Welcome!
As we navigate our new learning challenges of distance learning, we will be using this website to share information and activites with our students. Please visit the page regularly to see what we are planning for our classroom and students. We are looking forward to returning to the classroom as much as you and your child are.
This is an unexpected experience for all of us and we will get through it together! Keep in mind that while it is important to keep them learning and engaged in activities, this is also a great time to spend time together as a family. Enjoy each other, this is a special opportunity to make memories to keep with you for years to come!!
Activities:
Circle Time
To keep some familiar routines for our students, you can recreate some of our circle time activities at home. We start by our day by practicing to write our names. Many of our students have been wrtiting their first and last names and many others are still working on first names. Use your judgement on what you expect of your child. When we get to the carpet, we begin by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. We discuss the calendar, we talk about what month we are in and then count the days we have had in the month. We discuss what day of the week today is, yesterday was and tomorrow will be. We tell what year and season we are in. We check the weather for the day (ask your child to sing you the Weather Watcher Song) and then for the month of March, we have decided if the weather was a lion or lamb day. (A lion day is a cold, rainy, windy day and a lamb day is a warmer and sunnier day) We review colors and shapes. Ask your child to sing our songs about the months of the year (to the tune of the macarena) and the days of the week (to the tune of the adams family). We count together from 1-30 (many students can count much higher), we count by 2's to 10, by 5's to 50 and by 10's to 100. We also count backwards from 10 down to 1 (blastoff). We also read a book out loud together. This is a great time to share a story with your child or I have included some links before with some great options of online stories.
Center Time
This would be a great opportunity to incorporate play and fun into each student's day. This is a great time to work on their fine motot skills including cutting, writing and coloring. Playing with Play-Doh, blocks, lacing cards and puzzles are also wonderful options. This is also a perfect time to complete a workbook page, a printed out worksheet or a craft. I am in the process of uploading and linking worksheets and craft patterns to this page.
Scholastic My Big World with Clifford
Our classroom has been using Scholastic My Big World with Clifford all year. We have set up at home student access for your childs learning at home. You can navigate the digital magazines by the month or subject. It is full of games, videos and activities. There is no user name needed and the password for our classroom is CarouselNTUPK. Click here to get to the website for My Big World- https://mybigworld.scholastic.com/. Use the login button at the top right of the page and you can log in as a student.
Scholastic At Home Learning
Due to the unexpected nationwide school closures, Scholastic has set up daily lessons available to students at no cost. They seem like amazing lessons where each day focuses on a different theme. They introduce a book for the theme with activities planned to go along with it. You can find them all here https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome/grades-prek-k.html
ABC Mouse-PLEASE HOLD OFF ON THIS ONE, I AM WORKING OUT WHY IT IS ASKING YOU TO PAY FOR A SUBSCRIPTION, IT SHOULD BE FREE
We have created an ABC Mouse account for our classroom. We will be updating lessons and activites for the students to work on at ABC Mouse. Please be on the lookout in Class Dojo for your students individual login passcode. You will need to go to https://www.abcmouse.com/redeem. Our classroom code is CRRZQ2X4.
Update: I haven't figured out how to link free access to our classroom but the classroom code AOFLUNICEF should get you a free account.
ReadingIQ
This is a great program (run by ABC Mouse) that is a great option to a variety of books online. To set up a free account, use the code SCHOOL7771.
Vooks
A great website to check out is Vooks. It is full of animated story books and activities planned to go along with each book. Right now they are offering a free month for parents. Please visit https://www.vooks.com/parent-resources
Storyline Online
Another wonderful website for books is Storyline Online. We have used this in our classroom over the course of the school year. It has many well known books read by celebraties. There is no cost and no login is needed for this website. Please visit https://www.storylineonline.net/
Go Noodle
Go Noodle is a great resource for movement activites. They offer a great variety of videos to get kids moving and even some mindfull slowing down videos. The students are very familiar with these videos as we do them daily for some brain breaks. You can find them here https://family.gonoodle.com/
Youtube Channels
There are many good channels on Youtube that are educational. Some of our favorites are: Sesame Street Podcasts (there is one for every letter of the alphabet), Storybots, Have Fun Teaching, Jack Hartman, The Laurie Berkner Band, Preschool Prep and Super Simple Songs. You should be able to search any of these channels directly from the Youtube page or app.
Social Media
Josh Gad (Olaf from Frozen) has been posting videos on his twitter account that are of him reading children's books. You can find them here https://twitter.com/joshgad.
Author Videos
Mo Williams (Knufflebunny Author and Illustrator) has posted a video where he is teaching kids how to draw. He will continue to post new videos and there are activities to download to go along with his videos. Please click here to watch them https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/.
