Counting by 10s!

Today was my last day student teaching in kindergarten. I was so lucky to have such an amazing cooperating practitioner as a model of good teaching. I'm really going to miss that class :(
Off to first grade next week!


Last week I taught a lesson about counting by tens that my students really enjoyed.
We started by listening to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn691ALuywg&feature=related I cut it though so that it only played the chorus twice and it didn't say "multiples of ten." After singing it once, we stood up and did hand motions. We started with our hands by our feet and slowly moved up with every number until our hands were all the way up for 100. They loved it and wanted to sing it over and over. 


Then I had my students pair up and play a game where they lined up the numbers 10-100 (multipes of 10 only) in order. Then one would close their eyes and the other student would flip a card over. Then their partner had to guess which was missing!


To end, we played "Pop!" We all stood in a circle and counted by 10s. Whoever got "100" had to jump up, yell "pop," and sit down. Whoever was the last person standing won!


Here's a link to the full lesson plan: http://www.scribd.com/doc/85689502

Princess Pat Lesson Plan

Writing lesson plans is so tedious. They are completely impractical. But we have to write formal plans for all the lessons we teach during student teaching. I have tons to write this break, and I have barely started. (How is it already Wednesday?)
But I just finished my Princess Pat -at word family/rhyming lesson plan, and I thought I'd share it. I already explained it a little in a previous post, but I figured someone might want to see the actual plan!
Here it is! Princess Pat

Dr. Seuss

After vacation, I will be implementing a unit on Dr. Seuss! I have not written up my lesson plans yet (they take so much time and thought!), but I have planned out my workboard centers and at least two whole class lessons.

On Monday I am getting observed by my supervisor (yikes!), so I needed to do a whole class lesson that would introduce the unit. The teacher I am working with and I came up with this idea for a rhyming lesson:
I am going to start by reading Hop on Pop, which is filled with rhymes. Then I am going to read my students a little story I wrote that is filled with -at word family words. I will have the story written on a piece of chart paper, but the -at words will be blank. I will talk to my students about how we could figure out how to spell those words, since at is a word wall word that they know. I will have students write in the missing words (I will tell them what the word should be, they just need to figure out how to spell it).

When we are finished working on the story, I will give each student a picture, and they will need to go to their tables to find the picture that rhymes (there will be four pictures on their table). They will glue their pictures on a Cat in the Hat hat that they decorate!

My other whole class activity will be based on The Foot Book. Students will measure their shoes with different objects, such as paper clips, pencils, and math cubes.

This is my plan for some of the workboard centers:

• In art we are making Lorax's
• At writing, students are filling in and illustrating the prompt, "Oh me! Oh my! Oh me! Oh my! What a lot of funny things go by! I saw ___” 
• At math, students will making funny feet patterns
• At science we are making oobleck
• At one pocket chart students are matching opposites (pictures below)
• At the other pocket chart, students are finding word wall words in the poem  “Doctor Seuss, we love you, Doctor Seuss, we really do, Doctor Seuss, we love you. We like ‘Yertle the Turtle,’ We like ‘Sam I Am.’ Like the ‘Grinch’ and ‘Lorax,’ and ‘Green Eggs and Ham.’” 
• Students are illustrating the poem at poetry notebooks
• Students will sort red, blue, and red with blue fish into a venn diagram at star (which is basically teacher choice)
• At games they will play the game Topple (just like the cat in the hat balances a lot of objects)

We are also having Wacky Wednesday, Silly Sock Day on Thursday, and we are seeing The Lorax in theaters on Friday (Dr. Seuss' birthday)!

On Monday, my morning message will be:

Good morning!

We will talk about Dr. Seuss today.

We are going to rhyme all day.

Let's get started, I cannot wait!

Dr. Seuss is really great!

Love, Ms. Coughlan

This is a very large and disorganized post, but I wanted to share my ideas!

Please ask if you want any clarifications on any of my lessons or centers.