Teacher’s Brain

Author: teachersbrain

Educator

Labor Day Activities For Kindergarten And First Grade

Teacher's Pay Teachers

Every year on the first Monday of September, we get Labor Day off of school. Your students will likely be excited just to have the day off, but it is important for them to learn the history and why we celebrate Labor Day every year as well! This is why it is a great idea to plan a fun and engaging lesson all about Labor Day!

Your Labor Day activities will help your students learn the history about why we celebrate this holiday and help them retain the information they learn. It is also a great lesson to tie into your lessons on community helpers!

Here are some tips and ideas for teaching your students about Labor Day

  • Explain that Labor Day is a day where we celebrate and honor the workers of America 
  • Teach about celebrations that are usually held on Labor Day including parades, cookouts, parties, and more. 
  • Learn about different jobs the American people have
  • Host a career day
  • Read books about Labor Day or Community Helpers 
  • Do some labor day crafts and activities

I created this week long Labor Day unit to help you easily plan a fun and educational week of lessons for your kindergarten or first grade students. Recognize the hard work of Americans with these Labor Day activities, printables, and lesson plans – perfect for back to school! Students will enjoy learning about the history behind this holiday.

Labor Day Activities

In this resource, you will find: 

  • Week long lesson plan
  • Home connection printables
  • Language arts lessons
  • Labor Day writing prompts
  • Patriotic art activities
  • Classroom posters
  • Labor Day hats
  • Venn diagrams
  • Labor Day mini book
  • Interactive notebook
  • and more!

This holiday is a great way to tie in lessons on language arts, reading, history, and social studies, all in one! What ways do you like to teach about Labor Day? Let me know in the comments below!

Labor Day Activities

Want to incorporate classroom jobs into your Labor Day/Community Helpers unit? Check out my post here! 

Classroom Jobs For Kindergarten To Third Grade

Teaching Tips

Building a community and sense of belonging in your elementary classroom is so important. You want your students to feel excitement about being  in class! We all know that our kiddos learn a lot more during their elementary school years than just the primary subjects. They learn how to listen, share, be kind, make friends, and more. It is important that we build on that with our activities and curriculum to help them grow not only into great students, but into great human beings as well. 

Classroom Jobs

A wonderful way to focus on those essential skills and  get your students more engaged in the classroom is to create classroom “jobs”. This will help build that excitement, community, and a sense of belonging in your students from the very start of the school year!

Classroom jobs don’t only help your students, they help you too! It helps keep your classroom in order and will make it possible for you to focus more on the more pressing things that need your attention! 

To start utilizing this fun classroom management technique, you’ll want to begin by making a list of tasks that your students are capable of assisting you with. Make a giant list, ideally one per student in your classroom and then assign it to your students. You can keep it the same throughout the school year or shake it up every so often so your students can learn how to do multiple jobs. 

This editable Job Chart is perfect for helping students take ownership and feel responsible in their classroom. There are 25 pre-made jobs with various ways to organize or you can use the editable PowerPoint to personalize your own job chart! 

classroom jobs

The natural beach theme with pineapples and palm trees will make it easy to fit into any classroom! 

Classroom jobs to choose from:

  • Attendance Helpers
  • Media
  • Book Monitor
  • Computers
  • iPad
  • Pencil Captain
  • Paper Passer
  • Caboose
  • Line Leader
  • Board Monitor
  • Meteorologist (Weather Chart Included)
  • Absent Keeper
  • Folder Checker
  • Backpacks
  • Kindness Keeper (two Kindness Board Posters INCLUDED)
  • Gardener
  • Cleaning Crew
  • Door Holder
  • Cubby Inspector
  • Homework Checker
  • Messenger
  • Desk Assistant
  • Lights Inspector
  • Hand Sanitizer
  • Vacation (4 types of ON A BREAK Job Cards)

Using a classroom jobs system can become a very fundamental part of making your classroom run smoothly! Do you like to use classroom jobs? Let me know your favorite thing about it in the comments below!

 

For matching beach theme classroom decor, check out my post here!

Classroom Jobs Chalkboard

 

How To Set Up A Math Cafe

Back to School, Math, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Kindergarten Math Cafe

Looking for a NEW way to engage your students in learning math at the beginning of the year? Creating a Math Cafe or Math “Salad Bar” is a great way to hit target skills, engage the students, and free you up to monitor learning. You can use the “recipe” cards as task cards, set up a cafe in your room, or just use the printables in small or whole groups.

math centers

What is a Math Café?

I like to keep all of my math manipulatives in one place, and hold students responsible for cleaning up after their activity. You can make your Math Café out of a bookcase or a rolling cart.

 A student pulls out the manipulative cart (Café). Students choose a recipe card (task card – with the material list, number of people who can participate in the math activity and directions), choose their partners if required, fill their tray with materials, do the activity anywhere in the room, and easily clean up by using a tray to hold their materials. 

You float around and take notes. One task card is labeled “Teacher’s Group.” This can be used when you see a student needs extra help with a concept. They will sit with you to review the concept, if you give them the card. There are also ipad, computer and blank recipe cards.

My Math Cafe Kindergarten Math Centers resource will give you everything you need for your own Math Cafe. 

This resource focuses on counting and cardinality numbers 1-5. 

math centers

Here’s a look at what you’ll get: 

  •  Standards
  • Unit 1 Counting and Cardinality with Numbers to 5 Directions, Suggestions, and Links
  • Materials List Needed for Activities
  • Task Cards (“Recipe Cards”) 1 Blank, 1 Teacher Station, 1 Computer Station, 1 ipad Station
  • Trace Write Draw Activity
  •  Read and Roll Card with Printable
  • Spin and Color the Fish
  • Spin ROLL Doh WRITE
  •  RACE CAR Game
  • Race and Roll to the TOP
  • Cover It –Spin a Number
  • Roll and Color a Picture
  • Number Order (count on from a given number)
  • Trace the Numbers (using sheet pan, magnetic numbers)
  •  Roll and Color (5 Frame)
  • Roll and Build a Cube Tower
  • Bowling with Markers
  • Roll and color the Bugs
  • Roll and Cover Caterpillar (with pom poms)
  • Race and Roll to the Top with Number Words
  • Count and Color the Number
  • Color by Number (Roll a die.)
  • Assessment Numbers 1-5
  • Small Posters for Touch Math Numbers 1-9
  •  Posters for Numbers 1-20 with Ten Frames
  •  Rules Sign
  • Math Café Sign
  • Recording Data Sheet for Teacher
  • Pictures of Set Up

 

Here is a helpful video about how to set up a Math Cafe or Math Salad Bar for math centers in your kindergarten classroom! 

 

 

If you love this bundle, you’ll also love my Math Centers Yearlong Bundle! It includes 14 units along with the Math Cafe bundle above to keep your students engaged with fun math centers for the entire school year.

math centers

math centers

For more Kindergarten math center fun, check out this post here! 

How do you like to make your math centers more engaging? Let me know in the comments!

Morning Calendar Activities for Kindergarten to 2nd Grade

Back to School, Teaching Tips

Classroom calendar activities might look a little different this school year for teachers.  With so many teachers teaching virtually, in the classroom or a mix of both, having resources that will help teachers in both situations is essential.  Math concepts are a perfect combination to use during morning calendar time.  The best bet you will have to reach all students in my opinion is using Google Slides to introduce concepts to students. Google slides make editing and sharing simple. This way you can use the slides during class in person or in a virtual meet up.

Tips and Topics for Morning Calendar Time

  • Have a slide that has a blank calendar template so you can update it easily each month.
  • Add holidays and celebrations to the calendar to hit social studies.
  • Make it a point to teach students about the UNDO button if they are the ones manipulating moveable parts on the slides.
  • Create a daily morning message slide to greet students each day.  This can include a link to a good morning song.  I like to use Jack Hartmann’s songs.
  • Discuss yesterday, today and tomorrow each day so the students see the pattern.
  • Include  a letter of the week, sight words, weather or patterns in your presentation.
  • Number of the day, tally marks to mark how many days in school, telling time, greater than, less than and counting money are great math concepts and options to include.
  • List the months of the year out of order.  Have a student put time in the correct order.
  • Seasons are great to cover each morning so students can grasp the length of a season.
  • You can find all kinds of great free spinners on the internet to make learning feel a little like a game.
  • Birthdays are always special days in the classroom.  You can add music or photos of the children to a slide.
  • Include a review sheet for students to digitally send to you to see if they comprehend concepts.

No Time to Create Google Slides

Don’t worry! I have you covered! This is where TpT resources come in handy.  Here is the pre-made and editable Google Slides for a Virtual Calendar that you can use at any elementary grade level for your classroom needs.  No paper to print! (There is one page that is black and white for a review that you can print out for students who are with you in person.) Use what you like and delete the slides that you don’t want included in your morning calendar time.

Virtual Math Morning Calendar

Also Check Out: