Getting Started in Kindergarten: Introducing Materials

     In a previous post, I wrote about Getting Started in Kindergarten and the deck that got me organized for the beginning of the school year. I’ve had some teachers ask if I would be willing to share it, so I decided to "fancy it up" this summer and make it more usable for others. In doing so, I broke the deck into several decks that could be used alone or combined to build your first day of school (and beyond!) I'll be sharing the rest of the decks along with more Getting Started ideas in future posts.

     The first deck, Introducing Materials (you can get it here), uses the Responsive Classroom approach of guided discovery to introduce classroom supplies such as glue sticks, pencils, crayons, scissors, and more.  The goal of guided discovery is to get children excited about the material, provide opportunities for free exploration, and to establish routines for caring for and storing materials.

Here's a quick summary of the approach.  

Introduce and Name: The teacher builds interest, names the material, and creates a shared background knowledge.

Generating Ideas: Children are invited to think and share ways to use the material.

Exploration and Experimentation: Children use the ideas shared in the previous step to explore and experiment with the material.

Sharing Exploratory Work: Children learn from each other as they share the ways they used the material during the previous step.

Cleanup and Care of Materials: Procedures for storage and use of the materials are modeled and practiced. 

Open-ended questioning is used throughout guided discovery to give children a voice in their classroom community and to let them know their ideas and suggestions are valued.  

     This has been my go-to method for not only introducing school supplies, but also math manipulatives and some center materials.  How do you provide first experiences with materials in your classroom?

Thanks for stopping by!

Jackie