Easy sorting and matching activity!

Happy Monday! Oh Monday always seem to be a mess, but we all survived once again! I have to give my kids some credit, they are getting much better at doing exactly what they are supposed to when one of them is having a fit or doing something completely unexpected.

Later in the day one student had an accident for the second time since school started. Looks like I will need to start giving prompts and reminders for bathroom breaks. I forget the kinders really need those at the beginning of the year. I guess I just assume since the bathroom in 3 feet from their desk that they will see it and remember to go. Apparently learning and playing was too much fun to stop! I can't even be mad when the kid is already embarrassed and he'd already had a very rough start to the day. Another boy discovered he had a "bone in his pee pee" and I had to try with all my might not to laugh when he asked where it came from because "it wasn't there earlier." I chose not to answer!! I just shrugged. How do you answer these questions?!?!

Don't you wish you could be a fly on the wall in my crazy room? I kinda wish I was sometimes so I could just enjoy the show. Does anyone else have this crazy stuff happen? The previous teacher of my class now works in the office as a secretary. She made a comment today about how wonderfully organized and well behaved my class is compared to the constant chaos when she taught the class a few years ago. If this is calm, I don't think I could have stepped foot in her class without having a heart attack. I feel like I'm always running to keep up with these wiggly ones.  :)

Ok, on to some real teaching strategies... Do your kids get distracted by all the information on the page of a text book? My 1st and 2nd graders get engrossed in the pictures that they forget to read the words. Today used a sheet of paper to cover the opposite page so they wouldn't have so much visual stimulation. It worked quite well! They were much less distracted!

Before

After

Kindergarten is learning sorting for math. First is "same and different" then we will "sort by one attribute" and then "sort by more than one attribute." Today I was trying to figure out what on earth to sort. I have ideas, but I wanted to save them for the "more than one attribute" lesson. Then I remembered a super, duper easy way to make matching games!!

• Cut a 3x5 card in half (saves paper/cost/space, you can keep it whole)
• Place identical stickers on 2 different cards
• laminate
• Viola! Instant matching game! 

I chose fruit characters. I used 2 identical large sheets of these stickers which I accidentally discovered are delicious smelly stickers! I liked them because one day we can sort by identical pictures, then the next day we can sort by what type of fruit since there are several different versions of the banana person, the apple people, etc.

Part of the sorting activity (about 20 in all). Still need to laminate them tonight.

Genius boy created 2 digit numbers out of counters (without prompting) Made a game of it!