Common Core State Standards
Check out our PowerPoint Presentation to learn more!
The Common Core State Standards will replace the current California State Standards and are expected to be phased in over the next few years. The California Kindergarten Association is here to support you as you learn the new standards and adapt your teaching to help your students master them. Check back often, as we’ll be adding additional materials!
You can kick off your learning about the new Common Core State Standards by reading Common Core Standards for Young Learners by our own Ada Hand and checking out the Common Core Curriculum Maps with ideas from teachers (funded by Pew with Gates Foundations money).
Want to Share Your Teaching Ideas?
Every month CKA will feature a Common Cores State Standards Lesson/Unit Plan. To contribute your ideas, email CKA the Lesson Plan Form below. If you have pictures of children or teachers you would like to use, please include a photo release form. If your teaching idea is selected you will receive a gift from CKA!
Teaching ideas must be submitted by the 15th of the month prior to be considered.
Block Play
Preschool Activities and Lesson Plans Paint the Blocks: Wash Them Clean Preschool Foundations – Physical Development/Manipulative Skills 3.1 and 3.2 (Gross and Fine Motor Coordination) Objective: Children will practice fine-motor and problem-solving skills Group size: 3-4 children Materials: Tempera paints; brushes; old wooden blocks; dishpan with warm, sudsy water; towels and smocks. Outdoors the children choose the size/type of brush and paint color to use. They paint blocks, describing to classmates...
read morePhysical Development and Movement
Preschool Activities and Lesson Plans The Foundations for Physical Development at 48 months are: Maintain balance while holding still. Distinguish movements that are up and down and to the side of the body. Chelsea Stuart Ross, a preschool teacher in Sacramento, offers a week-long integrated lesson that includes activities to encourage social-emotional, physical, and oral language development. A former Medic in the US Navy, she has her degree in child development from CSU Sacramento, has worked in Head Start and...
read moreMathematics – Measurement & Data: Classify Objects and Count the Number of Objects in Categories
This months Common Core States Standard is based on Mathematics – Measurement & Data: Classify objects and count the number of objects in categories. 1. Marble Painting Shapes Graph Materials: construction paper, large and small marbles, paint, scissors, bulletin board space with yarn (or use colored paper rolls with felt pen lines) Process: Each student chooses a round, square, oval, octagonal or rectangular shape and places it in a box lid (it can be taped down with the tape under the shape). Marbles are dipped in a small...
read moreReading Standards for Literature: Key Ideas and Details
This month’s Common Core State Standards based lesson in English/Language Arts provides you with a number of activities the teacher can implement for children to successfully demonstrate their understanding of retelling key ideas and details of a story. Lesson Plan for Kindergarten Common Core Standard: English/Language Arts Reading Standard for Literature: Key Ideas and Details With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key...
read moreGeometry: Identify and Describe Shapes/Language: Conventions of Standard English Capitalization, Punctuation and Spelling When Writing
For the month of September 2011, we bring you two great lessons based on the Common Core State Standards! The first is for geometry and the second works on helping children learn to write their name. Common Core State Standard for Geometry: Identify and describe shapes (squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres), describe their positions as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to, and name shapes regardless of their orientations or overall size. Common Core State Standard for...
read moreReading Standards: Foundational Skills – Phonological Awareness #2. Recognize and Produce Rhyming Words/Mathematics Measurement & Data #3 – Classify Objects and Count the Number of Objects in Each Category.
Reading Standards: Foundational Skills – Phonological Awareness #2. Recognize and produce rhyming words. Mathematics Measurement & Data #3 – Classify objects and count the number of objects in each category. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to Dr. Linda Clinard of UC Irvine and ThinkTogether Early Literacy Program in Orange County, CA for these teaching ideas from her book, Family Time Reading Fun: Help Children Become...
read moreCounting and Cardinality #1: Know the Names and the Count Sequence/Speaking and Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration; Particpants in Collaborative Conversations with Diverse Partners…
July 2011 – Common Core State Standard for Counting and Cardinality #1: Know the names and the count sequence. Common Core State Standard for Speaking and Listening #1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups. School is just around the corner! Want some new ideas on teaching numerals 1-9 to start the year? Here’s a lesson plan and a thematic plan to get you off to a good start. Lesson Plan: Counting the...
read moreWriting Standards: Text Type and Purposes #2; Use a Combination of Drawing, Dictating and Writing to Compose Informative…
June 2011 – Common Core State Standard for Writing #2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative / explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic. Material Needed: Cash register tape Pencils Plastic eggs 2” by 2” white construction paper Glue stick Lesson Skills: examining a life cycle, sequencing, writing to compose information and supply information about a topic. Read the book “What’s Hatching Out of That Egg?” by...
read moreOur 31st Annual Conference
We are thrilled to announce that our 31st conference in January, was a huge success! We are so thankful to Jim Gill, Peggy Campbell Rush and all of our great presenters who made it a fabulous time. It was wonderful to see so many of you there! We hope you're planning to join us in 2014!
ART Really Teaches
