This week and next, we will take a break from our space inquiry to start to learn about Earth Day, spring, Easter and Passover, which all happen at almost exactly the same time this year! Most of what I have prepared for our kinder kiddos is math related as my English teaching partner and I have decided to trade off month-to-month with math and literacy centers and this month I am preparing the math centers in our classes. However, read on until the end for some fun Easter word games and writing templates that I have used in the past.
Easter / Spring Addition with Loose Parts
While we typically focus on one strand for every week or two in our classrooms, we always include numeracy centers as well, as we feel that it is crucial to continue to hone these basic skills as there is an undercurrent of number sense in all of the math strands. This activity uses our students' love of loose parts and works on basic addition to 10. I've also put out white boards and dry erase markers with this activity so that they can write out their equations and their answers. This is something they love to do!
Easter Shape Sorting
I came across this adorable chick and bunny shape clipart while I was buying my (don't tell my husband!) millionth clipart set this month, and I made this sorting activity simply because I thought the clipart was the cutest! I then put out the shape cards, as well as real objects and tangrams and let our kinders go to town with sorting by shape.
Easter Egg Patterning Activity
There are about a million things you can do math-wise with plastic Easter eggs. Maybe two million. This is just one of the ways we will be using them this week. Students can create their own patterns, copy/translate the patterns from the pattern cards, and fill in the blanks on the pattern cards.
Crack, Count & Cover Easter Egg Math
This one is super fun but I've learned that it is a bit difficult to manage. We simply filled 14 plastic Easter eggs with small loose parts (such as small erasers, foam bunny stickers, tiny chicks, beads, etc) and the students crack an egg, count the number of objects, and cover (or colour) the egg with the corresponding number. The struggle we ran into was that kids were not putting the items back into the right eggs and things were getting confusing. If I were to do it again, I would colour code the items and also include the numeral within the egg (possibly taped to the inside of the egg).
Spin and Make a Pattern
Another patterning activity we're trying is a Spin and Make a Pattern. The students simply spin the spinner and create a pattern with loose parts, shapes, etc. and then transcribe their pattern onto their sheets.
You can find all of these Easter Math Activities here:
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Easter Guided Reading - An Emergent Reader
In terms of literacy, I have been doing a lot of whole group vocabulary instruction and small group instruction such as guided reading and guided writing. For guided reading this week, I will be working with some of my readers and pre-readers with this simple emergent reader:
And you can find all of the resources featured in this post here:
xoJess
