Words of Wisdom

Making Leaps and Bounds!

Good morning, friends!!  I am so proud to report that my Kinders are growing by leaps and bounds.  When I first started seeing them in October, the majority of my group did not know their alphabet nor their letter sounds.  Now it is mid-March and we are just about at mastery level on all 26 letters AND sounds.  So thrilled with my kiddos' progress. They've been working SO hard.  :)

Next on our agenda is learning how to put our letter sounds together to make CVC (consonant/vowel/consonant) words.  Here is a fun little activity that I know my students will love.  

They feel so grown up when they can read and write a new word!

 

Thanks to Andrea Mason at i-heart-kindergarten for this fun lesson!

And, here is another awesome set of CVC pictures from Mrs. Albanese's class to jumpstart a learning lesson about sound stretching and word building.  Enjoy!

More St. Patrick's Day Gold!

Hi all!  Since my last St. Patrick's Day post was a language arts lesson, I decided to find a good math activity to share.  This activity is so cute and lots of fun.  I am going to use this with my fourth and fifth graders since it involves multi-step problem solving.  It covers all operations and is a great  review.  It will be a nice break from our Moving With Math curriculum- using the required workbook can become very tedious. Here's another fabulous activity from Classroom Game Nook!  Hope your kiddos enjoy it as much as mine did.  :)

Consonant Confusion

Hello all!  Just wanted to pop in to share an AMAZING activity with you that I found on Pinterest last night.  If you teach Kinders and Firsties, you know that sometimes their young brains have difficulty discerning between b's and d's and p's and q's.  On my classroom white board, I have this helpful picture-  We refer to it A LOT.

Even by the time students reach second or third grade, you may still see accidental reversals.  This "Flip the Letter" activity, shared by Classroom Game Nook, is sure to get your kiddos comfortable with these tricky letters that often stump them in their writing and reading.  Click the pic below to bring you to your free download.  Hope your students enjoy it!

St. Patty's Day Synonyms

Top o' the mornin' to ya!!!!  Can you believe it is March already?!  It's certainly about to come in as a lion, since the weatherman is forecasting a snowstorm here in the southeastern states.  We will keep our fingers crossed- Winter has been so mild this year!  My kids are dying to put on their gloves and snow boots and go sledding in some white stuff.

I have a fun freebie for you today.  This synonyms packet comes from Second Grade Pad and is perfect for grades 1-3.  To get started, I like to read the book, Stroll and Walk, Babble and Talk: More About Synonyms, to get the kids warmed up and thinking about words that can replace other words in speaking and in writing.  This is a good opportunity to help your students see, that the more synonyms they know, the more interesting their writing can be!  Their vocabulary will expand and so will their ability to communicate more effectively.

I don't know about your kids, but mine LOVE the game "I have, Who has?"  We use this game in just about every subject area.  This set reviews synonyms with an Irish flair!!  This little unit includes the  I have, Who has? game and a writing activity.  There is even an answer key to the writing portion if you want to have the kids self-check during independent center time.  Click below for your download.

Blending In....

Good afternoon all,
It's a cold and rainy day here in good ol' RVA.  Hope you are staying warm and dry, wherever you are!  :)

For the next couple of weeks in Tier II reading, we will be covering consonant blends and digraphs.  My Kindergartners and first graders are working on ch, sh, and th.  I try to cover these immediately after letter identification and letter sound mastery.  My third graders are now working on a number of different beginning and ending blends and digraphs.  We have lots of fun activities to explore these sounds and to practice reading them in context.  First, I have a couple of fun charts for you courtesy of Ladybug's Teacher Files.  Click on the images to download your printables.

Consonant Blends Chart-

Digraphs Chart-

In addition, I found this fantastic center activity on Make Take Teach that I plan on constructing and using in my classroom for years to come.  I am always looking for activities that my students can work on either cooperatively or independently during center time.  My goal this week is to print these out with the color printer and then laminate them for durability.  The students will practice their blends by identifying the picture on the card and filling in the correct blend with a dry erase marker.  Click on the picture to get your very own set of phonics cards!

I can't say enough great things about Make Take Teach.  The phonics lessons are perfect for intervention groups and "regular" classrooms alike.  It also has some awesome St. Patrick's Day  activities available for download right now-  Go check it out!

To all my readers-

Hope you're having a great weekend! Ours is full of basketball and winter soccer playoffs. I promise to post something fun and educational very soon.