Smart Kids: The Mitten Tier 2 Vocabulary…and 2 Printables

"I am very jostled in this mitten," said the bear.

So we were challenged by our administration to focus more on Tier 2 vocabulary. Our district even worked with mother nature to provide us with snow-day time to watch the videos. How kind was that?

Just as a reminder, Tier 2 vocabulary words are the words that appear in reading that may not be used in common language but are important to academic rigor. They are not content specific. They may not be discovered by children on their own.

Sometimes it can be a challenge to understand how research and learning strategies look in a kinder classroom. I found some extra help in this article: Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary in Kindergarten.

And here is a look at my "have a go" with college talk and The Mitten. Over the course of several days, we reread parts of the book. As I read the page about each animal, my kids would let me know if they heard a "college" word.

We also acted out the meanings of the words. Here is a darling showing us how to swoop.

If you want some props for this, masks can be found on the Jan Brett site.

Next each child selected his or her favorite college word. If you want the free printable, click here.

"The bear lumbered to the mitten."

Now on to my other four things for the week.
#2
Take a look at a survey and graph we made about the seasons.

#3
We started our rocks and soils unit. I put the vocabulary words in a tub of dirt so the kids discover things and animals that can be found in the dirt. They really "dig" this center. Ha.

If you want to see more of this unit, click here:

I have a Valentine Freebie for you. I'm going to have my kiddos add adjectives. We'll mount the pages on pretty scrapbooking paper before we give them to our families. Get it free here.

I went to Dollar Tree and bought a class supply of Valentine candy. Then I went back again because the dogs ate half the boxes! We are going to use them to make these books.