Here is a sneak peak at something new we are working on–Winter Pattern Play! This isn’t your everyday pattern work. It is pattern work with a twist of word work (beginning sounds and blends), addition, shape drawing, and holidays around the world. It should be posted by the end of the week!
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!
On each sheet your students will:
**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}.
Each week I like to have a craft for my kindergartener to complete. But, I don’t just want him coloring, cutting, and gluing for fun. No!?! I want him learning! So we have been working on tying our craft time in with our sight word work. And it has been so FUN! Here are a couple of sight word crafts he completed these last two weeks. These were for the words “do” and “jump.”
Do you like my party hat?
Of course, some of my other kids enjoy the crafts, too :). And here is what we did for “jump.” Finn loved making his frog.
Finn’s frog can jump.
Both of these crafts are part of our Ultimate Sight Words 2 pack that will be available later this fall.
Check out the Ultimate Sight Words {1st Series} and see all that is part of this phonemic learning tool!
Hope your school year is off to a great start!
Are you thinking about the first day of school, yet? I have a little freebie for you from MY CALENDAR: Holidays & Celebrations. It is a FUN way to introduce the calendar to your Kinders, or remind your Firsties about how we use the calendar. It is only available at my TPT store. So, hop on over and grab it while its there!
Here are some number word cards (for numbers 1-12) that you can use along with the number cards (pictured in color above), number order and abbreviation cards in My Calendar Companion. You can download the number word cards here.
We all LOVE summer vacation, but not the “summer slide”! One of the ways I’m keeping my kids learning this summer is with My Calendar. The My Calendar Companion {for grades K-2} has so many great printables to use each month. Just yesterday we used the build-a-calendar for June, the 2015 year-at-a-glance calendar, the numeric date teaching tool, The Four Seasons responsive reader, and the seasons posters.
After using the My Calendar Companion printables, my kindergartener was ready to complete the June calendar sheet.
On each MONTHLY CALENDAR WORKSHEET, your kids will:
** Write today’s date (month, day, year)
** Choose today’s day of the week
** Write the date numerically
** Write the month abbreviation
** Write the number of days in the month
** Dot the ten-frames with today’s number (date)
** Tally today’s number
** Determine whether today’s number is even or odd
** Mark today’s season
** Dot the today’s number as money
** Complete the sequence
(Each sheet also has a number line).
** There are also simple equations and counting exercises that are unique to each sheet. So, don’t let your kindergartener get caught sliding this summer. Keep them engaged with these FUN, hands-on activities!
Are you getting ready to start sight words? You are going to LOVE the ULTIMATE SIGHT WORDS Bundle and MORNING WORD WORK. Click on the pictures, or links, to see how your children can have FUN while learning to be GREAT readers and spellers!
There are a lot, lot, lot of sight word products out there. And I have used a variety of them with my kids. But, this year I wanted to give my kindergartener comprehensive sight word instruction. Not simply a sight word practice page from this source, a build-a-sentence sheet from another source (often with words that I hadn’t yet taught them); an assessment sheet from another source, and finally some fluency practice from yet another source (again, with words that hadn’t yet been learned)! Plus, I wanted him to have FUN and build up his fine motor skills. Don’t we all want to make the most of the time our young ones are sitting still and attentive? I know I do!
Here is the Comprehensive Sight Word Instruction approach we used:
Step 1. Introduce the Word: Spot the Sight Word
With Spot the Sight Word he learned the sounds that made up the new sight word (colored and dotted them); found the sight word from among other similarly spelled words; wrote the word twice on the lines; stamped the letters (I encouraged him to stamp the sounds); wrote the word in prompted text boxes; found the word in a sentence he could read; built the word with letter tiles he cut off the bottom of the page; and finally, built another sight word (or high frequency noun) he had already learned from the remaining letters on the page (built-in review!) That is nine activities on one page! And some awesome fine motor skills work: cutting, stamping, dotting, coloring and writing!
Step 2. Use it in a Sentence: Color as You Read, Then Build a Sentence
Out next step was to use the new sight word in a sentence with other words that are already known. On each Color as You Read, Then Build a Sentence sheet the words to the sentence (plus the punctuation) are scrambled at the bottom of the page. They are also in the color code key and throughout the drawing. He colored the words in the picture; cut the words off the bottom of the page; unscrambled them; built the sentence; and then wrote it!
Step 3: Sight Word Application: It’s Craft Time!
We practiced the sight word “have” the same week we practiced “like”, so this craft used both words. Of course its a Melonheadz bobbleheadz kitty face. Four of my kids joined in on this craft and made their own cat. Four indoor cats that don’t need litter boxes are my kind of cats!
Step 4: Sight Word Assessment and Review: Read it, Match it and My Sight Words
Periodically through our First Series of sight words I gave him these Read It, Match it Assessments to complete. He cut the simple sentences off the bottom of the page and matched them to the pictures.
Every couple weeks we’d review the words that he learned on his My Sight Words sheet. I LOVE these! It is so fun to see all the words he is learning in one snapshot. He built the word with letter beads; colored it on his sheet; and finally used it in a simple sentence, or phrase.
Step 5: Fluency
Fluency is a big buzz word these days! We all want to be assured that our kids are truly reading. And more than that, I want to know that they understand what they read. So, our fluency sheets for each sight word include comprehension.
I like to use these fluency sheets toward the end of the week. Before I give him the sheet, I cut off the pictures at the bottom of the page.
To complete the sheet he reads and dots the word’s phonemes; writes the word in a prompted text box; reads each sentence once–dotting the circle at the end of the sentence and writing the sight word where it is missing in the last sentence; cuts the pictures apart; reads the sentence again and finds a picture that matches the sentence–dots the cameras as he completes this task; finally, he reads the sentence again demonstrating proficiency–dotting the last circle.
In the Ultimate Sight Words {First Series} there are also three comprehensive fluency sheets. These he would simply read. I would mark them as correct.
Step 6: FUN! Games and a little motivation!
We played a variety of games with our sight words–matching (with two copies of the words he had learned); Go Fish!; noun match (matching the high frequency noun with its picture); Do-Uno? (a Uno-style game); unscramble the sight words; Superstar bingo; and a Superstar Sight Word Game.
It is always FUN to learn and play! It is also FUN to celebrate what you have learned. The Superstar Punch-Card gave him another way to demonstrate his mastery of the sight words. Every few weeks I’d have him read what he new and hole-punch ’em!
I always like looking back over the school year during the last week of school. It amazes me what my kids have learned. I enjoy filling their final notebook with all the highlights of the year–their creative writing; calendar worksheets; math fluency and scripture memory sheets.
And, of course, my kids LOVE getting their awards!
I also like having them recount their “favorites.” The kids all have fun reading each others answers. I enjoy seeing what they consider to be their achievements. I also like getting a peak at the dreams (for their future and the summer) that they don’t always verbalize.
You may have noticed that Kindergarten Jedi is loaded with fun and engaging math and literacy worksheets (print-n-go) for your young padawans. But, did you know that it also has a wonderful word building game that all your kids can enjoy together?
Solo’s Sound Wars will challenge your kindergarteners to sound out and build CVC and CVCC words. It will also allow your older children to demonstrate their spelling abilities and teach the younger ones something new!
My fifth, third, second and kindergarten children played Solo’s Sound Wars with some FUN and AMAZING results!
They built plenty of CVC words; used the true blends and double consonants; and demonstrated mastery of vowel teams!
If you have four boys like I do, you probably have a few lightsabers lying around your house. Here are some printables especially designed for your youngest padawans. New today! Kindergarten Jedi is loaded with great literacy and math learning. Best of all, your little ones will have FUN with every activity.
The literacy printables include:
**Solo’s Sound Wars–a word-building game that will improve your students’ sound/letter recognition and blending skills. It includes double consonants and true blends so your students at all learning levels will LOVE it!
**Jedi ABC Order
**Wookie has a Cookie—rhyming words
**Stormtrooper’s Letter S
**Roll it, Say it, Trace it—lowercase letters
**Circle the Letter Match
**Vader’s Swap the Vowel—Replace the vowels to form new words and match them to their picture.
**Leia’s Sounding out CVCs—Spin for a beginning and ending consonant. Form a word with “a” and decide whether it is real or nonsense.
**Vader’s Vowel Sort—Sort the consonants from the vowels.
**Vader’s Vowels—A responsive reader focusing on the short vowel sounds.
**Chewie’s Listen to the Vowel—Listening for the long and short a & i vowel sounds and sorting the pictures.
**Star Wars Sight Word—”the”—Getting to know the sight word “the” and the Star Wars characters.
The math printables include:
**Counting Strips—Star Wars figures that are used on the next three pages for counting.
*
*Luke’s Flip it, Name it and Count it—using dominoes
**R2-D2’s Roll One & Add 2
**R2-D2’s Roll Two & Subtract 2
**R2-D2’s Roll Two & Add
**Star Wars Count, Tally & Graph
**Han’s Numbers 1-6 Match & Write—Number recognition and handwriting practice.
**Leia’s Spin 2 & Add
**C3PO’s Spin and Subtract 3; Count by 3
You can WIN a copy of KINDERGARTEN JEDI at Teacher’s Notebook. Just click on the image below to enter the giveaway (now through May 3rd).
