we talked about the letter of the week. We talked about the sound E makes (hard and soft — Miss Elena/ear vs elephant/eye) and some words that start with E.

Then I read our letter E book which went beautifully with our theme: Cinderelephant by Emma Dodd.

When we were done with books, I reviewed the different stations I had set up.

Then we did our letter E craft. This is the same letter we did two years ago for our annual alphabet project.

After they finished their alphabet craft the kids made their way around our stations. (I made all the center signs in Canva.)

I had so many activities this week that I didn’t have enough tables so I combined our writing tray and our letter of the week bin and tub.

I filled the tray with a mix of sugar and glitter this week. I got the letter instructions here and the number instructions from Teaching Mama. I lined the tray with a laminated picture I got from Canva that I cut down to size:

I borrowed the excavator from my son’s extensive collection of construction vehicles. I fished the large googly eye out of our library stash. The eel, elephant, and elk came from various TOOBs (ocean, safari, and North America, respectively). The erasers I had leftover from our Valentine’s Day program. The letters came from foam puzzles I found at Dollar Tree. I created the tub labels in Canva.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of our play-doh mats this week!

I made yellow play-doh to match our color of the week. The letter and number mats came from Oriental Trading.

I got the idea for the wands at Mrs. Plemons’ Kindergarten. I created the star numbers in Canva. Then I printed the numbers (11-20) onto card stock and laminated them. I hot glued a pipe cleaner onto each one so the kids could string the correct number of beads onto each “wand.”

For some reason the kids thought they could take these wands home with them. I managed to gather a few before they could leave the room but we ended up one short by the end of the program. Oh well …

Our bin this week was filled with “porridge” (oatmeal) and small, medium, and large bears. The kids used the tweezers to fish out the bears and put them onto the correct mat. I created the mats in Canva and laminated them. The bears are from Lakeshore Learning. I got the idea for bear size sorting from Joyfully Weary. In hindsight I think the mats would have been cuter with “Baby Bear,” “Mama Bear,” and “Papa Bear” labels instead of “Small,” “Medium,” and “Large.” I’ll do that next time!

There’s a whole series of (pricey) Fairy Tale STEM kits from Lakeshore Learning and I love them all. We’re lucky enough to own this one. The kids had paper and pencils to plan their bridge and then the velcro blocks and troll/goat figures to put it into action. This was a little tough for them but I think they enjoyed it regardless.

I found the idea for a fairy tale matching game from the book After-School Clubs for Kids by Lisa Shaia. Because I own the book I had access to the fairy tale matching cards but I thought I could do a better job with Canva and clipart. I printed them on card stock and laminated them.

I got this idea from Simply School Teacher‘s Instagram. I got the idea to label the fan the “Big Bad Wolf” from More Than a Worksheet. I laid out pipe cleaners, q-tips, toothpicks, popsicle sticks (regular and jumbo), straws, and play-doh.

Our session summary:

I also handed out a letter/number of the week worksheet for them to color at home and practice their writing. I got the letter worksheet from Easy Peasy Learners and the number worksheet from Tot Schooling. And lastly as homework I sent home a fairy tale I-Spy game I got from And Next Comes L.

Next up: St. Patrick’s Day & Rainbows!