To start, I went over our mobile classroom items of the week (Color: Brown [like gingerbread cookies]; Shape: Rectangle [like a cookie tray]; Letters: Y & Z; and Number: 12 [December is the 12th month AND there’s 12 days of Christmas … although we steered pretty clear of holiday talk]. Our concept of the week was rhyming.
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.
Non-Fiction Book: Animals in Winter by Henrietta Bancroft & Richard G. Van Gelder; illustrated by Helen K. Davie
This book discusses bears but also other animals who hibernate, migrate, or survive in the winter months.
Fiction Book: Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
A little boy and his mother make a gingerbread boy but the little boy is impatient and, even though the recipe says not to, he opens the oven before it’s time and a gingerbread baby pops out! How will they catch him?
After our book, I passed out gingerbread cookies from Trader Joe’s:
I told the kids to take one bite (JUST ONE!) from their cookie. Then I revealed our chart:
(I found this chart design at Around the Kampfire. Isn’t it darling?)
I passed out a laminated gingerbread man to each kid and they got to tape it on the board in the appropriate column:
I actually had a couple of late arrivals whose results aren’t included in this picture. They both bit the heads so heads was the clear winner of the day!
After that the kids finished their cookies and we talked about our letters of the month. We discussed the letter Y first. We talked about the sounds Y makes and some words that start with Y. Then we reviewed letter Z.
Letter Y Book: Yoko Yak’s Yakety Yakking by Barbara deRubertis; illustrated by R. W. Alley
Yoko Yak can’t stop yapping! Can she ever be quiet? I’m very sad I discovered this series the last day of our program! It would have been really cute to use them the whole time! But alas … if I ever do this program again maybe we’ll do that.
After our story we did our letter Y craft. This was the same craft I did for our Annual Alphabet craft two years ago.
Then the kids were free to roam the centers. I made all of the signs in Canva.
I filled the tray with salt and lined it with an image from Canva. The number formation rhyme is from Teaching Mama. The letter instructions came from Worksheets to Print.
**I just realized our sign was incorrect for this center! Oops …
The yacht came from the In the Water TOOB. (I think it’s actually a cruise ship but no matter …) The yolk (egg) was borrowed from my son’s kitchen. The yo-yo was purchased at Dollar Tree. The yellow flashcard came in a pack from Dollar Tree. The yarn was found in the library’s storage closet. I printed out clipart for “yawn.”
As you can see I had to rely heavily on clipart for this one! Zoo, zodiac, and zipper all came from clipart I printed out on card stock and laminated. I printed out the zero card from This Teaching Mama. The zebra came in the Wild TOOB. I made out an envelope addressed to myself at the library and used a Sharpie to point to the zip code.
The foam letters for both bins came from puzzles I found at Dollar Tree. I created the tub labels in Canva.
I got the alphabet and counting mats from Oriental Trading. The brown play-doh is leftover from our Bugs & Insects session.
This week’s sensory bin was filled with oatmeal. I found this incredible (FREE!) reindeer rhyming game at Playdough to Plato. It came with about 10 reindeer but I narrowed it down to four and used two cards for each.
One of my coworkers gifted us a stack of cardboard and I thought they would make the cutest trays! I covered them in aluminum foil and the kids glued their gingerbread cookie right to the “tray” and it made transport easy. I found these foam gingerbread cookies and the metallic bows at Dollar Tree. I set out glue, beads, pipe cleaners, puffs, scissors, googly eyes, felt scraps, and yarn. I wasn’t going anywhere near glitter. 🙂
Luckily we had sparkly pipe cleaners so I think it made up for lack of glitter.
I got the animals from Teaching Mama but I made the mats to sort them on in Canva.
I got the gingerbread house printable from Keeping Life Creative. I wanted kids to practice their scissor skills so I purposefully did not cut them out! I set out paint dobbers, cotton balls, puffs, markers, crayons, foam stickers, and scrap paper. The kids got to make their own gingerbread house for the gingerbread baby from our story to live in.
Our session summary:
I also handed out two letter/number of the week worksheets for them to color at home and practice their writing. I got the letter worksheets from Easy Peasy Learners and the number worksheets from Tot Schooling. Their homework this week was a color-by-number coloring sheet I found at Josie’s Place on Teachers Pay Teachers.
This is my last Ready, Set, Kindergarten! program. I’m very sad that it has ended, I had such a great time planning everything and got very close to my “regulars.” But new things are coming in the new year …
The Short Stack Librarian 