Letter Sounds Book (K.RFS.3a, K.RFS.1d)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.1d Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3a Demonstrate basic knowledge of letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or most frequent sound for each consonant

I am having great success with using a new approach to phonics and phonemic awareness.  When my kids come in at the beginning of the year their letter and sound knowledge is always all over the map.  I like for all my students to have mastered letter and sound recognition by Halloween.  This allows them to build from a foundation and move on to short vowel word families, manipulating phonemes, blends, and vowel patterns early in the year and get lots of practice at these higher level skills.

Starting with the first day of school every student is given an ABC book that we practice first thing each morning.  The book follows the same format as going through an alphabet chart.  Students repeat the letter, sound it makes, and picture.  However, I find it way more successful for a few reasons.

* It isolates only 5 letters on a page at a time. (After they repeat after me for the 5 letters, I give them a word that would start with one of the 5 letters and they have to pick which letter is making that beginning sound.  This gives them beginning sound isolation right from the start.

* They each have their own copy of the book, every student points to the letter we are on.  The visual being in their own hands and them verbally saying each letter helps to make it more concrete for them.

* When I ask the question about a word and what letter it would start with, they all write the letter on their whiteboard.  This gives them practice writing the letter and gets everyone involved.

This whole activity only takes 5-7 minutes, I chose to put the vowels at the end of the books and all of the consonants first.  Before we practice the vowels I have the kids say: "These are the vowels, every word has one: a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. 

Classroom Cheers

I have been using classroom cheers in my class for years.  The kids love picking out what cheer we are going to do for them when we celebrate their success.  It is very motivational for the kids and everyone wants to participate in the lesson because they want us to cheer for them.

Dr. Jeans has some great cheers that you can use in your classroom.  I have posted a link to her cheer cards that are free to print off.

http://www.drjean.org/html/monthly_act/act_2004/06_june/06_2004a.html

I have also made up a few cheers.

The fishing cheer:

Pretend to cast your imaginary fishing pole out, and pretend to reel it in as you say _________caught a big one!

The baseball cheer:

Pretend to swing a bat and say  ___________ hit it out of the park

The Winner:

Pretend to ring an imaginary bell and say "ding, ding, ding, we have a winner"

Your so fine:

Hand jive as you say: "_________,  ____________, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind.  Hey ___________ (clap) Hey, hey, hey ___________.

Do you use any cheers to motivate?

technology in the classroom

Last year I changed my calendar to an interactive whiteboard powerpoint presentation.  I incorporated youtube video songs that teach the skills we are currently working on, a calendar page, weather graph, and other skills I want my students to have extra practice with.  They look forward to calendar time each day and it teaches lots of common core standards all at once!  The October Calendar I made for this school year has the following videos embedded in it.

All of my kids know all their letters and sounds now so we have moved on to blends, they love this song.

Our end of the  year goal for counting is 100, we are just working on counting to 50 for right now.

We are learning about coins this month in math, this song has helped the kids in recognizing coins and remembering coin values.

teen numbers

K.CC.4 and K.CC.5  Counting and Cardinality (CC) 
K.NBT.1 Number and Operations in Base Ten (NBT)

We have been working on teen numbers and different ways to represent and show teen numbers. 

This teen number flyswatter game has been a favorite of my students.  I have the kids line up in two lines, they like to play girls vs. boys.  I call out a teen number and see who can swat it first.

I created this sheet for students to work on showing a teen number in multiple ways, after we completed a lot of practice showing teen numbers on ten's frames, as ten blocks and ones, and counted items. We pick one number and fill out the whole sheet using that teen number.  This is a free download at teachers pay teachers.

We glued smarties on ten's frames to represent each number 1-20.  I hung this in the hall with the sayings "These smarties know numbers 1-20"

My kindergarteners are all reading independently!

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.4 Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding

I am so happy to say that it is only October and all of my kids are reading independently.  I have a wide range of kids in my classroom and some didn't even know any letters or sounds just two months ago when school started.  In my district we use the Fountas and Pinnell book leveling system.  I currently have five kids reading on a level A, nine kids reading on a level B, and six kids transitioning to a level C. We have been building up our stamina and practice buddy reading for 15-20 minutes each day and read to self for 10 minutes a day.  I have posters displayed in the classroom of the reading strategies we have learned so far.

I try to always add motions, songs, or chants to concepts to make it easier for my students to remember.  Every day I have my class do a reading chant before kids go off to read their books.

 A Good Reader  (beat: Going on a Bear Hunt.) 

We slap our legs to the beat, they repeat the words: "If you're a good reader" (kids pretend to read a book.)  Then go through each strategy, having your students repeat after you. 

"you point to each word" (kids move their pointer finger in the air)

"you look at the picture" (kids make binoculars over their eyes)

"you get your mouth ready" (kids point to their mouth)

Refrain: We slap our legs to the beat,

they repeat the words: "If you're a good reader" (kids pretend to read a book) 

"you look for chunks" (kids pretend to take an imaginary piece of pie out of their hand)

"you reread the sentence" (kids point backwards)

"you flip the vowel" (kids move both pointer fingers in a flipping motion)

Then they repeat, "you have to ask yourself" (kids put hands out to their sides)

Does it sound right? (kids cup hand over their ear)

Does it look right? (kids point to their eyes)

Does it make sense? (kids point to their brain)

Happy Reading!

I recently created a video to go with this chant

Classroom Goals

I like my students to know what is expected of them and to have goals they are working towards.  I set a class goal for reading, math, and writing.  When a child meets a goal we do a cheer for them and his or her name is added to the board.  Every couple months I change the goals out and incorporate a new theme.  This was our beginning of the year goals board.

This is our fall goals board we are currently working on.  The goals are for all students to know all their letters and sounds, write at least 2 sounds for each word they write, and know numbers 0-20.  If a child has met all 3 goals they get their name on a ghost.