Kindergarten and First Grade: A Winter Lesson - Community Helpers

 Kindergarten and First Grade Lessons: Community Helpers 

If I am being honest, kindergarten is the reason I created library stations. I have worked with the most talented kindergarten teachers on earth, and I could never do what they do from year to year. Whew! They have a true talent. 

When I was the elementary school librarian, the resource team had kindergarten every day for a 45-minute block normally in the afternoon and after lunch. They would sit for no more than 10 minutes to listen to a book, and then they were off. In order to provide something productive for them to do that related to their classroom content (this was always important to me), I decided to create stations that would occupy them and keep them engaged. 

You can check out the CREATE station structure and explanation HERE from one of my previous blog posts. Each station is color coded and students rotate through each activity once a week. 

READ-ALOUD OPTIONS: 

We read all kinds of community books. Books that build community, support community, show love in the community, and of course jobs in the community. There are so many aspects and amazing picture books that cover all community themes. Here is my list in progress with links...

I am Enough 

Written by Grace Byers, the link will take you to activity guides and teaching guides. This is a beautiful book that focuses on how we are all here for a purpose. 

The Branch  

The community comes together to fix the town after an ice storm. The young girl refuses to let a branch from her favorite tree get hauled away. She is able to repurpose it into something really special with the help of a neighbor. 

Strictly No Elephants

This is a heartwarming story about friendship and acceptance. 

Can I be Your Dog 

The sweet dog in this picture book goes around town looking for a new owner. He tries the baker, the fire station, and other places around the community until at last, he finds a home. 

Curious Garden 

The young boy in this beautiful picture by Peter Brown discovers an old train track in the city that has become overgrown. He decides to create an urban garden and tends it throughout the year. A great story about beauty that can grow in the most unique places. 

Snowmen at Work

Snowmen have busy lives at night. They have careers as dentists, grocers, and mechanics to name a few. They are each responsible for taking care of and being part of their community. This is a fun book with great illustrations. 

COMPUTER STATION: 

A computer station is a great option because students can work independently on various coding activities, reading activities, and digital escape rooms. For kindergarten and first grade, I normally find a choice board with books they can listen to. I found this great one on the bitmoji Facebook group. 

Click to VIEW the COMMUNITY Choice Board.  

Click to MAKE A COPY and EDIT the COMMUNITY Choice Board.

I love the various bitmoji Facebook groups! There are so many resources that people share! 

ROBOTS:

We have two options for robots in kindergarten and first grade: alpha robots and Bee-Bots. Bee-Bots are awesome if you have the community map. Learners can code Bee-Bot and have Bee-Bot visit different parts of town. For more detailed information, here is a blog post about our Bee-Bot robots.  This is a great robot for our community helper thematic unit. 

ENGINEERING: 

 

Garden gears are not only great for engineering hands, but they also work well to show the importance of the community working together. This station relates back to the book, The Curious Garden and students are excited to create their own gardens with butterflies, bugs, and interlocking gears that all need to work together. 

ART: 

After reading Snowmen at Work, we discuss the different jobs the snowmen have in the community. 

Some of these jobs include dentist, mechanic, teacher, grocer, baker, firefighter, and librarian. 

Discussion questions we reviewed as a class in order to summarize the story and check for understanding: 

What is a dentist's job? How does he help us? 

What is something a mechanic fixes?

Where does a grocer work and what do they do

The complete lesson plan I created with activities and the Quivervision coloring page can be found on the Quivervision website here. Students color the snowman and decorate his hat to reveal what type of job in the community he fulfills. Once they have finished, they can turn the image into augmented reality and discuss their snowman's community job with their group. 

Looking to use Quivervision as an art library station? Here is a tutorial on how you can get started: watch the video. There is also a great slideshow to get you started that you can access here.

THINKING LAB:

For the kindergarten and first-grade thinking lab station during our community helpers unit, it is great fun to have students put together different challenges from the Lakeshore fairy tale steam bucket kids. In my elementary library, we purchased: 

Little Red Riding Hood (create a basket)
Three Little Pigs (create a house) 
Three Billy Goats Gruff (create a bridge) 
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (create chairs that support the weight of the bears). 

Students have to think, plan, design, and build. This is a great station and an excellent use of the money we raised through our book fair. 

LEGOS: 

We love building lego storyboards. Students can create a lego community with minifigures and discuss their community creation with their group. There are so many opportunities for creativity. For some classes, we have the legos divided up in bins and for others, we created lego binders that had a lego board and a pencil pouch filled with legos. This was a one-stop lego station that had everything organized and ready to go for the students. 

 

CREATE Stations: E stands for EXPLORE for Grades K - 1

Our explore library station in our CREATE acronym can encompass so many different tasks. Often times, the activities in the EXPLORE station can be interchangeable with ENGINEERING. 

The explore station is slightly different because we often use this station to focus on science, research, nonfiction texts, and fiction storylines. We change it up throughout the year depending on the grade level, what we are studying, and the standards we want to cover. 

In fact, our EXPLORE station for Kindergarten involves our magformers. Students create buildings, structures, animals, and towns using these magformer tiles. 

The students love being able to manipulate these, and they are very easy to clean up! If you are looking for the lesson plan and station signs that are aligned with the AASL standards as well as NGSS and VA SOLs, you can find them HERE on TPT for free. 

For first graders, the EXPLORE station requires some fine motor skills. We used connectagons, which are wooden interlocking blocks. Check them out here on Amazon: Connectagons Interlocking STEM toys. These are different from the brainflakes because these have patterns and themes that allow students to create models. 

Years ago we purchased these, and we were able to get three sets: geometric shapes, woodland creatures, and space connectagons. The space connectagons are really fun; students love to create a galaxy of stars with the moon and constellations. 

It is exciting to watch students build, design, and even discuss their creations in their small group setting. The other set of connectagons we have, the woodland habitat, have different characters and animals. Students get caught up in imaginary role playing, and I love to watch them interact and create stories while they are building and designing.

Feel free to download the station signs HERE. Per usual, it includes the standards of learning as well as the AASL standards. 

Below is another example of a table sign I use that has both the kindergarten and first grade station information and standards. This is a great visual to show teachers and admin who visit your library how this station fulfills and supports their standards through application and play. Click HERE to may a copy of the chart if you would like to use it and make any changes. To view the chart, click on the image below. 

Kindergarten: Playing in the Pond, a CREATE Station

As we work our way through our CREATE stations, the ART station has definitely become a favorite for students. Our first graders enjoyed learning about the frog life cycle. Our kindergartners colored the dragonfly and watched it fly around and come to life. 

For this coloring ART station, we started off by reading the picture, Over and Under the Pond by Kate Messner and discussing the pond ecosystem. Kate Messner's books are excellent books to pair with science lessons. Her other books include: Over and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, and Over and Under the Rainforest. 

After reading the story, we dicuss living vs. nonliving. 

What is living in the pond? 

What do the living plants and animals need? 

What is nonliving in the pond? How can you tell it is nonliving? 

Time permitting, we even take it a step further and have students solidify their knowledge with a word sort where they have to put living and nonliving items under the correct category. 

For those teachers with a subscription to the Pebble Go, feel free to check out this link to their article: Living vs. Nonliving. This is a great article that will read to the students. 

After we read the book and discuss living vs. nonliving, it is time to color the Quivervision sheet. Quivervision is a great app, and very user friendly! Be sure to check out the Quivervision Education Dashboard if you would like to research subscriptions for your classes.  Here is a quick video tutorial on how to get started using augmented reality in your classroom or library: QUIVERVISION TUTORIAL. There is also a slide deck to help you out! 

Once the students color their sheet, they will open the app on their device. The Quiver mobile app requires a backward-facing camera and iOS 11 or later. If using an Android device, it requires minimum Android 7.0 "Nougal" (API Level 24). 

Students use the device to scan the QR code for the coloring page. Once it loads, they can click the butterfly to launch and scan the coloring sheet. Wait until the image turns red and then blue. Give it a few more minutes and voila! It will come to life for students to explore and learn. This is an incredibly immersive learning experience. 

Feel free to access the lesson plan with the standards, signs, and I CAN statements: Quivervision Dragonfly Lesson Plan. I also have this sign below that I use as a visual for my art station; it covers K-2. Feel free to click on it and make a copy. 

First Grade FICTION vs. NONFICTION: Frog Life Cycles in the ART STATION

                                        

Spring time means studying life cycles, and in first grade, we look at the life cycle of the frog as well as different animal habitats.  This is a lesson we have done many times, and we will be completing it this year in April. 

A great way to begin this lesson is by reading, A Frog Thing by Eric Drachman. There is a great video you can access for this book (click on the image below and it will take you to the video).  

This year we will also be reading the nonfiction selection, Frogs which is part of our extremely popular Animal Kingdom series published by Abdo. 

These books rarely stay on the library shelves, and I highly recommend them! You can check out this book and others like it on the ABDO website. 

After reading the book, we discuss the differences between nonfiction and fiction. What makes A Frog Thing a fiction picture book? How do we know? What examples can we provide? 

What makes Frogs a nonfiction picture book? What are some facts we learned? What are some text features we noticed that aren't in a fiction book? 

Finally, what is the main difference between a fiction book and a nonfiction book? Student are always able to make the connection that our nonfiction books provide facts and information.

Next step in the process: students select an Animal Kingdom book of their choice to use in the library and read about their animal. Task ONE...figure out which of these animal habitats their animal lives in: 

Ocean

Desert

Wetlands

Grassland

Woodland

Polar

Rain Forest 

After that, they record ONE fact about their animal and then put this fact in their own words. If you would like a copy of this lesson with the lesson plan standards, I CAN statements, procedures, and worksheets, you can access them here: Animal Habitat FREEBIE.

 

Next up? We access our PebbleGo database. We segue into animal habitats since this correlates with the first grade VA SOL: 

SCI 1.5: The student will investigate and understand that animals, including humans, have basic life needs that allow them to survive. Key ideas include:

• animals need air, food, water, shelter, and space (habitat);
• animals have different physical characteristics that perform specific functions; and
• animals can be classified based on a variety of characteristics.

FINAL STEP....turning our picture into augmented reality and watching the frog evolve from an egg, to a tadpole, froglet, and frog! I have this library station outlined HERE. This freebie includes the library lesson plan (that also be used as a sign at the library table). 

Want more information on the Quivervision dashboard? There is a great presentation that you can access to get you started: Getting Started Kit.