Learning Tubs

In 2007 I moved to San Jose, CA for a year and took a leave of absence from my current district.  Although I was not happy in San Jose I was lucky enough to teach with some amazing kindergarten teachers.  I learned so much from the teachers at Sakamoto and still use all their wonderful ideas every day.  From them I got the idea of "Learning Tubs."  I already used literacy centers in my room, but I love the term "Learning Tubs."  This is the system I learned from them...

These are my tubs.  Two rows are filled with language arts activities and two rows have math activities.  

This is the learning plan.  All students have one and carry with them during our learning tub time.  As students finish an activity a parent checks the activity, guides them to correct any errors, and signs them off.  Once they complete an activity they cannot go back to it unless they have completed all activities.   During this time I am pulling my reading groups and I have students on iPads as well.

Here are a couple current tubs.

Math and fine motor - students count out the correct number of pony beads on the pipe cleaner.

Silly band letter matching - the silly bands were on clearance on Oriental Trading and the mat was found on Pinterest.  I am not sure of the site.

Fine motor - I bought the large fuse beads at Michaels and have students use the tweezers to put them on the board.  They love this activity and it's great fine motor.

The mats are from Heidi Butkus.

In and Out Sight Words (another great idea from the fabulous Sakamoto teachers).  I have sight words written on popsicle sticks.  Students read the words and try to drop them into a thematic cup, tennis ball container with a thematic sock covering it, or pumpkin candy basket.  Some will go in and some will go  out.  After they finish reading and dropping the words, students record all the words that fell out of the container of the outside of the pumpkin on the recording sheet.  If the words fell in, they record the words on the inside of the pumpkin.  This has always been a favorite in my room.  I just keep changing the sock on the tennis ball container to match my theme. 

 I found some letter dice and made recording sheets to roll and write the letter.

Apples, Apples

Our Art Docent came on Friday and made these adorable apples. They used a paper lunch bag that was trimmed shorter and stuffed them with newspaper.  They twisted the top to make the stem and put a rubberband around the top.  Then it was painting time.  As the paint dried they cut out the leaves and glued them on.  I went around and stapled them on the next morning because they did not stick very well with gluestick.

Our apple tree

TLC Apple Core

iPads and Dibels

The first half of my day was very exciting.  I had applied for a grant last year to get iPads in the classroom and I got it!  Thank you BUSD Foundation!!  My iPads came after school yesterday and  my class is so excited to put them to use.  We even had a visit from our tech guy to help us get them working properly. I know what I'll be doing tonight :)

My favorite app right now is called My Name.  You can take a child's picture, type his/her name, and record the name.  Students can then practice writing their name and it only allows them to form the letters the proper way.  It's like having a teacher watch over them to help with formation.  I LOVE it!!

Then, meeting time came....Let me just say I am feeling completely overwhelmed with the thought of implementing a new assessment program.  We are now adding Dibels in addition to our other assessment.  For those of you who already use Dibels...how in the world to you get all your assessment done?  I need a visit from the assessment fairy...

Math Book

I loved this idea by Kim Jordano -http://www.kinderbykim.com/journals.htm - so I adapted it to go with our math EnVision math program.

We complete one page each month and it corresponds with the math topic we are working on.  I did not include my cover because I was not thrilled with how it came out last year.  I am going to change it for this year.  I also downsized Kim's version and our book is 9 x 12 to try to save paper.  I think I am out of supply money for this year already :/

This is a note on the inside of the cover.

August - Numbers 1 to 5 (or more depending on the name)

September - Numbers 

October - Sorting

November - more/fewer

December - Addition

January - Subtraction

February - Numbers 11 - 20

March - Patterns

April - Length

May - Time

Shadows

We just started our Open Court Unit on Shadows.  Here is a project we did today.  It was a little tricky for some kiddos to keep the black paper stapled to their animal, but they came out pretty cute.  

Shapes and Sorting

We just finished conference week and I am really enjoying this 3 day weekend.  Since I am new to all of this, I haven't figured out how to post docs for you to grab here.  Hopefully that will be coming soon. Here is a glimpse of what we are working on...

We have been working on sorting and singing Heidi Butkus' song "I can sort."

 We read Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh and made our own mice.

My husband and I went to Napa and enjoyed a tour and tasting at Quintessa.  What a perfect day!