Alphabet & Sight Word Practice

I hope your October is off to a good start! I am still in a bit of shock that it is already October and time to start thinking about report cards! I'm not ready for that at all! September went by so quickly, that I still have tons of photos that I never got around to posting and blogging about-I will try to get to that this week!

My kinder kiddos have been working super hard to learn all of the letters in the alphabet, and they love playing different alphabet games during our center time. We have also started working on our kindergarten sight words-and I am thankful that I can take my time with our sight words and just focus on one per week (we only have 26 required words-and I know plenty of schools have more than that!).

Here are some of the alphabet and word work activities we did last week during center time.

That would be the front to my heater that the kiddos are making words on. I lucked out that the heater is metal so the magnetic letters stick on perfectly! I just used some tape to make a little grid.

 

My students this year LOVE wikki stix. They have been practicing making letters and words out of the wikki stix. I have a special dry erase board designated for wikki stix only since it makes the board so sticky!

 

I just adore this "Roll a Sight Word" game. It is so easy to play-just roll a dice and write down the corresponding word on the sheet. We play this all year long and the kids think it is a new game every time I switch which words are on the paper. To get this awesome freebie from Mrs. Parker, click here.

 

 My students are doing a great job practicing their sight words with these fun little cards. First they read the word at the top, then they build it with letter tiles, and finally they trace the word at the bottom and practicing writing it on the line. These sight word practice cards are a part of my Fall Fun: Literacy Games Pack.

 

This little sight word board game was a big hit last week with my students. So easy too-just roll the dice, move that many spaces, and say what word you landed on. This game (along with lots of other game boards) is also from my Fall Fun: Literacy Games Pack.

 

We're still practicing letters too-so the kids also had the option to play the same board game, but with letters instead of sight words.

 

Yes, I am a brave teacher-our stamping center is open for business! My students have been practicing stamping the alphabet with these wonderful free alphabet stamping pages from Shannon at Kindergarten Hoppenings. For my more advanced kiddos, I have been using Mrs. Wills' fantastic sight word stamping pages.

 

I'd love to hear what your students have been up to-and please share any fun alphabet or word work ideas that you have! 

 

Apple Themed Centers

I'm gearing up to start teaching a unit on apples to my kinders in about a week or so. I guess that means fall is almost here! To go along with our study of apples and how they grow, I like to have a few fun math and literacy activities for my kiddos to do that have an apple theme.

Last year my students worked on lots of different apple themed math stations. Click here to check out my apple post from last year which includes links to several free apple math games!

This year I made some new apple themed literacy center activities to help my kinders learn their letters, sounds, and sight words. One of the games my students will play at our alphabet center is this very simple letter tracing game. I'll have a bag of magnetic letters and students will take turns picking a letter out of the bag and tracing the letter they picked on their paper. Click here to download these free letter tracing sheets (both capital letter and lowercase letter sheets included).

This game can easily be differentiated for students of different levels. The easiest way to play would be to give them a bag of capital letters and a capital letter sheet so they can trace the exact letter they pull out of the bag. To make it a little trickier, you can give them a bag of lowercase letters along with the capital letter sheet, so that they pick a lowercase letter but then have to find and trace the corresponding capital letters. Or, for really high students, I think I might give them a bag of little objects/toys/pictures and then when they pull out an item they have to determine the item's beginning sound and then trace that letter on the sheet.

I also have a pack of alphabet themed literacy games for sale in my TPT store that works on lots of different literacy skills, including: syllable counting, beginning sounds, capital and lowercase letter recognition, and sight words. Click here to check it out! I'd love to give away a free copy of this game pack to the first 2 people to leave a comment (and their email address) on this post!

Anyone else planning apple activities for the coming weeks? If so, I'd love to get some new ideas and hear what you and your students will be up to!

Fun New Pointers

I decided to get crafty this weekend and make some fun new pointers for my students to use! Each pointer has a different letter at that top. These are very easy to make! I saw this idea last year and can't remember where I saw it-maybe Pinterest or someone's blog?

I started with a pack of magentic letters from Dollar Tree and 4 sets of plastic swizzle sticks I found at Goodwill (looks like they were originally from Target). You could also make these with popsicle sticks too. In all, this project cost me $3... not too bad!

I just put a little hot glue on the back of each magnetic letter and then stuck the letters onto the swizzle sticks. Not much to it!

So many possibilities for how these alphabet pointers can be used! I could put these pointers at the big book or poetry center and then students could pick a pointer and then use that pointer to locate that letter in the big book/poem they are reading.

They could also be used at the alphabet center-students could pick a pointer at then practice writing that letter on a dry erase board or make the letter out of wikki stix.

You could even have just have the class sit in a circle and pass the jar around, and every kid has to take a pointer out of the jar and say the letter they pick-or we all have to trace that letter in the air and the kid with the pointer can use it as a magic wand to trace the letter in the air. So much fun!

Have you made and fun projects for your classroom lately? If so...please share!

Center Time!

Today was the 14th day of school and already my new kiddos are becoming pros at their centers. We just jumped right in on the second day of school and have been practicing every day since! I am just thrilled with how quickly my students have picked up on our rules and routines during center time-they are doing awesome! Most don't even need my help anymore to check the center board and figure out which centers they are assigned to each day.

Both my morning and afternoon classes just adore their center time each day. Last year with full day kindergarten I actually had time for 3 different center times during the day (literacy centers in the morning, math centers in the afternoon, and play centers at the end of the day). No such luck this year in half day, so even though most of my centers are literacy based, I sneak in a few other types of centers too (science, math, play centers) so they can work on those skills too!

My center time is 45 minutes long, and my students get to go to three 15-minute centers each day. I choose their centers for them, and I also assigned them each a center partner (any more than 2 kids at a center can really be a recipe for disaster). Since they have to stay at each center for 15 minutes (which feels like forever to a kindergartener) I make sure that most centers have at least 2 activities for them to choose from so it holds their attention the whole time.

Check out what we've been up to at our centers this week!

Writing Center: Students practiced their handwriting-kinders sure do love dry erase markers! 

 

Writing Center: Students played "Roll a Letter" and traced the letters they rolled on the dice (this game is from Deanna Jump & Julie Lee's School Fun Centers Pack)

 

Alphabet Center: I put a set of magnetic letters into a cloth bag, and students took turns pulling out a letter and then coloring in that letter on their paper-this simple game was a hit! (You can grab this awesome and free alphabet page from Growing in PreK)

 

Alphabet Center: Students use blocks to build letters (the cards and blocks are from Lakeshore)

 

Listening Center: Students enjoyed listening to books on tape (yep-keeping it old school in my class- no iPods or CDs to listen to-just good ole cassette tapes!)

 

Library Center: Students chose books to read from our classroom library (so thankful to have a class that loves reading this year- even my kids that don't know any letters love retelling books like Pete the Cat at this center!)

 

Playdoh Center- Students made alphabet letters out of playdoh

 

Playdoh Center: Students used playdoh stampers to stamp the missing letters on these fabulous alphabet cards made by Leslie @ Kindergarten Works (playdoh stampers are from Lakeshore)

 

Pocket Chart Center: Students matched together capital and lowercase letter flashcards (happened to spot these cute flashcards at Walgreens a few weeks ago-I love that they have the animals on them to help kids that aren't great at capital/lowercase letter matching yet)

 

Computer Center: Students played the alphabet letter games on Starfall.com

 

Science Center: Students tested different objects to see if they were magnetic or not, and then sorted pictures of the objects onto the pocket chart

 

Math Center: Students made pictures out of pattern blocks

 

Math Center: Students made numbers out of wikki stix

 

 

Puzzles and Games Center: Students played this board game from my Alphabet Games Pack. Students rolled a dice, moved that number of spaces on the game board, and told their partner the letter they landed on.

 

I'd love it if you'd check this pack of alphabet games out at my TPT store. I'd also love to give away this pack of games for free to the first 2 people to leave a comment on this post (just make sure you leave your email address in your comment!). Happy Wednesday!

 

Let me know how your first days/weeks of school have been going and if your class has any fun activities they've been enjoying during center time! 

 

Snowman Shake

Here's a fun little game students can play to practice sight words (or alphabet letters for those kiddos that still need that). I got this great idea from another kindergarten teacher and my students love it. To play Snowman Shake, you need a snowman container, 2 blank dice, and the recording sheet.

The snowman is easy to make-just peel the label off a creamer bottle and draw the snowman's face on with a sharpie. If you can't find a creamer bottle or something similar to use, you could probably just draw a snowman onto a plastic cup for this game.

To make the dice-I used little foam cubes from Dollar Tree (I got a huge pack of them earlier this year and love that the foam makes such quiet dice). I have also used little wooden blocks from my classroom before to make my own dice since those blank dice at the teacher store can be pricey! Then, I just write the sight words (or alphabet letters if that is what my students are practicing) on the sides of the dice with a sharpie.

To play, students take off the snowman's hat (the lid) shake the 2 dice inside of the snowman and roll them into the little basket. Then they record the sight words they rolled on the recording sheet. Click on the picture below to grab a copy of this sight word freebie.

If you would prefer a copy of the recording sheet with alphabet letters click here. Or, for a blank copy of the recording sheet that you can write your own words on, click here.

I hope your students enjoy this game as much as mine do! Something about shaking up the dice inside the snowman makes this game endlessly appealing to 5 year olds! Even though we're now moving on from our study of all things winter and snow to begin learning about Martin Luther King and Chinese New Year, I'll leave this game out  as a literacy center for the rest of the month.

Sight Word Practice

Before I had teaching blogs and Pinterest to give me 101 classroom ideas...I have to admit that not all of my literacy center ideas were cute. I mean, this is before I even knew you could buy clipart...scary, I know!

So, this is the type of thing my kinders would find at our word work center:

Yes, it is as simple as the directions look. I put this sheet in a plastic tub with a magnetic dry erase board, a dry erase marker and eraser, a ziploc bag of magnetic letters, and a ziploc bag of notecards with sight words written on them.

Then, students would pick a sight word card out of the bag and follow the directions on the paper. For example, if they picked the word "the" they would then take the letters "t" "h" and "e" out of the bag of magnetic letters and do these steps on their magnetic dry erase board:

1. mix the letters "t" "h" and "e" up
2. make the word "the" from the magnetic letters
3. mix the letters again
4. make the word "the" again
5. use the dry erase marker to practice writing the word "the"

Then they would pick a new sight word card and repeat all over again for the new word. Really, it was that easy! Of course, now my students expect elaborate and creative games with darling little pictures all over them to match the current season...but sometimes I still make them play this game anyway!

Long days in full day kindergarten...

These last 2 weeks I have been feeling just how long full day kindergarten really is. Can the holidays be getting to my students already? Yikes! This year has been my first experience with having full day kindergarten. While I am thrilled not to have 2 half day classes (especially with assessments coming up after Thanksgiving!) I am finding that by the end of the day my kiddos are just done! Really-I'm not sure there is a single lesson I could teach after 3 o'clock that they would pay attention to. I'm exhausted at that point too!

So...I have been messing around with my schedule a bit lately, and have added an extra center time to the end of the day. This was probably one of the best ideas I have had in a long time. Unlike my literacy centers in the morning and my math centers after lunch, this end of the day center time is completely free choice (no checking the center board to see where I've assigned them).

My only rules for this "free choice" center time are:
1. No more than 3 kids at a center...because well...that is a recipe for disaster
2. Pick a center and stay at it (kinders would switch centers every 2 minutes if they could!)
3. Pick a different center than yesterday (this way everyone gets a chance at the more popular centers and I don't see the same kid at the blocks center everyday!)

I have found it so interesting to see what centers my students pick to go to at the end of the day since they have the freedom to choose. I let them pick from any of our literacy centers, any of our math centers, and any of our play centers (blocks, housekeeping, puppets, etc.).

It warms my heart to see kids who don't even know the entire alphabet yet pick the writing center because they have a "really important story to write" or want to "make a card for grandma." And luckily, those kiddos that don't know the whole alphabet or all their letter sounds yet sometimes pick the alphabet center and get some extra practice at those skills too!

I have also been surprised that many kids love to choose math centers at this time (it's a great way for me to see which of our 10 math centers they like the best).

Another favorite center has been the big book center-and not because they just love reading big books. Nope-what happens is one kid declares that they are "the teacher" and uses the pointer to completely imitate me. They have the other kids sit on the rug while they stand next to the easel and point to the words and ask "teachery" questions-it is both scary and hilarious to watch!

This week kids have been loving stamping names at our names center. See how brave I am with the purple ink? I saw the idea of using ice cube trays to hold alphabet stamps on Pinterest and it is working great!

Now, I would be lying if I said they all run to academic centers at the end of the day. Our two most popular free choice centers are the blocks center and the housekeeping center-but I am managing to be sneaky and insert a bit of skill work even into these centers! Students are busy reading lists of foods as they prepare to write their own shopping lists, counting out play money at their "store,"  and writing receipts for "customers" (ok me) that have ordered a pretend pizza. I even caught one kid writing a Thanksgiving "menu" this week.

We only have free choice centers for the last 20-25 minutes of our day-but it is very much worth it! The kids are engaged in lots of great learning and social skills practice and of course I get to do fun things like one-on-one assessments and catching kids up who missed projects.

I am very curious to hear what happens in your classroom after 3pm-can you get anything done?!

Play-doh!

Anyone else going through tons of play-doh? It has to be the best invention to keep 5 year olds occupied! My students loved it when I made them magic play-doh at the beginning of the year- it's just homemade play-doh with a dot of food coloring hidden in the middle so that when they start rolling it around in their hands it "magically" changes colors. I haven't cooked up any homemade play-doh since the first week of school, but I did just see a recipe for pumpkin pie play-doh on Pinterest last night. I bet it smells delicious-I only hesitate to make it because with the class I have this year-surely some of them would try to eat it!

My students love our play-doh literacy station. At the beginning of the year they rolled out long skinny "play-doh snakes" and shaped them into alphabet letters. Now that we are further along in the school year, it is all about play-doh stamping. I wrote a grant for Lakeshore's wonderful play-doh letter stampers a few years ago, and they have been wonderful! My students love stamping our sight words. Lately they have been using the play-doh word work pack from Leslie at Kindergarten Works. They are practicing stamping the missing letter and also stamping sight words (there are also CVC picture cards and word family stamping mats too that I'll let them use later in the year).

Luckily I had a parent generously donate many cans of play-doh last year, so we haven't run out yet. However, I just found a great use for our empty play-doh cans. Play-doh cans make a great storage container for small game pieces. For example, in my alphabet station this week students are playing Mrs. Wills' Fall ABC Matching Game and all the little game cards fit perfectly into the play-doh can!

Now bigger game cards definitely won't fit, but anything small-like small math manipulatives or letter tiles fit easily. Mrs. Wills recommends using a frosting jar for many of her math station game cards-so that would be a good option if you need storage for bigger cards or game pieces (but I am trying to stay away from the frosting-so I don't have any of those jars to recycle!!). You could even make cute little labels to stick on your play-doh cans to match the materials you are storing inside of them-no time for that this week though as I must finish my report cards!

Station Management

I am a big fan of using a workboard to manage stations. My students use our workboard each day to see what literacy and math stations they'll be going to. I have been using Debbie Diller's literacy work stations kit for my workboard for several years now and love it! It has a card for me to write each student's name and stick on a photo (I covered up the photos with apples in the picture below to give my students a little privacy, so just imagine they are student photos). Next to the students' picture cards are the stations they are assigned to each day. Each student goes to 3 literacy stations in the morning and 2 math stations in the afternoon. The literacy station cards come from Debbie Diller's work station pack- and have cute icons to help the kids figure out which station to go to. When I began doing math stations this year I just made some number cards to put on my workboard for those.

At the end of each day, I quickly move all of the station cards down a row, with the very bottom row moving up to the top (I do not move the students' photos). I have magnets on the back of all my station cards so it is easy to just slide them down on the magnetic board. I do not use Debbie Diller's station pocket chart because it doesn't have room for more than two stations a day. This year I'm using a cheap oil drip pan I bought at a local auto store and spray painted white for my workboard (because there was no extra room for stations on my magnetic white board at the front of the classroom). I love how the pan is magnetic-and you can't really tell it was an oil drip pan because it is covered in stations cards. I just wish it was a little bigger-you can see one of my student's photo cards is practically hanging off the bottom since I ran out of space.

My students are all partnered up for station time-and really 2 students at each station is perfect-although when I have an odd number of students I end up having one group of 3. I have found that if more than 2-3 students work together they tend to get into mischief! When I pull reading or math groups, I do not worry if I split up a partnership (and one partner comes to my table and one partner stays at their station)-the kids know that if their partner is pulled to work with me then they will just have to work at their station alone. I am NOT a station-I like to pull kids for as much or as little time as I like and not have to wait for the stations to rotate (I rotate them about every 15 minutes).

I don't worry too much about partnering my students up with a partner of similar ability (although if I have any extremely high kids I tend to put them together so they don't do the station for their partner and also so I can sometimes give them more challenging activities). I really tend to partner my kids together more by personality-and I try to put kids together who will get along but not so well that they will be chatting all the way through station time! Partnering boys with girls has worked very well for my class this year.

I train students in the beginning of the year how to use our workboard-and they catch on surprisingly quickly. I absolutely start using the workboard the first week of school. We all sit in front of the board and I help each pair of students find their photos on the board and which station they are assigned to. Then after the first station is over, I ring my bell and we all come back over to the board and we find what station each pair of students is assigned to next. After 2-3 weeks of school, all of my students are able to figure out independently what stations they are supposed to go to and we don't have to meet back at the board between each station to go over it.

My literacy stations are spaced out all over the room-and students know where to go for our library station, our writing station, our listening station, etc. The little sign at each station matches the icon on the workboard's station cards.

For our math work stations, each pair of students has been assigned a table spot to work at. Then they just grab the numbered math bin they have been assigned that day off my math bin shelf, and go get started on the math station activity in that bin.

When math station time is over, my students put their math station bins back on the shelf. I did have to put little numbered stickers on my shelf so that the students could figure out where each bin belongs (number order was a tricky concept those first few weeks of kindergarten!).

I have a small filing cabinet in my room that I devote to storage of math station activities. However, that filing cabinet is starting to get pretty full with all of the awesome math station activities I have been downloading from other bloggers. So, my new plan is to keep more generic math stations in my file cabinet (like the games for learning shapes and telling time) and then if a math station has a seasonal theme (like apple patterns or counting pumpkins) I will store it with the rest of my teaching stuff for that particular month (I have big sterilite tubs in my classroom closet labeled for each month that I keep my seasonal teaching materials and theme stuff in).

I'd love to hear how you all stay organized and manage your work stations and centers!