Sight Word Centers

The students love the white board I use at circle rug, so I decided to make it a center. When they are here, they simply try and write as many sight words as they can. Then, they can turn around to check the word wall to make sure their spelling is correct.

As you all know, writing is huge in Kindergarten. The student above is writing their sight words. Also take note of the finger space. I just love it!

Telephone

If you are trying to find a way to get kids engaged in reading, this is it! It looks like a telephone, but it helps them to hear themselves reading. It is a great tool and they love to use it.

Silent 'e'

Above, you will see a small group of students I am working with. One student is explaining the rule using his own words. 

Student Friendly: I can read words with long and short vowels.

Hip, Hip, Hooray! It's the 100th Day!

It's me dressed like I'm 100 years old!

The kids had a lot of fun doing centers and fun activities related to 100.

Popcorn Sight Words

For reteach, I have been trying to find new activities to help them learn more than just their sight words. The activity below is so simple to create and the students really seemed to have a lot of fun with it. 

The bucket consists of crumpled up yellow and white paper. Hidden within the paper the students found their sight words written on paper that looks like popcorn. Using a clothes pin, the students had to search for a sight word and pull it out. It was great for those who needed a little extra help with their fine motor skills. 

Each day I plan to put a twist on it. This week, as a class, we are working really hard to count to 50. To help us, each student has 50 seconds to get as many of the sight word pieces out of the popcorn tub. The student looking for popcorn pieces has to know their sight words and the students awaiting their turn are practicing counting to 50.

For this activity to be more like a game, you could also put in different popcorn pieces that say lose a turn or one free popcorn piece. The ideas for this activity are endless!

Student Friendly: I can read my sight words with fluency.

Snap Cube Addition

 Today the students learned another addition strategy, using snap cubes. They did really well with the lesson and did not even doodle this time on their white boards!

Student Friendly: I can add using different strategies.

Awards Assembly

The students in Room 4 came away winners from this quarters awards and not because of the awards they won. I was so humbled to see how each of my students reacted when one of their classmates received an award. They were not upset because they did not get an award, but were cheering each other on. I am so proud of each and every one of my students. For a Kindergarten classroom to be happy for one another winning is amazing. Not everyone got an award and all I heard was positive comments. 

We did walk away with an award as an entire class. Below you will see a picture of our award from library. All of the specials at the school use a point system with 5 being the best. At the end of their special, they receive a point based upon how well they did. Our class had the highest points in library so we received an award and a new book for our classroom library. You could say that I am a very proud teacher! It's amazing how these kids make me feel.

Sight Word Songs

This class absolutely loves to sing! On YouTube I was able to find fun sight word videos by Jack Hartmann which I incorporate daily into my lessons with sight words. The repetition is great and I love how Jack goes through the spelling of the sight words. The font is also large which is easy for all of my students to read regardless of where they are sitting.

Student Friendly: I can read my sight words with fluency.

F is for Fish and Flags

This week we learned all about letter Ff. We talked about many different things such as fish and farms. To help us learn our letter, we read different books, created many different art projects, and played lots of games that helped us with the sounds that the letters make.

F is for flag. Learning about flags was a fun way to incorporate a little Social Studies into the classroom. We were able to look at a map of where we were and where the other country was located. The United States of America, Mexico, and Canada were the three flags that we studied. I was even able to find a fun video of kids their age in the other countries. I love when we can learn one thing across multiple subjects.

F is for fish. To help us learn letter Ff, we also read many books. I am sure you can all guess that we read a book about a special rainbow fish. That particular book has so many lessons in it as well. We had fun counting the fish gills, learning about fish in science, and most importantly to them was that they got to use glitter!

Student Friendly: I can identify the sounds that letters make.

The Week After Break

I must admit that it is true what they say, I truly did miss all of my students over Christmas break. When we came back from school last Monday I was more than delighted to receive many hugs and to hear the words, "Mrs. Brown, I missed you!". I am very excited to start our 3rd quarter to see how much the students and myself can learn. I will do my best to keep you posted about all of our crazy Kindergarten adventures.