Here are my lesson plans for the third week of Kindergarten! I do hope that these are useful to you! They really are a “labor of love” to all of you that need may need them, or even might need just a few ideas from them. I am following along with my Kindergarten Pacing Guide, and obviously these plans match up with week three. Hopefully, it is not too late in the year to make use of these for too many of you.
And so now on to the lesson plans! Remember, just as last week, you can download them and print them out. But just by clicking on the lesson plan below, you will be able to get live links to many blog posts or the websites where you will find more information on the different lessons. Download it here.
These lesson plans also follow my Pacing Guide that you can download on my Free Downloads page. So each concept that you see taught refers back to the Pacing Guide, and is aligned to the Common Core State Standards.
Just like last week, I am going to expand a little below on some of the things that might be a little unclear or need further explanation. Again, the print that is in black is the part that doesn’t change. The print in blue is the part that changes each week. All I usually do is print out one of these blank lesson plan masters with only the black print on it and then fill in whatever I want to do for the week. I am giving you a generic version of this to use, just in case you want it. It does not have any specific times of day on it, though. You can download the blank lesson plan form here.
We did these things every day:
We sang and danced to part of these DVD’s every single day, and drilled our numbers and shapes with the Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes flash cards as well.
We watched part of these DVD’s nearly every single day of the first month of school, and used the Jumpin’ Numbers and Shapes flash cards every day to help the kids learn their numbers and shapes.
We drilled on the Zoo Phonics flash cards every single day as well. They REALLY help the kids learn their letters!
We drilled the letter sounds with these Zoo Phonics flash cards every single day.
We also did a daily section from this book on Phonemic Awareness by Michael Heggertry every day, assuming nothing happened to prevent it.
And we used these Classroom Management Posters twice and will use them a bunch more times for the next few weeks. (The set contains more printable posters than what is shown here, though.) Read about them here at the bottom of the post.
Wiggles says:
No Fighting Any Time!
Is it a Question or a Story?
When the Bell Rings, FREEZE!
Sit Criss Cross Applesauce!
Here is what we did for Language Arts:
Monday: Words that Start the Same.
We first practiced listening for the sounds that were alike, and then played the bingo game together.
Tuesday: Practice with my Rhyming Practice Cards. Then practice writing names. Then do rhyme puzzles if time. Typically, some groups have more time for the puzzles than others! But once they are introduced, they can be used independently.)
Wednesday: Do a sound sort with “Señor Same Sound,” the sound eating snake puppet! This is a puppet made out of a leg warmer, rather than a sock, so that you can stuff real objects all the way down his mouth. The children have to find two objects that start with the same sound and feed both of them to the snake. Otherwise, he won’t eat them! Of course, you can also have them feed him an object that starts with just one specific sound. Check this blog post for more details on the snake puppet and how to make him.
Thursday: Practice reading student sized Wiggles books. By now, the children nearly have the Wiggles Learns the Rules at School book memorized, and most of them also know the word “the.” So, I have them search for and highlight the word “the” with crayons. (These black line copies come from the back of the books.) Then they get to take that book home! They LOVE this! Last year, one of my student’s parents bragged to me that her child could “already read” the Wiggles book to her at home. 
Friday: Drill and practice with the rhyming cards again, but whole group this time.
This is what we did for math:
Monday: Practice matching sets with the Flowers and Velcro set, and the Bubbles in the tub set.
Tuesday: Practice number writing with Counting Creatures Vol. 1. This was a VERY popular activity in my class last year! The children absolutely love the characters on this number writing worksheet set. I always put them into dry erase sleeves and then let them do as many as they like. Otherwise, I insert them into their homework.
Wednesday: Practice sorting by shape with attribute blocks. Sorting by color is usually pretty easy for the kids, so we start to encourage them to do something else with them. Last year, I started giving them these “training baskets” to encourage them to find four different shapes, rather than to start sorting by colors again. It actually did help! The little signs were a bit of a reminder to them to focus on just the shape- but we DID have to leave the interesting sorting bags behind and switch over to using just the attribute blocks instead. Then we sang the Sorting song from Musical Math.
Thursday: Practice patterning with the “Patterning Gadget.” This is a neat little invention that I inherited from the teacher that used to work in my room before me, and then retired. She left a few of these with me, and then I made some more. The pattern on the top is tied on, so it is fixed and permanent. The children are supposed to try to look at it, and then decide what kind of pattern it is. Then they have to make another one that is the same kind of pattern, but with different beads. I think it’s a GREAT activity! The only bummer is that the beads are a little expensive. Probably pony beads would be alright, but they are a little bit small for some kids to pick up.
Friday: We just kept practicing number recognition with our Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes cards! Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes is a multi-sensory method of teaching number recognition. Children learn to recognize the numerals by seeing, saying, hearing, and doing a motion for every number! That way, they are using nearly all of their senses simultaneously in the learning process, which maximizes learning. This video shows the movements for each numeral flash card, and how to transition the children from the special Jumpin’ Numbers flash cards to plain, old number flash cards easily. It also shows how children practice with these cards in the classroom. The Jumpin’ Numbers and Shakin’ Shapes songs on the accompanying CD and DVD’s greatly enhance the learning experience, giving those children that are musical learners an extra memory boost. We just got a new video edited on how to use them, and I think that it really describes it well. Check it out!
This is what we did for art:
On Monday through Friday, we worked on our Round Is a Pancake Book that we started last week. You can download it here.
This is what we did for our Learning Centers:
Monday: Hidden Letters Worksheets. These are GREAT for visual discrimination, and you can use them with jewels or some other kind of marker, or color them.
Tuesday: We did a science center on Tuesday! It was building with blocks and making ramps for marbles. We did this in order to study simple machines. The challenge was to try to build a ramp for the marbles that will make the marbles fall into the bowl, but not bounce out of it when they fall! The children couldn’t get enough of this! I left it out for playtime for the whole week.
Wednesday: Matching Sets with the “Parking Lot.”
Thursday: Motor Development activities. The school I worked at last year had some really wonderful equipment for Motor Development! Here is a picture of one way we set it up.A parent would take the kids out and have them go through the obstacle courses that we would set up, and then let them ride the tricycles during their group rotation, weather permitting.
Book Buddies Activity:
We play with the parachute with our book buddies every year to help get to know them. It is such a fun activity, and works SO much better with larger children helping along! I LOVE this- and so do the kids!
These are the books that we read this week:
The rest of the lesson plans are written in the download. Again, I hope that this is useful to you!! Happy teaching!
– Heidi
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