Saturday, March 16, 2013

Happy St. Patrick's Day!


from your friends at KBound!



Here's a song (author unknown) that is not only fun to sing with kids, but festive and motivating as well!
After repeated singing of any song, we encourage you to write it or type it in
chart form (for the little ones, you can add rebus pictures to it... or have a friend draw pictures for you ;)
Display the chart and use fun pointers, props, and a microphone to read and to sing it all together!
Your charts can be for display purposes only
(see chart below), which are read and reread with children.
OR your charts can become interactive, working charts (see chart below) which invite children to work on specific skills!  A Bingo dauber, highlighting tape, or drawing a circle with a marker will easily draw attention to spied letters that are the week's focus.  Tie in math by asking students to help tally the number of times that you find your focus letter... perfect!  On another day, and in another corner of the chart, you can identify and generate rhyming words.  The ideas for extending a simple and beloved song or poem becomes endless!!!
TIP: Laminating charts before they become interactive allows you to reuse them again next year.  Make sure that you use erasable markers, etc. so that you can return them to their original state. 
If you don't choose to laminate your interactive charts -and you are making weekly charts (GOOD FOR YOU!)- then you would have enough charts to send one home with each child at the end of the year!!!
Whether you laminate them or not, placing them into a special spot in your classroom each week (library or center) encourages children to revisit their songs, poems and their smart work on charts all throughout the year!