Planting Seeds/Beans

It's currently 57 degrees here and BEAUTIFUL outside.  Tomorrow is going to be 68 degrees.  I love this springlike weather and hope it stays.  We are bound to get one more huge snowstorm before the nice weather is here to stay.  In order to prepare for spring, we started our planting unit at school.  I usually wait until the beginning of April to do this, but I never have plants or flowers growing by Mother's Day.  I decided to start earlier this year.  We'll see what happens.

We started the day by reading some pages of the book Seeds.  We picked out key words from the pages, came up with motions to remember the key words and then wrote them in sentences.  We sorted the sentences into an anchor chart.  We'll revisit the book tomorrow and add to our chart.

After reading the book, we each looked at a Lima Bean with a magnifying glass.  We talked with the people at our table about what it looked like.

We then filled out a sheet with our observations.

 When we were done writing our observations, I put some Lima Beans in water.  I told the kids that we would look at them after they got back from recess and lunch.

 We broke up the wet Lima Beans and compared them to the dry ones.  We looked at them with a magnifying glass again.  This time we noticed some things looked different.

 We wrote about the differences that we saw in the two seeds.

 We then took pictures with our iPads.  We added these to our Seesaw journal.  We also made a video with our camera.  We will be using this to make an iMovie as our seed changes.

 Using Seesaw, we took a picture of our bean and used the draw and record features.  We wrote day 1 over our picture and recorded ourselves talking about what we noticed with the bean.

 We  then watched The Magic School Bus Gets Planted.

 Our beans went into a Greenhouse for us to observe over the next couple of weeks.

We are excited to see what grows from the seeds.  We'll add water to the paper towel as needed. Tomorrow we'll plant some more seeds.  

Sara

My Light Table Center Ideas

We're having a lot of fun in kindergarten.  Things are coming along.  I love this time of the year.  It's so much fun seeing the growth that the kids have made.   We were excited to add a new addition to our classroom a couple weeks ago.  I wrote a SEEF (Shakopee Educational Endowment Foundation) grant through our school and found out that it was funded.  I ordered a light table to add to our room.  Boy, it is an exciting addition.  It took a little bit for me to get one (lots of bumps along the way), but in the end a friend of mine recommended that I check into  Honey Do Products.  I talked to Kevin and he made me a table, delivered it and set in up in my room within 2 weeks.  It can fit 8 people around it and is tall enough for kid size chairs.  After finding out I was receiving this grant, I wrote a grant through Donors Choose and had some very generous people donate to it.  I was able to order many supplies for our table.  I am going to post pictures of things that I received from my SEEF grant, Donors Choose grant and things I have purchased on my own.  There are a lot of pictures.  I am going to try to explain where I got everything and how I intend on using it all.   Because this table is so new, we haven't used all the centers yet.  I am creating as I go.   We are loving what we have used so far.

 In the bowl are little eraser frogs from The Dollar Spot at Target.  I cut lily pads out of index dividers from The Dollar Tree.  Kids will shake two dice and will put that number of frogs on the lily pads.  They will make a math equation and add them together.

One of the activities that I will have kids do is look at a number and put out sticks and stones for the groups of tens and ones in the numbers.  The tens are stir sticks for drinks found on clearance at Target.  The stones are from the pet section at Walmart.

These color paddles are from Lakeshore Learning.

These Legos are from Amazon.  They will be used for STEM projects and when we have Friday Fun day.

These counters are from Amazon.  I will use them for math.

This board is from Lakeshore.  Kids will make patterns with it.

These Legos are from Amazon.

We have a place called Companies for Classrooms where I live.  Businesses or people donate items to Companies for Classrooms.  Teachers get to go once a month and pick out items for their classrooms.  These geoboards are from there.  I got colored bands from Michaels to use on the clear boards.  We'll make shapes on them.

These containers are from Walmart.  They were in the Easter section.  We will be using them for making patterns, as dice shakers and to count stones in.

These cars are from The Dollar Spot at Target.  We will use them to make math equations and for making patterns.

More chips for math..

I got these stones at The Dollar Tree.  I used a permanent marker to write the letters of the alphabet on them.  Kids will put them in order.

These math containers are from ABC Toy Zone.  They are clear domes with dice and a plus sign inside it.  Kids shake the dice and use counters to add the numbers together.

These numbers are on index dividers from The Dollor Tree.  The stones are from Walmart in the pet section.  Kids will pick a number and will count out that many stones.

These letters are from Amazon.

These shapes are from Amazon.

Kids pick out a number and say it.  They count out the number of stones that equals the number.

These stones are from the pet section at Walmart.  They are by the fish supplies.

These hearts were from The Dollar Tree.  I wrote numbers 1-100 on them.  Kids put them in order.

These are from Lakeshore Learning (I believe).

These are filled with liquid and different things.

I cut out shapes from tissue paper and laminated them.  They will be used for sorting shapes and colors.

I used test tubes for this center.  Inside the bin are sight words, little beads with alphabet letters and test tubes.  The kids pull a sight word out of the bin.  They make the sight word with the beads and put it in the test tubes.

These are shapes from Constructive Playthings.  I used index dividers to write the names of the shapes.  Kids will sort the shapes into piles.

I got these round containers from The Dollar Tree.  I am not sure how I am going to use them yet.

These are laminated index dividers.  I put small stones in the container.  Kids will look at the number on the top of the Math Mountain and make the equation.

Magna tiles...

This is another making words or names center.  Kids put the beads with letters in the test tubes.

Shapes from Amazon.

This is another equation dome with transparent chips.

In this center kids will make different designs with the shapes.  They are then able to look at the design through a Magic Bee Eye Effect Kaleidoscope Wooden Kids Toy Prism from Amazon.

These are from Lakeshore.  They are part of the Lakeshore Light table kit.  Kids can build sight words that are written on index dividers.

We are going to use these for sorting.  They are from Lakeshore.

I can't remember where I got these bracelets.  I got the beads from JoAnn Fabrics.  Kids will sort colors into the correct bracelets.

They will use the same beads in a fine motor center.  They will move the beads from one container to another.

These are colored shot glasses from The Dollar Tree.  They will be used for holding objects and for stacking.

These are salt and pepper shakers from The Dollar Tree.  Kids will put toothpicks in them for working on their fine motor skills.

We used these on the 100th day of school.  These shot glasses are from Party City.  I labeled them with the numbers 1-100.  Kids made towers out of them.

These container are from The Dollar Spot at Target.  I have erasers from Target in them too.  They are used for making patterns and for sorting and counting.

These are from The Dollar Tree.  They are used in math centers.

I got these stones from The Dollar Tree.  I put numbers 1-100 on them.  Kids put them in order.  The numbers that have a 5 in them are blue and 10's are red.

This clear marble run is from Amazon.

These rocks and trays are from The Dollar Tree.  I wrote letters on them.  Kids will make CVC words with them.

This is another container from The Dollar Tree.  I cut out letters from tissue paper and laminated them.  Kids will make CVC words with them.

This tray is from Companies to Classrooms.  Kids count the amount of objects they put in each section.  There are 100 squares.

Whenever I go to Walmart, The Dollar Tree or Target, I am on the look out for clear containers.
They will be used for a variety of activities and to hold dice, counters, stones, etc.

These green containers are from the Walmart travel accessory section.  I put letter tiles in them for kids to make CVC words and CVCE words.

These fruit shapes are from The Dollar Tree.  Kids will sort them and make patterns out of them.

These numbers are from Amazon.

These are from Lakeshore.

I got some fun scatter decorations from Party City.  They will be used for math.

These human x-rays are from Lakeshore.

These are the index dividers that I bought from The Dollar Tree.  I purchased about 10 packs.  I cut them down to whatever size I need and write on them with Sharpies.  I then laminate them.

I made ten frames out of the index dividers.  Kids will draw a number and will fill in the 10 frames with stones from Walmart.

Finally, this is my light table.  It can fit 8 people around it.  It fits the child sized chairs underneath it.  I LOVE having it in our classroom.  We cannot thank the people who made this happen for us enough!  It has made learning so much more exciting!