Valentine's Day

Breeze through Valentine's day with these craft and party ideas...

Simple Valentine dove and free tracers

Decorate a bulletin board with these Valentine doves or turn them into easy mobiles. Craft instructions

Spark your students' interest with three new math and literature connections...

A week of easy to follow activities based on One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes.

Thank you to the kindergarten-lessons.com community for the following two ideas.

Counting fun with 10 Black Dots by Donald Crews.

Discover how easy it is to increase students' number sense with this reader's contribution based on Eric Hill's Where's Spot, lift a flap book.Read more...

Conveniently share your math and literature ideas...

Books that encourage young students to appreciate the environment...

Dawn Publishing remains committed to telling children about the environment in age appropriate literature about climate change, nature appreciation, habitats, nature's cycles and nature education. Intrique your students with these clearly illustrated books...

3 questions to ask kids who rush through their work...

Readers have asked me for suggestions for children who rush through everything and need to be encouraged to develop their ideas. Teaching kids to ask questions about their work instead giving them advice can help. As you model asking the questions, students eventually get into the habit of asking themselves the same ones. Try the following with your speedy kids.

1. How can you make it more interesting?

Try pointing out parts of their picture and saying:

This part is colored in and looks really good, what could you do to that section?
What could you put here to make your picture more interesting?
Think about what a house looks like. What other things could you add to your house picture?

2. What were you thinking about when you made your picture?

As children describe their thinking they often generates new ideas and get motivated to add to their work.

3. Do you need to go look at the ... again?

If children are recording observations and have rushed through their work, the problem could be that they need help learning how to observe carefully. Ask multi-sensory questions that will help them to be better visual thinkers.

Pussy willow example:
What does the branch smell like?
Is the stem smooth or bumpy when you touch it?
What do the buds feel like? What color are they?
Do the buds grow across from each other or do they zigzag up the stem?
After observing, ask - What else can you add to your picture?

Student quote on a pussy willow bud - "It's like a foggy dot."


Happy teaching,

Patricia from kindergarten-lessons.com