Kindergarten Creations

Life Cycle Hats

Do your kids like hats as much as mine do? These life cycle hats are a perfect way to incorporate life cycle learning into your classroom. Your kids will love wearing these home to show their parents what they know about life cycles.

Click here to get my plant life cycle hat.

Click here to get my butterfly life cycle hat.

Click here to get my frog life cycle hat.

Click here to get my chicken life cycle hat.

Crystal McGinnis

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10 Jelly Bean Math Activities

By Crystal McGinnis 6:40 AM

Do your kids love to use candy during math as much as mine do? Check out my Jelly Bean math activities that are perfect for Spring and Easter. These activities can be used during your math time, or they could be placed in your literacy centers. I usually have each student bring in one bag of jelly beans, and that is more than enough for us to complete all of these activities before Easter.

Jelly Bean Addition-The kiddos use jelly beans to solve basic addition problems.

Jelly Bean Number Words-The kids read the number words and then cover the number word jelly bean with the correct number of candy jelly beans.

Jelly Bean Subtraction-Students use jelly beans to solve basic subtraction problems by creating the set in the jar, and then taking some out! Simple....

Jelly Bean Sorting - Students sort jelly beans according to color.

Jelly Bean Graphing-Students create a bar graph of their jelly bean colors.

Jelly Bean Measuring - Students measure each line using Jelly Beans!

If you would like to use my jelly bean activities in your classroom, they are available in my TPT store for $1.

Click here to get my jelly bean activities!

Crystal McGinnis

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Spring Literacy Activities

By Crystal McGinnis 11:20 AM

Spring is almost here! It is amazing how much progress is made in Kindergarten up to this point. Kinders are reading, writing, and beginning to develop some independence. With that in mind, we must keep teaching literacy to get those kiddos where they need to be by the end of the year. Ready for First Grade! The following are literacy activities that I use in my classroom in Spring.

Spring Poems for Shared Reading-These poems are full of sight words and are perfect for shared reading, guided reading, and filling those book boxes! We create a spring poetry journal! We highlight the sight words, practice reading with fluency and rhyme, and then use these for independent practice reading. They love them!

After learning a new poem, we put it together in a pocket chart. It then becomes our new poem in the pocket chart center. We use highlighting strips to highlight our sight words in the poem. It is exciting to hear them read the words as they are putting the poems together.

You can get the pocket chart poems here!

We use these simple predictable sentences as a warm up in guided reading. They are very predictable for new reading. Some of my kids still need dots for tracking print. You can see my simple predictable sentences here!

Sometimes we work with simple predictable sentences in the pocket chart. When we learn about the life cycle of a frog, this set of predictable sentences will be incorporated into the pocket chart center. I give them a printable of the simple sentences to use as a guide. Check out my spring predictable sentences pocket chart here!

Crystal McGinnis

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Presidential Pop Up Cards

By Crystal McGinnis 7:19 AM

February is all about Valentines, dental health, and presidents! I created these presidential pop-up cards so that my kiddos could learn about the presidents while reading and writing. These cards are a fun, hands-on way, to learn!

The kids can decorate their pop-up card and then read about the president.

The kids can decorate their pop up card and then write about the president.

Here is the pop up feature. Each card has a pop up president!

Your kids can listen to you read about the president. I created two different levels of text. I created a simpler text for young readers, and a more advanced text for more advanced readers in older grades.

Grab my Presidential Pop Ups by CLICKING HERE!

Crystal McGinnis

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Dental Health Month

By Crystal McGinnis 3:41 PM

February is dental health month. This healthy teeth pocket chart sort is an easy way to start the conversation about healthy teeth. After my kids sort the pictures into "good for your teeth" and "sad for your teeth" categories, I will place this pocket chart in my pocket chart center. I will keep it in the center for a couple of weeks so that each student gets a chance to use it independently. After the kiddos complete the pocket chart, they will create "healthy teeth" and "not healthy teeth" pockets as independent practice. They can take these home to show their parents what they have learned!

For independent practice, my kids will create these "good for your teeth" and "sad for your teeth" pockets. They will put items that promote dental health and items that do not promote dental health in each pocket.

Grab my dental health pocket chart here!

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Crystal McGinnis

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Groundhog Day Activities

By Crystal McGinnis 7:13 AM

It is hard to believe by looking at all of the snow on the ground that it is almost Groundhog Day! Groundhog day falls on February 2nd of each year. It is so much fun to teach about Groundhogs prior to Groundhog Day. I created this set of math and literacy activities to celebrate the onset (or not) of Spring. I hope you can use one or all of the activities! There are several activities for reading, writing, and math. They can keep your kiddos busy the week of Groundhog Day.

CLICK HERE TO GET MY GROUNDHOG ACTIVITIES

These groundhog nonfiction slides are a perfect way to introduce your students to groundhogs. I have provided fun facts and information about these cute little critters. I have also provided a slide about Groundhog day. If your kids love learning about animals, they will love these slides! You can also print them off like I did to create a classroom display.

We love to sing in Kindergarten! This song, that is sung to the tune of "I'm a little teapot," makes a perfect shared reading lesson.

Surveys are a great way to get your kids up and moving! Your kids can walk around and survey their friends by asking them about Groundhog Day. They then write their friend's names in the yes or no column. Each student in my classroom has a clipboard, which makes survey time a little easier.

Groundhog Labeling- A great way to teach text features!

This groundhog craft is a perfect way to celebrate Groundhog Day. After creating the groundhog, the song that they learned earlier in the day is attached. This makes an adorable hallway display!

I always try to tie reading into my units. This groundhog day emergent reader can be used during guided reading or whole group reading. It is very predictable, which makes it perfect for young readers. Another great book box filler!

Groundhog's Day Graph-We will graph our Groundhog predictions. Will he see his shadow?

Add and Color- A simple yet fun activity!

Groundhog Facts Writing-The kiddos read facts about groundhogs and then write their own!

Groundhog-Can/Have/Are Chart-You can display this with your projector and let the kiddos help you fill it out whole group, or they can fill in their own.