I am a kindergarten teacher. Our last day of school is June 1. Our school does Wonders for our reading curriculum. I only have this week and next week left of our curriculum. I do Wonders from 10:00-11:00. When we are done, I am going to have an hour to spare with my students. Could you all please give me some ideas of what I could do to fill that block? I already do Science and Social Studies with them after lunch recess. Also, I have zero time to plan for elaborate activities during this time. I am in the process of moving and my two young kids are very involved in sports so I am very pressed for time. I'm sure I'll think of something, but I was hoping to get some suggestions of what to do. Thank you!
Could you get your hands on the first grade curriculum and do some activities/lessons from that? Even though they will get it again next year, it probably won't hurt to introduce the skills now. If that doesn't work, I'd do a random, fun read aloud and independent reading activities... but I teach third grade. I'm not sure how well that would work in a kindergarten classroom.
Puzzles computers Share/pair read & then story dictation Visit another class and perform story dictation Food experience Clean out your desk! Have them clean their desks Collaborative learning with high achieving 1st graders Go outside and read
Are you actually teaching everything in your curriculum? There are usually supplemental or extension lessons in programs that never quite get covered. I'd be able to teach my current curriculum for two years probably if I actually did every single instructional activity in that thing.
Ditto... When I taught 2nd, I had extra stuff left over. Had my boys pack it up and put in in the Gym. P kept saying don’t take down displays, bulletin boards, etc. One teacher cleaned her room from top to bottom. Bare walls. She didn’t care. Six more weeks.
Great ideas! I'm gonna look through the first unit from the 1st grade curriculum and see what I can do. Also, great idea about the extension lessons! Wonders has A LOT so I can definitely do that.
In my classroom, during the month of June (and sometimes end of May, also), I rarely will plan a direct lesson. Instead, I plan a fun game such as Kahoot! or Jeopardy. My department and I love to plan fun days!! (It goes with the territory.) For your situation, you could do something similar to what I do or maybe an educational game. It is always beneficial for the students to incorporate technology (computers) and have them play coolmathgames or xtramath. Maybe you could try something new such as basic typing skills or team building activities. When in doubt, put on a movie...well, an educational movie such as the Magic School Bus.
I put a lot of website games on the smart board and we play as a whole group. There are tons of games out there to review sight words. I only have 6 computers in my classroom so it isn't enough for everyone to have their own. I also have a lot of "memory" games that I left the students play in partners to review number and color words. My kids love writing in their journals and sharing with the class. It takes AWHILE to share 25 journals and they stay pretty engaged. I also give every child a flash light and turn off the lights and let them read in the dark. My kids all have a bag of leveled books or can use books from the classroom library. They love being able to lay under a table or on the carpet in the dark and reading with a flash light.
How'd you manage to get through everything in Wonders? My teachers always say there are far too many components and they've never gotten through the entire program. Between Wonders and Go Math, they say they could teach ELA and Math all day long.
Lol. We do go math as well. I'm not done with go math though. I started doing a unit lesson a day since the second day of school. If we had a holiday or field trip during a specific week, I condensed the weekly lessons into four days instead of five. Plus I have a very high class this year so we were able to go through the lessons more smoothly. I'm not sure if next year will be the same lol.
