Word Work in a Snap!

Here is a great way to assess how your kinders are doing with their letter sounds, word building and sight word memorization.  Word Work in a Snap!  has a page for every letter; reviews long and short vowel sounds (as well as soft and hard sounds); has guided CVC and CVCC word building; and provides a great review of Pre-Primer, plus a few Primer, sight words. We started using these FUN worksheets last summer. They are a great review!

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On each sheet your students will:

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**1**WRITE the capital and lowercase target letter (prompts provided).

**2**IDENTIFY all pictures that begin with that letter’s sound (or end with the sound for the letter ‘x’). Use this section to assess your student’s phonemic awareness and understanding of long and short vowel sounds as well as hard and soft ‘c’ and ‘g’ sounds.

**3**BUILD CVC and a few CVCC (no true blends) words for each picture. Letter formation prompts are provided in this section to encourage accurate handwriting.

**4**MAGNIFY two sight words in the final picture.

**5**WRITE these sight words in the text boxes and on handwriting lines. This section focuses on a review of Pre-Primer and a few Primer sight words.

**6**FIND the two sight words among a framed box of various word choices and DOT them.

>The sight words in this pack include: and, away, big, blue, come, came, do, down, ate, eat, for, you, go, get, here, help, in, is, jump, on, make, black, look, like, me, my, not, now, one, out, play, please, say, said, red, run, see, saw, to, the, up, under, have, not, we, where, find, funny, yellow, yes, three, little.

Would you like to give WORD WORK in a SNAP! a try?  Grab this {FREEBIE}.

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Sonlight’s Core D

Are your kids starting Sonlight’s Core D this year? You are going to LOVE this year of Sonlight. It is the first year that the readers and read-alones have a meaningful role in the Language Arts assignments.

This will be our fifth year using Core D. And I am excited to share with you some great supplements that will help your children accomplish their work independently.  In our home of eight children, independent seat-work is essential (to my sanity :)!

DAY 1: DICTATION DONE RIGHT for THIRD

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This year, your children will transition from copywork to dictation. I have found the three-step method of Dictation Done Right to work well for all of my children.  It helps them to get the most out of dictation–and to understand why and when they need to punctuate or capitalize a word.

Slide1Click on the Three-Step picture above to view the steps in detail.  After your children complete Dictation Done Right they will be ready to listen to you read the passage as they write it.

DAYS 2-4:  A YEAR of CREATIVE EXPRESSION for THIRD

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I know it is difficult to get your kids to write a paper each week— we have had our share of tears around here.

Writing should be FUN!

I have found that my kids needed a bit more structure to help them get their creative juices flowing.  That is what I have poured into every page of A YEAR of CREATIVE EXPRESSION for THIRD. Would you like to see the preview? You can here!  It is wonderful how, with the right tools, your children can think through their writing assignments independently!

Enjoy the last few days of summer and have fun this year in Core D–you’re going to LOVE it!

**There is no affiliation between Sonlight Curriculum and PreparilliPress.**

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Independent Seatwork Activities with Sonlight’s Core C

One of the cores I taught last year was Sonlight’s Core C.  This was my third time through this particular core.  And though I love Sonlight’s Language Arts (especially the read-alouds and read-alones), I don’t find the activity sheets too helpful.  You can use them as recording sheets.  But, what I needed was something to put in my son’s workbox.  Something with directions (which are only found in the Instructor’s Guide) and inspiration…some independent seatwork.    So, instead of searching the web for hands-on activities to add to his daily Language Arts assignments, I made printables that he could use to complete the Language Arts 2 activities. Not extra busy-work…but independent seatwork you can use with Sonlight.

Here is a peek of the independent seatwork for Week 1:

Slide01Day One:  Compound Word Cards & Recording Sheet to help your child learn this week’s spelling words.

Day Two: Punctuation Rule Cards that your child will use to complete this week’s Copywork Application, Creative Expression, and Write a Sentence, or Two activities.  You will want to store these on a loose-leaf ring (because we will add to them throughout the year) and have them handy each week. Sentence Scramble is a hands-on print & go sheet.  Your child will cut out the color-coded word tiles at the bottom of the page, put then in and order that makes sense and then record the sentences.

Day Three:  Descriptive Words is a student planning sheet with prompts to help your child prepare to write their descriptive paragraph on Day Four.  You can give this to your child to fill in on their own; or use it when you meet with your child to help guide their creative writing preparations.

Day Four:  Animal Description Recording Sheet has room for your child to record (or dictate to you, and you record) their paragraph and draw a picture of the animal they are describing.

Day Five: Write a Sentence, or Two is a weekly sentence writing challenge.  This week’s challenge is to write sentences, using the spelling words presented on Day One, that begin with a capital letter and end with a period, question mark or exclamation point.  Be sure to have this week’s Punctuation Rule Cards handy!  I Spy Adjectives is a workbox-friendly I Spy activity.  Your child will write down descriptive words (adjectives) for the things they see in the picture. Download a free copy of this sheet by clicking the link below (all the artwork is by Melonheadz):

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I Spy Adjectives!

Best yet, you can WIN the first 12 weeks of Write Each Day for Second: Indpendent Seatwork with Sonlight by entering my Teacher’s Notebook giveway this week (ends July 13, 2014).

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