Befuddled with ABC order

Her is my problem: my students are required to get into abc order (by last name) for lunch and we have to do this on the playground due to coming into lunch from recess.  Now we have never had a problem before, but this year abc order seems to elude MANY of my students! My assistant (she is the one that is with them at recess and brings them in for lunch) is beside herself with trying and trying to get all 26 of our little active 5 year olds into a line that somewhat resembles our abc order list.  I will say that my class is a very young class and we seem to be very immature this year.  I know I know, as I type this I realize that using the word immature seems silly - I mean they are only 5 YEARS OLD for goodness sake, but by comparison from years past and to the other 3 classrooms, my class seems to be wondering the playground with a confused look on their faces when we ask them to get into abc order or for that matter other tasks as well.  We have practiced and practice to no avail.  Does anyone out there in blogger town have any advice before a teacher and an assistant pull out all of our hair!!!!!  We need  HELP!

What an Amazing First Month of School!

I have neglected my simple little blog for way too long.  It has been a very busy and crazy first month of school.  I have a few pictures to post to show you what we have been doing.  

We had so much fun making shapes in shaving cream.  The room smelled so clean!!!!!!

 

A few pictures of our work stations:

Rolling playdough snakes to make color words and letters.

 Sorting letters by straight, curves and both, and also by capitals and lowercase - this is an activity from Lakeshore

These wonderful stuffed letters were my amazing find at a garage sale this summer.  I got the whole set for a few dollars.  I ran colored pictures on card stock, laminated and voila an instant workstation that my kiddos have been loving!

Rainbow writing.  This has also been a well-loved work station.  They love to use the markers!  I need to find a different way to bind the books together next year though!  The books are too thick to stay together with the staples.  I either need to bind with combs, which I don't want to do, or find longer staples!!

Of course the ever popular listening center with a response to literature sheet to go along with the story.  This is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

My poetry notebook workstation.  This workstation is one that I am very proud of.  Each student has a poetry notebook three-ringed binder.  Every Monday we introduce 2, or if I am ambitious 3,  new poems.  Then when it is there turn to go to the station they listen to me reading the poems in order that they are in their notebook.  When the tape is over they do the directions that are at the bottom of the poem such as circling the capital and lower case letters and they of course illustrate the poems.  Keeps my kiddos engaged for the duration of workstation time! Yeah!

Stamping names in playdough..  I have the letter stampers from Lakeshore - they are well worth the cost!

At the pocket chart workstation students were sorting letters into capitals and lowercase.  After they sorted they had a response sheet that went along with the center.  They were writing the letters that they sorted!

Computers - who doesn't love the computer workstation!  It was so amazing to show my kinders how to use the Starfall website on my amazing new document camera.  Let me tell you I am loving that little device!

This was the activity that my students did with my assistant in a small group.  They chose a card from the stack, identified the letter, found it on their sheet and colored the apple.  I honestly can not remember where I got this apple sheet, but I do know that it was from one of you wonderful bloggers.  If it is yours please let me know and I will give you credit and link it to your blog!!!!!

Wall Stories

Here are pictures of our first wall stories!  The kiddos are learning so much about sounds, letters, and writing during our interactive writing time!  I am so proud of their work.

Numbers Around Our Room:

Retelling of Brown Bear Brown Bear:

 We have been practicing for a few weeks now on how to use our stories during workstation time for read the room.