Nursery Rhymes and Colors - The perfect entry point to Kindergarten.

Kindergarten teachers - I applaud you. Every year at the beginning, I forget how little they come with! I forget the absolutely absurd amount they learn over the course of the year. Of course, knowing how far they go means that they start the year with very little understanding of letters, sounds, words, print concepts. 

If you're like me, you might be searching for engaging and exciting ways to introduce these beginning basic skills. You want your students to fall in love with learning while gaining the skills they'll need to be successful for the remainder of the year. Over the last several years, I have done just that with two beloved favorites: 

Nursery Rhymes and Colors. 

Why nursery rhymes? They are sing-songy and fun! Students typically come with some exposure to them already and that background knowledge will be a huge support. SO MANY SKILLS can be imbedded in your Nursery Rhyme practice, particularly print concepts like 1 to 1 correspondence and letter/word awareness. 

Why colors? Most kids already know them! They can tell you that apples are red and frogs are green. Their beginning knowledge of colors opens the doors to sprinkling in so much skill practice, like pairing the colors to words, sorting, tracing/writing, coloring, and so much more! 

If you're interested in using these two concepts as vehicles for your beginning of the year instruction, look no further. I've already done all the work for you and have several free resources to offer! 

NURSERY RHYMES - Sing to learn! 

Each of my nursery rhyme sets comes with the following activities:

*Print concept posters

*One-Page Reader with or without tracking dots

*Emergent Reader in Book Form

*Vocabulary Posters

*Sound/Word Study for Phonics and Phonemic Awareness

*Pocket Chart Sequencing Station with 2 Recording Sheets

*STEM Challenge

*Craft

*Printables to practice alphabet, cutting, labeling, and numbers to 20

*1 Math Station

*1 Literacy Station

You can grab the Humpty Dumpty set HERE for FREE to try out with your kiddos! 

Or you can grab the bundle of 5 nursery rhymes HERE! 

COLORS - Use the familiar! 

Each of my color sets comes with the following:

*2 Color Posters

*Emergent Reader w/Simple High Frequency Words

*Color Sorting Pocket Activity 

*Poetry Center

*Torn Paper Craft

*Color Crown

*Fine Motor Activity

*5 no-prep printables for extra practice!

You can grab the RED set HERE for FREE to try out with your kiddos! 

Or grab the BUNDLE with 11 colors! 

GRAB THESE FOR FREE! 

These open ended craft pages are a blast! You can have kids use a variety of supplies - whatever you're working on that week - to fill them in! Bingo daubers, stickers, cut paper, paints, markers, you name it! The circle charts can either be a guided brainstorm activity OR a "write the room" where students search the room for items of that color. Click here or the image below to download. ENJOY! 

Writing Before They Can Write - HOW?!

I love teaching writing in Kindergarten. I know it's not everyone's jam, because let's face it, it's hard! Writing is the only content area where students have to produce something from nothing. It's literally all on them! In years, past, I have struggled with what to do at the beginning of the year when students don't yet have the letter/sound knowledge to produce words. I know I'm not alone here! I didn't know how to fill our writing time before students could actually write. 

In seeking to solve that problem, I asked myself what the pre-requisite skills were. Well, before they can write letters, they have to be able to manipulate a writing tool and produce the developmental strokes necessary for letter formation. 

Before they can write stories, they have to be able to TELL stories - to understand the components that make up a story. Eventually we want them to be able to tell these stories with words and pictures. They'll need the foundation for drawing before becoming illustrators. 

Enter Before Words. I wanted a systematic approach for teaching all these skills. I didn't want to leave them to chance or try to teach them "on the fly" because these prerequisite skills deserve the same care and intentionality as anything else we teach. I know you've heard this before, but I can't stress it enough in Kindergarten Land. 

Go slow to go fast. 

I put together a unit for each of these skills: pre-writing strokes, oral storytelling, and illustrations. Each unit includes detailed lesson plans that follow a gradual release model: I do, we do, you do. Each lesson has a Google teaching slide already prepared for each of those gradual release components. These are no-prep, no guess work, everything laid out and ready to go! Click HERE to get a closer look! 

BUT, WAIT! I want to clarify something. I fully believe that while you're teaching these prerequisite writing skills, you should simultaneously be teaching children about letters and sounds. When you're working on oral storytelling and illustrating, you're also giving them the tools to physically write. So, I highly recommend pairing this work with some letter formation practice. I've got a really comprehensive handwriting bundle you can find here. And I want to offer you a freebie A-Z letter set as well! Click the image below to download! :) 

Wishing you all the best as you give your kids the tools and confidence to be actual, real life writers! Thank you for all you do to encourage their creativity and the opportunities you provide for them to express themselves through story!