The Monday after Halloween in kindergarten needs a LOW PREP graphing plan, and it needs one before you leave the building on Friday. Here is mine, written at 4:50 PM.
It is Friday afternoon. The costume parade is over. A small cape is draped over the reading-corner beanbag, and nobody knows whose it is. You have swept up enough orange confetti to stuff a pillow. And somewhere in the back of your brain, a tiny voice says: "You know Monday is the day after Halloween, right?"
Monday. The day after a weekend of trick-or-treating, candy sorting on the living room floor, and at least one bedtime that happened "a little late." Five-year-olds will walk in with stories. So many stories. All at once. With the volume knob broken off.
You could fight that energy. Or you could graph it.
Things That Have Definitely Happened on Post-Halloween Monday
- Morning meeting was supposed to take ten minutes. It took twenty-five, because every single child needed to tell you what they dressed up as, including the child who was in your room on Friday wearing the costume.
- Someone announced they got "a hundred candies." Someone else said "a million." A third friend said "eleventy." You were not ready to teach number sense before 8:30, but here we are.
- A heated debate broke out over whether a pumpkin counts as a fruit. You have been teaching for years and you are still not sure who won.
- You found a fun-size wrapper in a pencil box in February. (Okay, that one comes later. But it starts on Monday.)
- You planned a calm read-aloud. The class planned a stand-up comedy set about their siblings.
Here is the thing: all of that chatter is data. Kids are counting, comparing and sorting without being asked. They just need a page to put it on.
The LOW PREP Fix: Kindergarten and 1st Grade Graphing Workbooks
The Kindergarten and 1st Grade Graphing Workbooks Bundle turns "I got eleventy candies" into an actual math lesson. It is two printable workbooks in one bundle, 65 pages total: a 31-page Kindergarten Graphing Workbook and a 34-page 1st Grade Graphing Workbook. Picture graphs, bar graphs, simple pie graphs, sorting, class surveys, and for first grade, tally charts and how-many-more questions. It is print and go; the only extra step is cutting for the cut-and-glue pages.
Four ways to use it on Monday (and the rest of the week):
- Turn morning meeting into a class survey. Use the class survey page and ask one question: "What was your favorite part of Halloween?" Give three choices (costumes, candy, pumpkins). Everyone gets one vote. The stories still come out, but now they come out one tally at a time.
- Sort and count before you graph. The kindergarten sort-and-count and cut-and-glue picture graph pages give busy hands something to do. Cutting and gluing is the closest thing to a calm-down strategy that also meets a standard.
- Answer the big question: how many more? First graders can move from tally chart to bar graph and then answer how many in all, how many more and how many fewer. "Eleventy" gets retired in favor of numbers they can actually check.
- Let them make their own graph. Each workbook has a blank My Own Survey and My Own Graph page. Kids who still have one more Halloween story to tell can survey their table about it. Fair warning: someone will survey the class about the pumpkin-fruit debate. Let them.
Each workbook also includes teacher notes, a Graph Words vocabulary page, review pages, a certificate and full answer keys, so the grading on Monday night is quick enough to finish before the couch wins. Standards covered include K.MD.B.3, K.CC.B.4, 1.MD.C.4 and 1.OA.A.1.
Grab It Before You Leave Today
Print the pages now, set them on the corner of your desk, and go enjoy your weekend. Monday You will be grateful.
Get the bundle here: Kindergarten and 1st Grade Graphing Workbooks Bundle. Teaching one grade only? The workbooks are also sold on their own: Kindergarten Graphing Workbook and 1st Grade Graphing Workbook.
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Written for teachers by Mr. M's SOAR Classroom, a classroom teacher and instructional coach.