Kinder Camp 2016

Last Monday, we had Kinder Camp. Kinder Camp is four hours long. The incoming Kindergarten students come to school and find their desks and cubbies, learn our basic classroom rules and procedures, and meet their classmates. This helps the students and their parents feel more comfortable on the first day of school. As a teacher, it is a wonderful experience for me to meet the students before the first day of school and see how they work with other students, assess their prior knowledge, and learn a little about each child. The kids come in their uniforms if they want to, they bring a healthy snack, and they bring their school supplies. I encourage parents to stay and volunteer. This year I had a big group of parents that stayed and helped me. They organized and put away class supplies, prepared future projects, and washed our chairs. It was an awesome day!

I have the parents sign their child in and leave information about how to contact them if they are not staying and tell me if their child has allergies.

The students each get a name tag.

I set out collection bins for school supplies so that I do not have to sort the supplies later.

This is my classroom door. I put each student's name on a small paper and stick it to the door with painter's tape.

I always have work ready for parent volunteers to help with. This way, they get to stay and I get some work done too.

Here is my classroom taken from the front door.

Here is my writing wall where I display the students' work all year.

This is my classroom taken from the front corner of the room.

This is me with one of my students.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Activities

Each year I have one day when the incoming kindergarten students come to class and see what kindergarten is like. They spend four hours in class. This kids do journal, a religion activity, centers and small group time, snack and recess, read aloud and calendar, centers and small group time again, recess again and then they go home. I call this day Kinder Camp. The parents are welcome to stay and watch or they may drop their students off and pick them up at noon. During Kinder Camp we do activities centered around the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The kids make Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees.

This is a sample of one of the trees. The kids put their coconut tree together and fill out the information on the paper below the tree. Then the kids put the letters in their name on the tree using stickers. They are allowed to put the letters anywhere on the tree. This child chose to put his name in the correct order instead of randomly putting the letters all over the tree.

I created activities for my centers that had a palm tree or jungle theme. This is from the math center. The kid had to match the top piece of the palm frond to the bottom piece of the palm frond. The top part had stickers on it and the bottom had a corresponding number.

In this activity, the kids had to put the coconuts in number order.

The frogs were used to make patterns.

I created this palm tree labeling activity for the science center. The kids had to use the picture on the left to label the picture on the right. They used the words outlined in black and taped them onto the palm tree on the right.

 I created this coconut labeling activity for the science center as well.

I made this alphabet matching activity for the language arts center. The kids had to match the capital letter to the lowercase letter.

 I found this cute activity on Teachers Pay Teachers for free. It was a coconut tree rhyming pack. The kids had to match the picture on the tree to a picture on the coconut that rhymed with it.

I had coconut painting set up at the art center, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I just put a coconut in a tray of paint and the kids dipped the coconut in the paint and dabbed it on white paper. 

I also created a coconut labeling activity that the kids did for a science lesson. Here is our anchor chart.

This is my sample.

Here are some samples of what the students made. They did an awesome job!

Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom

Every year before school starts I have a day where the incoming kindergarten students can come visit their classroom and spend a morning doing the activities we do on a daily basis. The students get to sit at their desk, locate their cubbies, and figure out where to put their backpacks. They also get to do journal, go to centers, do music, listen to some stories, and play outside. This year at Kinder Camp we read Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom. Then the students made this cute craft.

It allowed me to see if the students could write their name, identify letters, and count the number of letters in their name.

Last Friday, we made this treat during our Kindergarten cooking lesson. I got the idea out of a Mailbox book called Kids in the Kitchen. We do cooking every Friday and we use the recipes out of this book for ninety percent of our cooking lessons. This is a tree that one of my students made. He did a great job!