I'm officially heading into week 2 of EAK (early admitting kindergarten) with my littles and I can't believe that in just four days they have been great working in the different stations I've introduced. Each day last week I shared various stations where students will be learning in and gave them time to practice as a whole group. This way I could slowly roll out the different materials and tools and discuss the proper and improper way to use them at each center. Although there's still a lot of reinforcement with behavior in my class, it's nice to know I can begin having them play in their chosen stations and them be engaged the whole time.
This week I have a ton of new center activities planned and thought it would be fun to share a peek into what our week will look like at each center! We're still with our "Welcome to EAK" theme for the next three weeks so none of my centers have a specific theme, but be on the lookout for "All About Me" coming up in just a couple of weeks! So, here's what I've got:
Sensory Station
This week I'm using kinetic sand and after briefly sharing it with a few of my students last week I know the rest of the class is going to have a great time using it! I am so thankful that one of my Donors Choose projects were funded and now my sensory station has the use of kinetic sand!
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| photo source: And Next Comes L |
This week I'll have my students use the sand with cups to fill and mold with using different shapes. There are so many ways kinetic sand can be used and I just love I now have it to use with my kids!
Discovery Station
This station is kind of my misc station and I did that with intention. This is going to flip back and forth between being my math/science center and I wanted to give it a name that would lend itself to both - but also be a little mysterious to invite my littles to want to play there.
This week I am combining a fine motor activity with color sorting with this Fruit Loop color sorting activity from Play to Learn Preschool! Jamie uses this in her class to create a graph, but I intend to use this concept to reinforce colors and sorting. I love how easy and inexpensive the materials are to pull it together AND the vertical skewers to place the loops are a fun way to sort them versus a flat mat.
Writing Station
In our writing station I will place various activities that relate to having students write/draw, practice letter formation, or otherwise practice their fine motor control. This week I have play-doh and letter stamps, which I am going to have the kids practice writing their names and the names of their classmates!
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| photo source: Simply Learning Instagram |
Another amazing donation to our class from our latest project being funded at Donors Choose - these dough stampers from Lakeshore!
Reading Station
The reading station in our classroom is more than just books! I have found that my kiddos do enjoy looking through the books we have in our class library, but I quickly realized that I needed to add a few pocket chart activities that help them practice their letter recognition.
This week I plan to introduce this Alphabet Sandwich Sort activity where students are to match the uppercase letter to the corresponding lowercase letter. The sandwich clip art is just so cute and I love how they looked when printed and laminated!
Story Station
This learning station in my classroom is the listening center. My class is limited in terms of technology that's available and I wanted to make sure there was an area where they could listen to stories. So, I've created these ring booklets using QR codes to directly link to read alouds I've found on YouTube.
However, I dislike using YouTube in the classroom due to the number of inappropriate ads or automatic plays to other videos. Plus there's always the risk of students browsing YouTube without me knowing and I simply don't even want there to be an opportunity of that happening. So, I use Safe Share!
Safe Share is a free site where you can plug in the URL of YouTube or Vimeo videos and it automatically removes inappropriate content and advertising! I've been using it to share all kinds of videos with my students this year and appreciate that I can provide educational videos without all of the other stuff.
Building Station
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| photo source: Confessions of a Homeschooler |
I named our block area the building station because I want it to be more than just using the big blocks. In this station I plan to incorporate a lot of STEM activities and challenges for my littles and this week I'm introducing smaller block manipulatives.
I found these amazingly FREE block pattern cards, which I printed and laminated for my kiddos to use. I love how simple they are, but challenges them to use the correct shape to make the given design. Finding free, but amazing quality, resources for the classroom is such a great little find and I am very appreciative of the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog for making and providing them free of charge for people. It really helps me stock my new classroom full of engaging activities!
Also, I plan to use our MegaBlocks with more intention this week versus the free play from last week. I made these easy DIY "I can build..." cards that feature different designs for them to follow. I'm curious to see how they do!
Maker Station
For our craft/art station this week I am going to introduce different artists and will begin with Eric Carle. I love his style of artwork in his stories and loved this idea from Pocket of Preschool where the kids first paint on construction paper then cut them into strips to create their own art using a similar paint style as Eric Carle!
I can't wait to kickoff another fun week with my little learners!
