Lion: The Lion Basket will have tracing cards, felt, and crayons in it. There should be enough tracing cards that each child at the table can have their own, as well as a couple of extras in case you have a fast student. Tracing cards are just cardstock with four or five lines on them that have been laminated so that students can trace over the lines with the crayons

The goal of this basket is to let children use a medium they are familiar with (crayons) to do something they may be less familiar with. Basically, the kids will pull out the tracing cards and try to stay on the lines as they trace. For some children this will be an easy basic skill that doesn’t need practice, but for others this will take a lot of effort and patience. It is important to include a variety of cards in varying levels in this basket so that all students will have a chance to do it.

Our Tracing Cards can be purchased here. They are available as a pdf download, and all you will have to do is print them onto card stock or you can print them on plain paper and glue them to a piece of construction paper. It is important that these cards be sturdy because the students will be erasing them with a piece of felt. The reason you want the students to erase with felt is twofold. The first is because it makes the preparation easier for you. If you laminate the cards then you can use them year after year with almost no prep time. And, let’s face it, as teachers it is very important to be able to be able to pull something out and set it up quickly! The other reason is because as the students are working to erase their cards, they are developing fine motor skills. They are learning how hard they have to press in order to erase the crayon from the cards.

If your cards are a little dirty at the end of the week, you can use a baby wipe or a simple degreaser like Orange Glo to clean them up as good as new.

The Tiger Basket is everyone’s favorite basket because it is the play-doh basket! The best part of this basket is that it is fun and educational at the same time. Play-doh is an excellent resource for building fine motor skills.

When you are preparing this basket you will need a few play-doh toys. You want a couple of cookie cutters in shapes coordinating to the themes of the other baskets. (Each week the baskets will all be based around the same theme.)

You will also need a few play-doh toys like these:

You don’t want to use the whole kit though, just a few toys each time. You want to change the toys out weekly. (Remember, we are keeping those centers fresh!)

The object of this tabletop is for students to manipulate the play-doh in various shapes. This sounds simple, and even fun, but by doing this, your students are building up those muscles that will make them better writers!

The Bear Tabletop Basket is used for practicing cutting. For this basket you will need to have enough copies for each student. I always put all the handouts in the basket when I am prepping the baskets at the beginning of the week so I don’t have to worry about making sure I remember where I put the handouts, etc. The key to being an organized teacher isn’t ACTUALLY being organized, it is all about preparation. You want your prep time to be minimal, and you don’t ever want to have to go hunting for stuff, so the more you can do at once the better. You will also need scissors in the basket. Enough for every person to have their own pair.

The scissor tabletop is just to practice beginning cutting skills at first, but by the third week, we will introduce simple pasting as well. The handouts we have here at teachable method are designed to grow with your students each week, and require no work on your part. But, if you want to make your own, you just need to make sheets that have dotted lines for the kids to cut along so that they can practice their cutting skills.

Before you just hand scissors to kindergarteners, it is a good idea to have a BIG talk about their proper use. Believe it or not, you will have students that have never used scissors before, and will need to be shown the proper way to hold them, etc. The most important thing the students need to take away from the scissor discussion is that scissors are ONLY used to cut paper in the classroom. I try to always go through a big long list of all the things we can think of ALL around the classroom that you should not cut with scissors, and I explain to the children that if they choose to cut anything but paper with their scissors, then they will have to sit out during scissor time while we finish up our tabletop centers.