[clsecu]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice for centers for the first week - month of school for kindergarten. I was thinking about having them make their name with cheerios (glue them on premade letters), sort letters that are in their name and NOT in their name...any other ideas?

[judy]

In the beginning of the year, we do a lot of activies that have to do with their name...locating the letters in their name, decorating names, making their names from tiles and stating the letters...or for a more able child thinking of words for each letter. I always do a fine motor activity..this week we are making family trees....my word work centers around putting this week's high frequency words on a playing board that is numbered. Children throw the die and have to tell the word that is in that numbered box.....retelling ...using read aloud children to magnetically put the characters of the story on a cookie sheet and retell what they did in the story and what their opinion was of each character. Since we are doing OLIVIA children will think of a word for each letter of the name. I also have an Olivia puzzle for them to put together. Alphabet Arcs are always good. Alphabet soup is a fun game for them to play....put all the magnetic letters in a big soupbowl and stir. children pull out a letter and ID it with the sound. Making a letter into something else. This week the kids are making clowns out of C's. I hope this helps some....Contact me if you would like to have other ideas.

[ily]

For Kindergarten I intorduce my centers slowly. The second week of school I have only one center, and on group does that center each day, the other children have free play (usually with alphabet magnets, puzzles ect...). The second week I have two centers they rotate through, the third week 3 and the fourth week all the children work at centers. I find doing it this way I can work on reinforcing expectations during center time. The first one I do is Write each child's name on paper and they use a Bingo Dapper to go over each letter, they look nice when displayed in the room. Week two I am going to have them stamp their names, using name cards for help, then they can choose their friends names to stamp as well and Practice forming letters on the white board, the children take turns flipping a lett card and they all from it. Week 3,Abc cereal, The children have a piece of paper with two colums, they pull an alphabet card, print the letter in the first colum and find the letter in a cup of alpahbits and glue it into the second colum, Chicka Chicka boom boom listening center, they listen to the song on tape then draw a picture of a coconut tree and make letters going up and down it, and if I have a helper one group will play name bingo, if not I will think of something else. Week 4- Make an I see Colours Book (with help), Alphabet puzzle, Form letters out of playdough on top of laminated cards, and Choose a poem we have learned and a letter card and use a vis a vis marker to circle that letter each time they see it in the poem.

Great detail ,thanks for the tips.