Partner Reading Folders

Lego Have Some Fun

Chrissa just received 3 sets of Legos from DonorChoose. We're so excited to to make these for all of her classrooms!

Click on the links to download from other blogs! Please comment below with other resources you've found.

Lego Number Cards

Lego Pattern Cards

Lego Numbers and Counting

:)

Chrissa and Stefanie

Phonemic Awareness Songs

Here are just some of our favorite songs to develop phonemic awareness. We wish we knew who to give credit to!

*Just sing and have fun helping students focus on hearing and generating sounds, no need to put these on charts for them.

 Identifying Phonemes (change songs for first/last/middle sounds)

Tune: London Bridge is Falling Down

What’s the [first sound] that you hear,

that you hear, that you hear,

What’s the [first sound] that you hear,

that you hear in ___, ___, and ___ ? (show pictures or objects)

/ / is the [first sound] that we hear, that we hear, that we hear.

/ / is the [first sound] that we hear at the [beginning] of

___, ___, and ___.

Tune: Old MacDonald Had a Farm

Which sound comes first in these words:

five, fat and fish? (show pictures or objects)

/f/ is the first sound in these words:

five, fat and fish

With a /f/ /f/ here and /f/ /f/ there,

Here a /f/, there a /f/, everywhere a /f/ /f/

/f/ is the first sound in these words:

five, fat and fish

Tune: BINGO

There is a kid in our class whose name starts like this
/k/ /k/ /k/ /k/ /k/
/k/ /k/ /k/ /k/ /k/
/k/ /k/ /k/ /k/ /k/
And [his] name is Kyle
Kyle stand up, Kyle stand up, Kyle stand up and...

Jump, jump, jump!

Phoneme Blending

Tune: Frere Jacques

Put the sounds together.

Put the sounds together.

/c/ /a/ /t/

/c/ /a/ /t/

What’s the word we made?

What’s the word we made?

cat, cat, cat

Onset and Rime

(this is Chrissa's favorite...)

Tune: Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Can we sing this silly song?

Can we sing it all along?

Listen with your ear to the sounds you will hear.

I will say first sound and you will add the rime [/-ake/]

How many words can we make?

If I say /b/, you say ___.

If I say /c/, you say ___.

If I say /r/, you say ___.

If I say /f/, you say ___.

If I say /w/, you say ___.

If I say /sn/, you say ___.

etc.

Enjoy!
Chrissa & Stefanie

Outline Mats

Happy Saturday everyone!

Today we want to share some work center mats for practice with ABCs, high-frequency words, and numbers. The kiddos love using these mats with pom pom balls and tweezers, and it helps to strengthen their fine motor muscles too!

You can download the mats in our TPT store!

The bundle includes: 120+ high frequency words, the alphabet, and numbers!

They can also be used with pom poms, playdough, Wikki Stix, dry erase, or under gel bags, etc.

These are the tweezers they're using! Click here.

Enjoy and happy weekend everyone!
Stefanie and Chrissa

How to Make a Letter Tray

We've received so many inquiries about our magnetic letter trays! Here's some more info!

Materials you will need:

1. First, get some cookies sheets. Tip: Grab a magnet while you're in the kitchen aisle to make sure the cookie sheet is magnetic. :)

2. Then, use a ruler and pencil to sketch out where to place the letters.

3. Next, use oil-based paint markers to draw lines and write the letters.

4. Last, add your magnetic letters.

Now you are ready to have fun building words with your kiddos!

*Feel free to use this post as a how-to mentor text. jk jk :P

Comment below!

Chrissa & Stefanie

BUILDING WORDS

The following is based on the work of Patricia Cunningham and Tim Rasinski.

the TCRWP posted a pic from Chrissa's classroom! :D

PART 1: MAKING THE WORDS
Tell students which words to make and give them clues as necessary.
Ex.

• "Change just the first letter to spell..."
• "Change one letter to spell..."
• "Add one letter to spell..."
• "If you move the letters in this word around, these same letters can spell a different word."

*Tips: 

• We find that the magnetic letters are easier to manipulate and store than paper letter cards.
• Make alphabet charts and vowel charts available to students. 
• For our beginning ELLs, we like to have pictures of the words prepared if possible so they are exposed to the meanings of new vocabulary words.
• Differentiate by using the appropriate lesson for each of your groups. Who's working on final consonants? Who's working on spelling with medial short vowels?

Show each word on an index card and put them in a pocket chart so students can check. The quick pacing of the lessons is important so it's best to have word cards prepped before hand. There are other places outside of this lesson for students to write the words.

PART 2: SORTING THE WORDS
Sort the rhyming words and then guide students to notice the similar spelling patterns. ex. "cat, bat, rat all rhyme and they have -at!" (If you have more time, you could also sort by first letter, same vowel, or kinds of words: nouns, verbs, etc. before sorting rhyming words.)

PART 3: TRANSFERRING WORDS
"We can use the words we sorted to help us read and write new words." Show students a new word; can they use the patterns they just noticed to read the new word? Ask them to help you write a word or sentence; can they use the patterns they just noticed to write a new word?

Check out these resources for more information:

We posted some of the beginning lessons for building words with short words in our TPT store.

Have a great week!
Chrissa & Stefanie

Math with Dominoes

Looking for a fun way to practice subitizing, number recognition. and counting strategies, such as counting on?

FREE Domino Sorting Mats (1 to 10) here!

FREE Domino Sorting Mats (1 to 12) here!

If you don't have real dominoes, you can download and print them from these sites:

PaperZip

Printable Board Games

Picture, Letter, Word, or Sentence?

Download our FREE Concepts About Print sorting cards and mat here!

NUMBER SENSE ROUTINES

First, FYI, these books are great resources!

We try to schedule one or more routines for each day of the week. This chart is helpful because the kids use it to remind us in case we forget! Then when we have a few extra minutes, such as in transition times, we might choose one at random to do together.

FREE download here: Small Signs & Large Signs!

You might even start with surveying kids on which routines they like and then ask them to help you make a schedule.

"NUMBER TALKS"

We follow the strings of quick images listed in the "Number Talks" book shown above. If you choose to do them in small groups, download the recording sheets in our TPT store. The kindergarten number talks focus on subitizing dots in open arrangements, in five- and ten-frames, and on Rekenreks from 3 to 10.

"WAYS TO MAKE A NUMBER"

We start with using manipulatives, tools, and number sets to show the number of the day.

Then we represent these ways to make a number on a chart together.

we leave space for students to add more on subsequent days

this chart was revised to add more labels

"ATTENDANCE"

Each day students add a picture to our attendance chart that's formatted like a Rekenrek. We practice some counting strategies, number writing, and part-whole work. It's usually somebody's job to update the numbers each day.

someone made a sign to remind classmates to
put a person card on the attendance chart each day

Here are some of the students' counting strategies:

we add to the chart over time

*We moved from using the kids' photos to using little people icons because it moved focus away from whose photo was next to whose, and then we could concentrate more on the math.

More on our math routines soon! 

What other routines do you do? Comment below! :)

Chrissa & Stefanie

Supporting One-to-One

SOME IDEAS for students who need extra pointing practice:

• line up some small toys/objects, touch each one and name it
  
• point and read the alphabet chart
  
• point and read the name chart (see "The Name Chart" blog post) 
  
• point and read vocabulary charts
  (FREE download here!)
  

• point and read the word wall or mini-word wall charts
  
  
• keep the charts above in the students' book baggies or reading boxes
• call on students who need extra practice to point during shared reading of charts and big books; to point and reread interactive writing texts
• say sentences and touch a cube for each word
• put dots under words in books
• write sentences on sentence strips, cut them, mix up, fix; point to each word; or push each word up as you say it
• what else?

COACHING PROMPTS:

(from most to least scaffolded)

• take a piggyback ride on my finger; let's point under the words together
• watch me point; now you do it
• point to each word
• make it match
• check it
• try again

TOOLS:

popsicle stick with a goggly eye on the end 

plastic "fingers"

light pointers

Strategy Cards (see "Super Readers" blog post)

Please feel free to comment below!

C & S

How-to Books!

We know many classrooms are launching the "How-to" unit of study for writing this week. Here are some pictures of last year's work!

"how-to" reading & projects made during choice time
(book covers, photos, and student work)

our published books on display

some examples of how-to book features:
zoomed-in pictures, labels, sequence words,
materials page, tips and warnings,
good beginnings (introductions)
and good endings (conclusions)

charts with examples from how-to mentor texts
and work of students who tried this feature

How-to charts made via shared writing and interactive writing,

that we can reread for shared reading!

We teach them that an introduction is like the writer talking to the reader to get them ready and excited to read the book, so we can draw ourselves and speech bubbles! Many of our students are beginning English Language Learners, they learn so much in a few short months!

HERE ARE SOME CUTE COVERS AND INTRODUCTION PAGES:

"Hi my name is Aidan. Do you like plants? I will teach you how to make a plant."

"Hi my name is Brandon. I will teach you how to make a party hat."

"Hi. My name is Enriqueta. I will teach you how to brush your teeth."

"Hello my name is Leslie. I will teach you how to make a maraca."

"Hi my name is Miguel. I can teach you how to make a mask."

"Hi my name is Lizbeth and I going to teach you how to make a puppet."

More to come soon!

Happy writing!

C & S