In my previous posts I have suggested stations for literacy as a morning activity.
However, morning activities should not be limited to just literacy stations. For one term I alternated my stations each morning between English stations and Maths stations. My literacy stations consisted of fine motor for Junior infants and handwriting or sight words for Senior Infants.
For Maths, Junior infants copied pictures using pattern blocks. Pictures for pattern blocks can be downloaded for free here.
Senior infants worked on copying and extending patterns using a variety of materials. I made my own pattern cards using the materials in the classroom, putting them on white paper and photographing the pattern before printing and laminating. In this way I could create my own differentiated pattern cards depending on the needs of my class.
For timetabling purposes, I added Literacy/Numeracy stations to my timetable first thing in the morning. This was in addition to my discrete lessons in English and Maths.
For English lessons during the week we did handwriting every day and I alternated between Jolly Phonics and my reading scheme each day, with 3 Jolly Phonics lessons one week and 2 the next and vice versa. In Senior Infants I had one or two writing activities too, these were largely based on Aistear and were generally after the oral language lessons on the topic.
In Maths, as suggested in Ready Set Go, I did three days of number and two on topics such as length, weight etc. I generally did two days of number together then topic, number and topic to end the week. It worked well in helping to assess the children and see could they remember the story of number we had covered early in the week.
I hope to do a blog post later in the week that focuses on Ready Set Go games and activities and how to use the Ready Set Go Printable pack in my Mash.ie store.
Have a great week everyone!
A.M.
Aistear Múinteoir 