Month of May Flower Theme Ideas for Inspiration as Kindergarten Year Ends

 Welcome to Becca's Early Childhood Education blog! I was a bit surprised that a kindergarten teacher posted in a Facebook group that her and her students were bored, that class days had been dreadful. Shock! I was sure that all kindergarten teachers and kiddos would be wrapped up in a whirlwind of activities. 

So with May starting this weekend my response was to create an alphabet review based on flowers. Yes, make sure to chant "April Showers Bring May Flowers" or even use as the title for a wall display. Can't you just picture a huge basket overflowing with flower cut-outs that each feature a letter of the alphabet?

Build your basket as you progress or reverse it--start with a full basket and work backwards to make A on your last day or close to it. Whether you start with Aster or Zinnia, there are many choices for each letter. 

Several websites have lists with or without photos to help you plan. This is one site:

https://florgeous.com/types-of-flowers/

Also use technology with the students like a virtual tour of Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, Netherlands that have hundreds of tulip varieties along with grape hyacinths, jonquils, daffodils, and more. Very beautiful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLg3YuPBps8

This next link will put you in the middle of a spectacular slide show from the area around Brenham Texas known for the amazing Bluebonnets:

https://visitbrenhamtexas.com/wildflower-watch/wildflower-photos/

These are a few clipart images to help get your May Alphabet Flowers Theme Unit started:

Years ago as a daycare lead teacher with preschool age children in February and a few days in early March, I liked to present the alphabet as LOVE LETTERS. I had 26 red hearts that each had an alphabet letter on them and I presented them in order. As our love letters, there were several activities within the day that started with that day's featured letter rather than staying focused on a flower theme. So on "D" day we had dads invited for morning doughnuts, we had some dancing, dinosaurs were added to the sensory table, dot art with bingo daubers, and several more. 

Lots of preschool and kindergarten teachers do an alphabet reversal in May and early June, but either way, reviewing the alphabet can be fun and engaging. 

Unifix cubes arranged in different floral shapes would be a good table time activity. 

Early word work cards in a variety of formats with help students find what works for them:

a. photo of flower matched to starting letter

b. photo of flower matched to its word

c. photo of flower with starting letter matched to the remaining letters

d. starting letter card matched to remaining letters on card

Examples for suggestion 'd'=

A   =>  ster

B   =>  luebonnets

C   =>  arnation

D   =>  aisy

and continue on or separate into 5 or more sets so that children don't get overwhelmed. 

Set up a garden and/or flower shop dramatic play center. Have some small silk flower arrangements for your students to interchange on the kitchen table in your housekeeping center. Placemats with flowers would be another way to reinforce the theme. 

Make new cubby tags with floral shapes.

Put the children' photos on flower die-cuts for an easy bulletin board for the hallway. 

File folder games for easy addition problems can be easily made using flower stickers. 

Place a vase with cut flowers in the science center for children to smell and examine closely with magnifying lens. 

Make sure to buy some white carnations and have colored water in 2 or 3 hues for the children to see the vascular tubes work in transforming the white petals to whatever color(s) you selected. And let the children see the carnations going into the water so that they remembered that the flower(s) started as white. 

Have fun in the merry month of May. Hopefully these ideas will inspire you to brighten your teaching time in the crazy hectic last weeks of the school year. 

And 1 more idea...do you know that celery bundle will closely resemble a full open rose? Shown in the photo is the bottom section of celery kept together and stamped on a red ink pad and then onto white paper. The vascular tubule structures in each celery stalk help absorb the ink and add details to the 'rose' image. Kids think this is a magic act! They will love seeing the transformations! Children can draw green leaves next to their inked stamped blooms to add to a hint of realism. Having real or silk roses nearby in the science/discovery table will also help you and the students on "R" day: 

With a love for learning and making teaching fun and engaging,

Becca S

M. Ed. in Elem Ed with ECE emphasis

Certified in Illinois:

*Birth to Grade 3

*FACS grades 6-12

*general science grades 5-8 (short-term approval)

Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme Lesson Ideas

 Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! Making early learning activities fun, creative, and interesting for children gives my teacher's heart such joy!

This post is full of phonemic awareness as well some math and science connections to give you at least 1 day focus about Humpty Dumpty.

Rhyming sets include:

humpty

dumpty

wall

fall

all

men

again

Letter sounds to emphasize are:

H for Humpty and horses

hard C/K for king, couldn't

Words separated into letter 'tiles' for building word practice=

H

U

M

P

T

Y

D

U

M

P

T

Y

W

A

L

L

F

A

L

L

M

E

N

A

G

A

I

N

Math and Science connections that I am focusing attention on Humpty being an egg--

Eggs are oval-shaped.

Some animals reproduce by laying eggs.

Ask children if eggs are circles or ovals.

Animals that lay eggs include:

Chicken

Turtle

Fish

**************************Social Studies connection would be cultural traditions related to dying and decorating eggs.

****************

Additional topics to expand upon with this rhyme would be:

horses, communities, countries, types of rulers and leaders of countries, safety warnings about falling,

horses

The End! --from Mrs. S

ECE Level Word Work Activity Sheets Part 2

Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! Make sure to read the previous posting to help this one make better sense because I'm going to be brief.

Differentiation is a key assessment and evaluation approach in today's classrooms. Over 20 years ago, effective outstanding teachers were doing this practice without using the specific term "differentiation". Effective teachers knew if they wanted every child to succeed and learn concepts and skills, often activities would need to be tweaked in order to accomplish the goal of learning.

Yesterday I revealed my version of a word work activity that had written clues with the intent that the teacher would read those clues to the children at the start of the day, week, or before the ELA station/center activity time started. Decoding skills are extremely helpful in learning spelling rules and with so many variations in the English language, our youngest school learners need different ways to practice decoding. Scrambled order and rearranging of letters is 1 approach to try.

For the 4 letter words that I picked for the word/letters in WATER, I was able to find clip-art images. I still have some partial typed clues but now there are image clues for each word puzzle:

My blogging and sharing classroom ideas are for inspiration. I'm not a TpT or have a company website where I sell my resources. At this point, I just want to share and inspire aspects in my own teaching journey with readers in blog-land.

As I mentioned in the previous posting, the very first word work activity took the most time to construct; however I had brainstormed a bit in thinking how I would format my version of "JUMBLED WORDS". For this pictured activity sheet with answer key, I already had the full written clues made so it was a matter of using the 'make a copy' and then deleting a few clue words to make room for the pictures. I also had to adjust font size in order for it to still fit on a half sheet.

REVIEW:
1. "tear" off the gift wrap
2. to "wear" an uniform
3. a "wart" on my hand
4. a 5 letter word suggestion is the title word "WATER"

Kids love puzzles and they will feel very empowered when they successfully complete each word work activity sheet. So far I've made activities for "WATER", "FORUM", "FLOWER", "HEART", and "PARTLY".

Have creative learning fun making your own word work activities for primary level students.

Key words:
a. word work
b. ECE
c. decoding
d. differentiation

Loving learning and teaching,
Becca S/Mrs. S

M. Ed. in Elem Ed. w/ ECE emphasis
Illinois certification in Birth to Grade 3/ECE self-contained classrooms