September Week 1 Lesson Round-Up
What do you teach the first week of September?
I am sharing what we are learning about, and I hope it is helpful for you as you plan your lessons.
I know parts of Arizona and down south start at the end of July, whereas the northeast and northwest don’t start until after Labor Day! Since we all start at different times, you may need to adjust my plans to fit your own pacing guide.
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All of the resources shown on this blog post can be found in my September teaching bundle.
Let’s Get Started!
Now that we have been in school eight days, I have started to establish rules and routines.
I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough.
The first two or three weeks of school, I spend a lot of time practicing what our expectations look like, sound like and feel like. It may seem redundant, but I promise it is not.
This will save you so much time in the long run if you get your students trained right away. Start as you intend to go.
Mornings in Kindergarten
When my students come in each morning, I always have their morning work sitting on their desks.
It is very important that children can be independent with their morning work, or else I feel like the purpose is defeated.
I do not have time to help 25 students with their activities while I am taking attendance, talking to parents, unpacking backpacks etc.
I created morning work that has very specific skills that students can be independent with at each point in the year.
UPDATE SUMMER 2023 - the entire year is now compatible with Google Slides and includes a free Spanish version as well!
You can print a free week from every month HERE
Save with the year long bundle HERE
The first week of September, we are matching letters, tracing lines, matching rhyming pictures and numbers.
I do not have students write or trace letters yet because I have not yet taught them correct directionality.
It is so much harder to unteach handwriting, so just have them match letters at first!
We go over the answers together, because I believe immediate feedback is incredibly important. You can do this at their desks or on the carpet. I have better luck on the carpet at the beginning of the year (tip: before bringing them to the carpet, always review the expectations of pushing in your chair and sitting in a circle slides first).
Starting your day on the right foot:
I love morning meeting and calendar time. I only like to have my kinders at the carpet for 10-15 minutes max at the beginning of the year. After this, you’re just asking for behavior issues in my opinion.
I like to use songs and get them moving too. Put anything to a tune and your kids will memorize it in no time.
We start carpet time with “Rise and Shine”, “I Like to Come to School” and “Hello Neighbor”. I do not do all three songs in a row. I break up my 5 minute lesson (direct instruction) with Dr. Jean songs.
Then I do “Hello Neighbor” to get them moving again.
Now they can focus again for five minutes, so I go over and review our morning work.
To purchase songs you play from your phone or computer, go to her store HERE
I cannot say enough good things about Dr. Jean.
I just adore her, and we practice so many skills including letter names and sounds with her songs throughout the year.
Calendar + Morning Meeting
I now use a digital calendar and morning meeting kit!
This will save you so much time and wall space.
Plus, I embedded songs that the children love.
They’ll be able to spell “September” in no time just by singing this song every day, and they are engaged the entire time!
We do a morning meeting prompt, daily joke, the weather, all of the usual calendar activities plus math and reading/phonics review games.
Phonemic Awareness
Before I start my phonics lessons for the year, my students need a solid foundation with phonemic awareness.
What is the difference between phonics and phonemic awareness?
Phonemic awareness is hearing and manipulating phonemes (sounds).
Phonics is how these sounds are related to print (letters).
I see so many reading programs barely touch on phonemic awareness and skip straight into teaching phonics.
Don’t skip this critical step!
In fact, phonemic awareness is my main focus in my small groups for the first semester in kindergarten (if not longer for my lower groups!)
The first step you teach is alliteration and first sound matching.
Alliteration is recognizing and producing words that all begin with the same sound.
Math
We move between the carpet and their desks for math. I start the year with my counting and cardinality unit HERE
Last week, I gave the counting and cardinality pre-test.
This allows me to make math groups, and it also shows how much growth students have throughout the unit once I do post test.
I also sent home our unit checklist to parents so they know what our goals in math are.
This week we are focusing on numbers 1-3 : recognizing the numerals, writing the numbers with correct directionality, showing on a number line and ten frame and 1:1 correspondence with 1-3 (show three objects, and as we are counting they can move their finger ONLY when they say the next number when touching objects.)
Here are the activities we are doing this week:
These pages are from my brand new learn at home program (September) - if you’re in the classroom you can use them as daily math warm ups (great activity to have on their desks to start math time because students quickly can become independent with them.)
If you’re doing distance learning or homeschooling, these are perfect for daily warm ups/review.
Print a FREE week from September HERE
Practicing numbers 1-3:
We love exit tickets! Or use these as mini assessments.
It is up to you the order you use these in, but my lesson plans serve as a guide. The 1-3 worksheet shown above is free on the blog post HERE
The half sheets labeled as exit tickets are used multiple times this month! I use them a lot in week 4 as review and extra practice. You can use the same activity a couple times… this is good! They know the format and what to do.
Practicing 1-3 over and over again with so many activities serves many purposes. We use these activities throughout the entire unit, so once students know the expectations of these activities, the next few weeks in math are quicker and easier.
We will be practicing numbers 4-6 and then 7-9 in the next two weeks with these same activities.
You know how important routine and structure are for me. This saves SO much time in explaining directions and expectations each day.
Reading
If you’re new to my read and write like a rockstar program, this entire week is FREE for you to try!
Our theme this week is Welcome to Kindergarten!
For the entire school year, my guided reading consists of the same three materials:
Comprehension and fluency passage
Mini book
Sentence builder
The vocabulary and sight words, along with the theme, changes each week and the difficulty increases throughout the year.
Just like all of my resources, students love the routine and structure of my reading program.
I love that once I have them trained in how to use these resources, I do not waste precious time explaining directions and expectations.
I use these three resources throughout the week. Personally, I prefer this schedule:
Monday: introduce theme, vocabulary/sight words, I read the passage, we read it together
Tuesday: review words, we read together, they read on their own (whisper/buddy), answer comprehension questions
Wednesday: Sentence Builder
Thursday: Mini book, Review CAP skills - front cover, turning pages, holding a book properly, I read the book to them
Friday: We read the book together, buddy read, answer comprehension questions
I use these in my small groups, with all the reading levels! The beautiful thing is that you can use the same materials, and just differentiate your instruction based on their reading level. This allows me to spend more direct instruction time with my lower readers.
I recommend keeping guiding reading lessons short and sweet - 15 minutes or so per group per day.
Read the full blog post and learn more HERE
Reading and writing go hand in hand, and I love this program because it ties the two together. You will get much faster results teaching reading and writing together.
It is tricky to start guided reading groups in September. What is the rest of your class doing? To start the year, I would recommend having an aide run a whole group activity while you pull your small groups. They can use a no prep activity (shown below) or even watch Dr. Jean or Jack Hartman songs/videos.
This is also a great time to pull in your Daily literacy warm up from my learn at home program (whether you’re in the classroom or learning at home!)
All About Apples Week 1
You know how much I love thematic teaching! Well we are kicking things off with our All About Apples Unit!
Thematic teaching is how I incorporate science social studies, reading, art, math and real literature into our day. It is so fun, and th kids absolutely love this time block each day.
We kick off the unit with learning all about How Apples Grow?
Before I even read the book, I ask students what they already know about apples. I want to activate their prior knowledge and build their background before we dive in.
To help do this, I first show them the slideshow. You can also read the book first (I have done that before too!)
After we walk through and discuss the slideshow, I do a wiggle and dance song and then they settle down so I can read them the first half of How Do Apples Grow? (It is a long book!)
The book does use the word flowers and I chose to use the word blossoms with my resources. I did this because most books, songs and videos use the word blossoms, and children already know the word flowers.
On Tuesday, I come back and finish the book and we review the slideshow. The kids then love to make their own mini book.
This book is on YouTube! Save you voice this time of year.
You can even have students just listen as they are working on the apple activities. I find my kids sometimes listen better when I play an audio book.
I love reading the book on youtube because it also enlarges the pictures so all my kiddos stay engaged. I am pausing the book on every other page or so to check for comprehension and review the vocabulary.
We do the apple vocabulary activities and how do apples change? There are quite a few activities to spread throughout the week!
Centers
I use no prep activities for my centers for so many reasons. I love being able to just print and teach. Centers are so tricky at the beginning of the year, especially if you do not have help.
I would recommend doing these activities whole group at first if you do not have an aide. These no prep activities are perfect for your students to do while you pull your guided reading groups (read and write like a rock star program.)
You can use these no prep activities really in any order you wish, so do not worry about the order I show on my lesson plans. I sometimes switch them up. They can just be used throughout the month as centers, for fast finishers, sub tubs, etc.
I love how versatile these printables are!
Handwriting - Updated Summer 2023
I started handwriting last week, so Monday this week we are starting with lesson 6.
After years of teaching handwriting, I realized it would make so much more sense to teach letters in a specific order based on how they are formed.
I used to start with Aa and make my way through the alphabet. This does not work for most children.
The key is to teach students to recognize the patterns of forming letters with correct directionality. This will stick in their brains!
For more information on this, read my full blog post HERE and you can print free lessons to try.
Here are the lessons we are doing this week:
Last week we learned what a “big line” was in lesson 1, and what a “bunny jump” is in lesson 4, so this week we are practicing E, T, I, t and i.
A trick for starting your handwriting lesson is to model first on the white board and then have students trace the letter in the air and on a neighbor’s back (may not be possible right now I realize.)
If you haven’t seen my handwriting program before, watch this quick video to see the why behind how I teach:
Writing
One of my favorite parts of our day! This week is all about labeling - a favorite unit of mine!
This week we are discussing what a label is, and how words have meaning.
I start by showing them an anchor chart.
I show how to the arrow points to a specific part of the cat and tree.
Some have the word written for you and some are blank so you can fill them in. I love using different levels of scaffolding.
I point to different things in our classroom and just ask students, “Okay, if I were to make a label for THIS object, what word would I have to write?”
I am teaching students that words have meaning, and we say and spell words differently.
The next day is really fun. We get out sticky notes and the kids label ME. They think it is hysterical to cover me in words on sticky notes.
On Wednesday we practice filling in our anchor charts together with words.
On Thursday, we use THIS FREEBIE
The first day of a new picture, I use the version that already has the words written.
Then on Friday, we do the same picture where the label boxes are empty (the kids always say, Hey! We did this already!”) and I say, “No, today I am going to see if you remember which labels go where.” See the photo below.
I share more ideas, including how I use sticker labels instead of glue and scissors over on the blog post HERE
I am beyond excited to share that I have now added digital Boom Cards to all of my writing units.
These digital task cards makes teaching writing virtually via distance learning so much easier.
You can use these Boom Cards in the classroom too for writing centers or your lessons.
I bundled the writing unit with the digital Boom cards HERE in a money saving bundle.
By the end of this first week in September, your kids will learn to look at the first letter of each word to begin to make meaning from reading. They will understand that letters must be put in a specific order to form words and that each word has a specific meaning.
I hope these teaching tips make your week go smoother!
My goal is to share ideas and tips every week on a blog post for the week coming up. This will take some stress off of you.
Update! I listened to your suggestions.
So many have asked to purchase my complete curriculum on a monthly payment plan.
I now offer monthly bundles!
Everything you need to teach for the month of September, including many of the resources shown on this blog post.
