Phonological Awareness FREEBIE

Although, we are nearing the 100th day of school, I still have a few students who are developing their phonological awareness.

During RTI, we work closely to hone these skills.  I love using this but have found that I need more items to support their learning.

I created this Phonological Awareness Bingo game because I noticed that my students struggled to put 3 sounds together.  As we use it, students must be able to put the sounds that I say into words.  Then, they must match the picture.  This requires careful listening as there are similar pictures.

We have been playing for several weeks and I have noticed a great improvement in their ability to blend sounds into words with and without pictures.

I thought that you might enjoy this game for your students, too. Click the image to get your copy.

If you do download this freebie, I'd appreciate a comment to this question.
What do you do to help develop your students phonological skills?

Happy Teaching,

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Teach with Sit Spots

I love SitSpots!

SitSpots are traditionally used as a management system. They work perfectly for those of us who may not have a large area rug.  The SitSpots help kids know where to sit or stand.

When I first read about it them on Ms.M's blog, I was intrigued.  So, I ordered the sample.

When the free sample apple arrived, I used it to help my class know where to line up for recess.  This system has worked perfectly.  After months of use, the free SitSpot sample is still holding strong.

A few months later, I decided to purchase more SitSpots.  But this time, I had an idea.  I wanted the SitSpots to help support my teaching.  Often when reading blogs and browsing through Pinterest, I see many engaging lessons using the area rug.  Unfortunately, my classroom is not the size of a traditional kindergarten classroom.  With SitSpots, I am able to create similar lessons.

I purchased 5 red and 5 yellow SitSpots to mimic our red and yellow counters.  I use these to create addition sentences.  If I had had these in the beginning of the year, I would have used them to help with substizing and working with the five or ten frame.

But my favorite use for SitSpots is to support Phonological Awareness.

Using three SitSpots of the same color and two footprint spots, my students hop and blend phonemes to   produce words orally.  This system has worked wonders for my little ones who are struggling to hear and blend sounds into words.  First I give them a picture card found here.  Then, as a group, we review the sounds for each spot.  Finally, the child hops the sound for each spot and says the word when they hop onto the footprints.  I can immediately hear their errors if any and correct them.

My kids love this activity. They think we are playing a hopping game! They don't realize that they are learning. But truly they are as we are now able to apply this skill onto print.

Would you like to try SitSpots?  Joyce, a kindergarten teacher and the creator of SitSpots, has graciously offered to giveaway a classroom set of 30 SitSpots of your choice.  For more details, see below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is only open to US residents only.  

GIVEAWAY HAS NOW CLOSED

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Our Learning - In Pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words.  - Albert Einstein

Here are a few things that we've been up to in our classroom.

It's all good when you have a Pete the Cat mask. 

In honor of Read Across America, I was Pete the Cat.  

So, of course, I needed a few friends.  

We celebrated Read Across America by sharing our favorite books.

Then, we wrote about it.

 In social studies, we learned about maps.  We explored how to make a map of our home. 

This Target rug became an inspiration for a math center.

The greedy Leprechaun is known to slide over the rainbow to steal the gold.  

My intervention group has been helping Bob learn to rhyme. 

They found Bob to be so silly and were more than willing to help him learn to rhyme.

We wrote an interactive rhyming book.   

 Finally,

this has been my view lately.  Away from my students; assessing 1-1.  I love the data that it gives me and parents but I dislike not engaging and interacting with my class all day long.

I hope to be back to blogging soon.  In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook where you'll get an almost daily look into my teaching.

Until then,

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The Hat and Animals in the Winter

This was our first week back after Winter Break.

Fitting "everything in" has been somewhat of a challenge this school year as we are required to teach our reading series with fidelity.  Well, we had this week "off." As a result, I was able to spend more time on teaching other literature and incorporating a winter theme throughout the day.

Not wanting to have my students loose valuable learning time, I used Hello Two Peas in a Pod's  Phonological Awareness Curriculum for January.  We read The Hat and followed the lesson plan format.  My students were engaged and I loved how easy it was to teach! I could see instantly what my students need in Phonemic Awareness.

At the end of the week, we made Hedgie to go along with the story.

The one on the left is what I intended it to look like.  The one of the right was what we made.  The students painted snow onto a transparency.  While that dried, we created our Hedgie.  The original idea can be found here.  

Students enjoyed fun winter themed literacy centers.  They made sight words using this snowballs created by Little Minds at Work.  Ice fishing was a huge hit!  All you need is a box to go along with this Lakeshore game .  I simply wrote the words onto the fish with a Sharpie.  Lastly, we reviewed rhymes with this mitten hanging center.

Our favorite activity was learning which animals hibernate or migrate.

We learned about dens and made paper bag dens using a lunch bag, cotton and paper plate.  Simple but effective. We turned our buddy reading area into a den.  If you look closely, you can see a few book boxes that students could use during their reading time. 

Finally, we sorted our stuffed animal collection and discussed if it would hibernate or migrate.  This song went along perfectly.  

Overall, it was a productive first week back to school.

Happy Teaching and Learning!

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Listening for Long Vowels

We are in LONG VOWEL mode for the remainder of the year in our classroom!  Honestly, I can't believe it has taken us so long to formally introduce this concept especially since we expect our kids to be reading at DRA 10 by December.  To tell you the truth, I've snuck it in a little here and there.  If you'd like to know how, read about it here.

We will spend the first week just familarizing ourselves with listening for long vowels.  I plan to build their phonemic awareness prior to even thinking about reading or writing long vowels.  I will be using some of the products by Nancy Fetzer, a nationally recognized literacy curriculum expert and staff development trainer, who is also a California local.  I like the Spelling and Phonics Program: Featuring the Magical Land of Words of hers the best and use it most often in my classroom. 

To help get back into school mode, the first day we will review what is a vowel.  We will do a simple vowel and consonant sort.  I want to make sure everyone knows this before moving on.

Then, we will use these little "stories" to help us remember about the vowel sounds.  Each child, will get one to keep in their book box.  They will have these handy during their independent reading time.

 

Students will make these mini answer boards.  One side will have the Short Vowel picture and cue and the other will have the Long Vowel picture and cue.  Then, each day as we practice, they will show me their answer as I check for understanding.  I plan to use them also as their exit slip individually throughout the week. 

 

Later in the week, the students will use pictures and do a picture sort.  The standard in California is to be able to listen for long vowels in single syllable words. I will use this as an evidence of their learning. 

Nancy Fetzer Freebies Download

Please check out her website, http://www.nancyfetzer.com/   She has much more to offer in other areas of literacy at reasonable prices!   

Happy Teaching and Learning!

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