This post is all about Data Binders! Now I don't know about all of you, but here in California and where I live in the Bay Area they are all the rage! If you haven't heard about them before I will tell you... they are amazing!
Teachers are using data binders for their students to take ownership of their learning. They are also using the binders so that the students can lead parent conferences. The 4th grade teachers at our school started using them last year and it was amazing the turn out they received from parents showing up to conferences because their child was the one leading the meeting. Now I being a kindergarten teacher couldn't see how I would use this in my classroom, but instead of letting our friend Negative Nancy creep into my head I decided to give it a try. I thought about the biggest goals we have for our little kinders to accomplish by the end of the year and yes, reading and writing is important, however at our school our kiddos aren't always quite at that stage and just getting them to learn their letters and sounds is our biggest goal each year. That being said I spent a day deciding what I would like to see in a kindergarten data binder and thought about how can the students be able to show what they know. The first thing that popped into my head was coloring. They love to color! So I put all letters, numbers, and shapes onto a document and made them outlined that way my students can color in the letters, numbers, and shapes when they have learned that particular one. They are able to keep track on their own where they are at.
That being said... YES I do observe what they are doing while they are coloring so they just don't go ahead of color everything. I did start this mid year so I do have tweaks I would do for next year. This year I just let them color whatever color they wanted. For next year each time the students are assessed it will be assigned a certain color. This will allow to see progression and see what letters/numbers they have learned and in what month.
A question I have been asked even by my co workers is if they are actually in a binder. For my class I do not use a binder. I bought a pack of three pronged folders and just put the pages in that. Takes up less room and they can also use it for their writing folder. Come conference time all their work will be in one place.
Currently the resource has the following pages: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, letter sounds, writing uppercase/lowercase letters, numbers 0-20, writing numbers 0-20, shapes, counting by 1's to 100, counting by 10's to 100.
I will be adding more as I go along. If you have any other ideas that I can add or you would want to see please feel free to reach out.
Currently the resource has the following pages: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, letter sounds, writing uppercase/lowercase letters, numbers 0-20, writing numbers 0-20, shapes, counting by 1's to 100, counting by 10's to 100.
I will be adding more as I go along. If you have any other ideas that I can add or you would want to see please feel free to reach out.
