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The Kinderhearted Classroom

Independent Task Cards

Looking for a way to have your kindergarten students work independently at their own level?  These math and language arts task cards are just the key! I recently collaborated with a kindergarten teacher friend of mine, Deedee Wills of Mrs. Wills Kindergarten to make a year long set of math and language arts task cards.  After years of working in kindergarten and hearing from lots of kindergarten teachers, we found a common theme: Teachers want to be it all and do it all to help their students! It is our hope that these task cards will help you do just that.  Be the teacher who has time to work ... Read More about Independent Task Cards

How I Teach Names

The first month of kindergarten can be daunting. So much to do, so much to teach, so much to learn.  But we've got to start small and take baby steps.  So along with teaching classroom procedures, teaching names is one of my primary goals during the first month of school. Names are super important.  Your name is something special and personal.  It's you identity - they way you recognize yourself and others recognize you.  So, teaching my students how to read and write their name at the beginning of the school year is one of our main learning objectives. Name Recognition The first step in ... Read More about How I Teach Names

Word Families in Action

Word Families are a natural building block in the reading process. After teaching letter sounds and those all important short vowels the next step is word families.  Being able to sound out and blend those simple CVC word family words can turn a book looker into a reader! As a kindergarten teacher, we spend a lot of time in our school year on word families.  Teaching word families allows you to work on many key language arts skills like: Letter Sounds Blending Rhyming Comprehension, and Spelling All of these fundamental skills are worth spending time on, lots of time!  The ... Read More about Word Families in Action

It’s More than Just Counting

"It's juuuuuust counting!"  The other day I overhead this comment from an adult about an activity that some Pre-K and Kindergarten students were doing.  I guess I let it get under my skin a little because I've been thinking about it a lot.  But it has also made me do some thinking. It's not just counting - it is so much more! Sure, as primary teachers we are teaching our students the skill of counting.  But what's the purpose?  Helping our students build strong numeracy skills is actually quite important.  First we learn to identify numbers and what they mean.  This helps us our students learn ... Read More about It’s More than Just Counting

Teaching Appreciation

Preparing my students for their future is more than just teaching them book knowledge.  I also want to be part of training up their character so they can become amazing people in our world. One character trait that we practice in my classroom is that of showing appreciation. An Attitude of Entitlement You can't scroll social media very long, watch the news or even watch a TV show or movie without seeing or hearing a very new attitude in our society these days - that of being owed things or entitlement.  Over the last 20 years or so there has been a dramatic increase in the idea that just because ... Read More about Teaching Appreciation

Classroom Organization: Tips and Tricks

Setting up an organized classroom and preparing a wonderful learning environment is easy.  But add a class full of kids, lessons filled with supplies and manipulative and lots of education activities and . . . classroom organization sometimes goes out the window.  Here's some of my favorite tips and tricks for year round classroom organization. Classroom Organization - The Two P's Purpose When setting up my classroom I try to be very intentional so that anything I put in my classroom has a PURPOSE.  Even better - multiple purposes! For example, this past summer I made these cute crate ... Read More about Classroom Organization: Tips and Tricks