Yesterday was a very sad day! It was my last day interning twice a week with my sweet kindergarten kiddos. I have to say this semester has been one for the books. I learned more about myself and grew more than I ever thought was possible. I learned what it really means to be a teacher. I learned that five year olds aren't going to be hanging on to your every word during a lesson, and that teaching is a challenging profession! But the challenge is what it's all about. :)
My favorite professor this semester told our class this quote on our last day of class: "They may forget what you said, but they will not forget how you made them feel." She told us that kids don't know if you're a good teacher or not, they just remember your tone that you used with them and the way they felt about you. This made complete sense to me. I thought back to my elementary school teachers. My favorites. When I thought back to my favorite teachers, I wasn't thinking about the lessons they taught me, or what grade I had in that class, I thought about how that teacher made me laugh and feel comfortable and safe in her class. I hope to become this kind of teacher when I have my own classroom.
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| Goodbye gifts that I found at Dollar Tree! |
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| Eric Carle's ABC game |
On another note, in my class "assessment in early childhood education" we were assigned to make a game for students that assessed their knowledge of something they already knew. I chose to make an ABC board game for my Kindergartners. These kids have been working on learning the alphabet and learning the sounds that the letters make. I thought this game would be excellent practice for this. My inspiration for this game was a game called "Eric Carle's ABC game".
In the Eric Carle version, the players basically practice identifying capital and lowercase letters. My game is pretty similar to this!
I have the directions for the game and also how I made the game below.
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| My ABC game :) |
ABC Game Instructions
Contents
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Game Board
·
4 playing pieces
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Number Generator
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Instructions
Set up
·
Each player chooses
a playing piece. Place the piece on Start.
·
Players need a
score sheet and pencil to record score.
Object of the Game:
·
To have the highest
amount of points.
How to Play:
1. The youngest player goes first by rolling the number
generator.
2. After rolling,
the youngest player moves the spaces shown.
Game Instructions:
1. After landing on a letter space, the player must write
the letter and say two words that start
with that letter.
*OR: After landing on a letter space, the player must write the letter and say the sound that the letter makes.
2. If the player can say one word that starts with that
letter, the player receives one point. If the player does not have two words,
the player receives 0 points.
3. Play passes to the right and it is the next player’s
turn.
*If players land on a consecutive letter,
the player must think of a word other than a word already used.
*This game can be used for pre-school to
Kindergarten aged students to assess their knowledge on letter recognition and
beginning sounds. Children also reinforce counting skills as they move around
the board.
Letter
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Points
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My version of the game is above!
I used half of a tri-fold white poster board (so the game can be folded in half) but a poster or regular cardboard would work as well. And for the colorful letter places, I used scrapbook paper that I found at Wal-Mart in a book for $5. I love the vibrant colors. Scrapbook paper can also be found at Hobby Lobby for really cheap.
To get the board game wrap around effect, I first traced on the poster board with a pencil and then divided 26 sections.
The hardest part was cutting the paper into the sections to get the wrap around effect. This was time consuming. I ended up tracing the sections one by one on a piece of printer paper and then transferred that tracing to the scrapbook paper to cut it as perfectly as possible.
After cutting the scrapbook paper, I wrote the letters with a black paint pen (found this at Wal-Mart as well) and then modge-podged the paper down.
To get the borders, I cut the scrap book paper with crazy scissors and modge-podged it to the poster board.
I played this game with my kindergarteners and they had lots of fun playing it! Sometimes it was hard for them to think of words that started with the letter that they landed on, so I did a variation of the game where the students had to say the sound that the letter made.
I also played this game with the four year old girl that I babysit. She is still getting familiar with the letters, but she enjoyed playing this game even though she is not as familiar with the letters and sounds as my kinders were. She'll get there!
Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback are always appreciated!
