How to Avoid the Summer Slide! Summer is right around the corner! We all LOVE our summer vacation, but not the "Summer Slide!" The Summer Review Packets
Boost your kid's early literacy skills with fun reading activities — from active reading games to printable sight word activities and more!
The kids and I have been talking about words with ing added on the end. My youngest has just started coming across these words in his reading and his big sister was showing him how to break the wo…
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A multiple choice quiz after reading is a quick and easy way to check student comprehension, but it doesn't allow you to assess deeper understanding and it certainly isn't fun or creative. If you are looking for more meaningful and engaging activities to use with students during literature circles or a novel unit, here's twelve ideas that are favorites in my classroom and the Common Core standards they align with.
These six free printable Human Body Worksheets contain activities to keep a child entertained while also teaching them everything they need to know about the human body. The human body is so important to learn about!
Are you ready to conquer DIGRAPHS? Once a child masters CVC Words it is time to move on to more complex word structures. Digraphs are a great place to
This is a fun and different way to read a text with an interesting topic. Would you be able to live without money? Read and find out how this person managed.
Spelling Made Fun is a new and innovative fun, multi-sensory spelling programme developed specifically for Primary schools and has been extensively reviewed by practising teachers nationwide. Features: 18 weekly units of work which include fun activities to reinforce the spellings, wordsearches, phonic activities, cloze procedure exercises, opportunities for colouring, drawing and generating their own sentences using the words in the spelling units. Spelling lists with practice sheets for each unit. Using the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check technique. Spelling lists include words relevant to the pupil writing. CVC words, high frequency words, word families – old, -ing, -and, -ent, -ook, - all, -ill, -ive, -ike, -eep, -een. Self-evaluation weekly record sheets. Revision sheets. Tricky word bank to record pupils’ own personal errors. An overall record grid to record scores for each unit for both teachers and pupils to monitor and track progress.
These five fun word games will have your students practicing vocabulary terms without even realizing it! Check out this list for instructions for play.
On the first week of the new school year, I like to play games where I really get to know a lot about my students and they learn a bit about me, too. There are many great first day activities, but I chose an easy dice game this year. I stumbled upon this idea over at Pinterest. I found plenty of similar ideas, but I created a poster to meet my students' need. I am sharing with you my poster that you can download for free. Just print and play! The rule of this game is very simple. Children will roll the dice and then share something about themselves, depending on the number they rolled. Share this Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Spelling Made Fun is a new and innovative fun, multi-sensory spelling programme developed specifically for Primary schools and has been extensively reviewed by practising teachers nationwide. Features: 18 weekly units of work which include fun activities to reinforce the spellings, wordsearches, phonic activities, cloze procedure exercises, opportunities for colouring, drawing and generating their own sentences using the words in the spelling units. Spelling lists with practice sheets for each unit. Using the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check technique. Spelling lists include words relevant to the pupil writing. CVC words, high frequency words, word families – old, -ing, -and, -ent, -ook, - all, -ill, -ive, -ike, -eep, -een. Self-evaluation weekly record sheets. Revision sheets. Tricky word bank to record pupils’ own personal errors. An overall record grid to record scores for each unit for both teachers and pupils to monitor and track progress.
This is a fun worksheet to practice the weather with your beginner ESL students. Have your students read the sentence and draw the correct weather accordingly.
Make reading exciting for your students with these fun phoneme segmentation activities for kindergarten! They are a fun way to support these essential literacy skills so you can set your students up for reading success. Thanks to new research about how we really learn how to read, we now know that it's more important than ever to fully develop our students' phonemic awareness skills before we expect them to read the written word! Students learn best when they start with something concrete and gradually move to the abstract. This new research about synthetic phonics tells us that our students’ reading abilities are directly linked to how well they can identify and manipulate the sounds in words. This makes sense. Speaking is a physical act; all of us understand it intuitively. Reading, however, is an abstract skill that requires consistent and explicit instruction. Our kindergarten kiddos need us to start with what they know - spoken language - so they can learn to read more efficiently and to ensure all our students are set up for literacy success. What is phoneme segmentation? Although it's easy to lump this skill in with the whole bubble of phonemic awareness skills, segmentation is about breaking a word into individual sounds. It's an intermediate phonemic awareness skill preceded by phoneme isolation and phoneme blending. They all fit within the umbrella of phonological awareness skills. Learn more about these different terms in Phonics vs Phonemic Awareness. Levels of Phonemic Awareness Phoneme isolation Phoneme blending Phoneme segmentation Phoneme addition Phoneme deletion Phoneme substitution At this stage, your students should be able to hear a word and break it into sounds. The word frog should become /f/ /r/ /o/ /g/. The word cat should become /c/ /a/ /t/. This can be taught in many different ways, and it's an essential skill to practise throughout kindergarten. How do you make phoneme segmentation fun & engaging for kindergarten students with a short attention span? I highly recommend getting hands-on! Use manipulatives and include a variety of physical movements, like drawing, playing, clapping, and more, to help make this learning as engaging as possible. To them, it will feel like play, but they’ll be laying the foundation for their future phonics skills and reading abilities every single day! 7 Phoneme Segmentation Activities for Kindergarten There are countless ways to practise identifying and segmenting phonemes! You can turn almost any material into a tool, depending on how you use it. You don't need to buy all of the tools right away, and you can often get by using materials you already have on hand! Be creative and focus on the skill, not the stuff. 1. Listening to Sounds in Words This is the easiest and most simplistic phonemic awareness activity. Your kids need only their ears (and maybe some fingers) to identify and segment the individual phonemes in different words. It will take time for your kindergarten students to get used to this concept at the beginning of the school year, but if you keep modelling and practising, they'll get it! Start by modelling this practice yourself. Break apart words verbally. Starting with your thumb, lift a finger for each phoneme you hear. Examples Dog: /d/ /o/ /g/ House: /h/ /ow/ /s/ Chin: /ch/ /i/ /n/ 2. Sound Boxes Also known as Elkonin boxes, sound boxes are a phenomenal way to support your students to identify the individual sounds in words. This practice supports orthographic mapping, which helps your students encode these spelling patterns to their long-term memory more efficiently than traditional memorisation. These are best to use when your students have had a chance to isolate and blend sounds together, but you can also use them from day one of your instruction. Essentially, students listen for the different sounds in a given word to get used to breaking them up. When they're ready to start writing, add the letter or groups of letters representing that sound in each box. For example, digraphs would go in one box since they represent one unique sound. This visual approach really makes this abstract concept easier to understand. It's such an effective skill that I recommend using it with your whole group, small groups, or independent practice every single day. Any time you introduce a new word from your word list, run it through a sound box first! You could also use these googly eyes to make it even more fun! There are a bunch of great sound box activities and templates on my site to get you started: Animal Word Mapping Mats CVC Orthographic Mapping Activities Free Printable Word Mapping Templates 3. Interactive Digital Slides Since we have so many little things to track every single day, I highly recommend incorporating custom digital slides! I created them to be interactive to keep interest high, evidence-based to make them powerful and effective, and convenient so you won't have to worry about hunting down missing materials again. I have a variety of slides to support different phonemic awareness skills, including: Phonological awareness slides: These are perfect for the beginning of the school year! Practise counting the words in sentences, identifying the beginning and ending sound in words, and more. In the 'count the sound' slides, the sound buttons are animated to flash as you say each sound. Heart words interactive slides: Instead of teaching sight words the old-fashioned way, teach them using the best evidence-based practices to help your students learn them faster than ever. As part of The Hive, you'll also have access to my plethora of sound boxes and phonics activities! The Hive is an intuitively designed and nimble digital teacher planner, but it’s also so much more. It includes literally hundreds of custom-built apps, downloads, printables, and more, so you can set up your entire day in just one program. You'll be able to incorporate these phonemic awareness activities into your daily lessons and routines with no extra prep at all! Join The Hive today and check it out! 4. Rhyming Games One of the best ways to teach young children phoneme segmentation is by playing rhyming games! Kids love listening for rhyming words, and there are so many great rhyming books for kindergarten to reinforce this skill. Most rhyming focuses on the vowel sound, which can be tricky to identify as they often sound similar. Start by identifying word families (-all: ball, call, fall, etc) and then incorporate these rhyming words activities. Once they're ready, challenge them to listen for rhymes in longer passages, like with these poetry games. 5. Missing Sound Task Cards One fun, accessible way to practice this skill is to incorporate picture cards with missing sounds. Students will need to say the name of the item on the card to identify the lost sound. Note- this is a more advanced way to practise segmenting, as it also incorporates phonics skills. For example, if there is a picture of a pig and the letters __ig, students will need to think or say the word
These fun reading games are quick to make - and so effective for learners in kindergarten and first grade! Such a great addition to your language arts instruction. #teachingreading #kindergarten #firstgrade
Story retelling is an ongoing core kindergarten skill and takes place when a student is able to comprehend a story and retell it in their own words. A retell should include key details like characters, the setting, the problem, main events (BME) and solution of the story. Kindergarten students do most story retells from listening to a story read aloud. Because of this, I feel it’s super important to select high quality and engaging texts to help develop a real love for reading. For me, I’m drawn to a silly or feel good story that opens up the floor for a great conversation. I want it to be a memorable and lovable story that they'll want to tell and retell! My Master's is actually in Library Science, so I'm extremely passionate about book selection AND story retelling for littles. So much that... I've married them into a series of monthly retelling activities, using high quality picture books, that work perfect in a kindergarten and first grade classroom. Pre, During and After Reading: Set your students up for success! Book talk the text prior to reading. When reading, an interactive read aloud goes along way with comprehension, I love to occasionally stop and really dig into an illustration or get student input when reading aloud. Whether you retell on day one or later, your kiddos will need to recall key details, and I love doing it with multiple and varied exposure using a single story. Retelling Hand: I like to start and review with a retelling visual like the retelling hand! You can grab a free retelling hand by clicking here. Review the parts of a story retell and then give the kiddos time to "turn and talk" to recall information in the story together. Retell Games: I love board games and just games in general. They're engaging, casual and get you TALKING and moving a little bit! After the kiddos have spent time with a partner, I like to take it up a notch and retell it in a gaming setting. My retelling activities generally include a low-prep game to help the kiddos start chatting alongside some visual support. Anchor Chart: Shared Writing and Sequence: After double exposure with a buddy, it's time to come together and discuss the retell. Review and record the characters and setting. For the sequence portion, students will help you order the events. Once the events have been sequenced, students will help come up with the beginning, middle and end to wrap up the retell (great shared writing practice). If you're looking for interactive writing opportunities, scripting the BME sentences would also be a great way for students to come up and assist with writing. The picture card activity works great on chart paper, a pocket chart or even repurposed later on using a pocket chart in a literacy center. *all corresponding activities can be found here. The Retelling CRAFT or Printable Option: To offer a chance for independent practice, the story craft or cut & paste printable will allow the individual student to practice sequence and retelling the story at their own pace and sharpen fine motor skills. I've always told my students a retell activity is a keepsake... because it's almost like you're taking the book home to read it to a loved one. This retell activity supports the mentor text Florette by Anna Walker. *all corresponding activities can be found here. Written Expression: The written and illustrated graphic organizer is another way for students to show their comprehension of the story after reading and practice writing. If you're making a follow-up literacy center with the picture cards in a pocket chart, this printable (or any of the others within the kit) would be a great add-on. For more retell activities, click here!
Planning your guided literacy time is bout to get so much easier. I get asked a lot about how to tie reading and writing together, while focusing on fluency, comprehension, phonics, vocabulary, writing, etc. I create this resource to get kids excited about reading and writing, and to make planning
This post explains how teachers can use an academic version of the highly engaging Spoons game to review concepts. Free games included!
As you probably know, phonics is an essential component of reading instruction. Before you read this loooong post all about how to teach ph...
Here's a fun worksheet to practice the present continuous tense with your ESL students.
Every morning, at the start of our Morning Meeting, we recite our five classroom rules. The rules I use are similar to Whole Brain Teaching's, but with a twist. I use the set from The Polka Dot Patch. You can read all of the specifics on the rules and gestures HERE. Something fun that we do every Friday is reciting the rules in a different voice. It helps keep up the interest and engagement, plus, we all need a laugh Friday morning :) I have seen different fluency practice ideas a lot on Pinterest and I think these would be a wonderful resource for rule-reciting. Sometimes the Meeting Leader has an idea themselves- one girl decided to recite the rules as if we all had a mouth full of food!- but other times, the student may need some inspiration. Find these at I Love 2 Teach! All I am doing is printing these on cardstock, laminating them, and putting a binder ring though a hole in the top corner. I will keep these near our Morning Meeting Bucket and talking ball for our Meeting Leader to use if he/she needs them. Do you have these fluency cards in your class? Try incorporating them into your rule recitation- it's a great way to wrap up the week!
15 fun and easy fluency practice activities to get your K-1 students reading at a just-right pace, with accuracy and expression!
The well known activity where students have to write routines in different situations in the boxes. It can be used in a varety of ways. - ESL worksheets
Introducing students to challenging words through Word of the Week can help increase their confidence in reading, writing, & speaking.
Synonyms and antonyms worksheet for first grade and second grade. Students find a synonym and an antonym for each word.
Free instructions and printable cards for the Taboo ESL game. This is a fun speaking activity for English learners that will get your students involved.
Are your students disinterested and tired of the traditional ways of learning characterization? Have you been searching for a really fun, student-centered, interactive way to eliminate their boredom? Well, look no further! I present to you a wonderful student-collaboration activity that will get your students involved and excited for a character analysis for any novel, […]
This is a visual for how students work their way up the Reading Ladder. Kindergarten is working within the levels 1 and 2 throughout the year. When working with your child, please focus on these skills so that they have a solid reading foundation. Success is earned and needs to be worked for. Thank you to Katelyn's Learning Studio for this amazing resource.
Here are a couple of great printable Contraction worksheets to add to your lesson plan. Your students will have fun finding the correct contraction to match-up. On the first one you simply draw a line to the correct contraction, and the other your kids can exercise their motor skills and cut out the contraction and paste next to the correct words. Matching Contractions Worksheet - Cut and Paste Version
Is your child ready to read 2-syllable words? Great! Here are teaching tips for the most common early reading problems and fun activity ideas to keep your child engaged!
I have a fun reading resource for you! Book Talk is loaded with ideas to use for retelling stories, comprehending reading, and using books and tools to share some good conversations. Click here for a preview. Students will have plenty to do during reading time. Plus, there are some great homework ideas too! I recently updated this cover and added more graphic organizers and activities to this resource. Here are just a few examples of what's included: Questions to ask partners or questions for parents to ask their child about the book they are reading. It helps start and guide the conversation about books. If you ONLY want the Book Talk Questions, scroll to the bottom of this post. The questions come in a variety of ways. You can get them all on one sheet or on small papers like below. I put a ring on these and students have a ton of questions to ask themselves or with their partner. These are handy and ready to go on a moments notice. You can use these questions for any genre you are reading. This pack includes 5 book reports with directions and rubrics! Just copy and send home for homework projects. This pack has graphic organizers to keep the conversation going through writing. Over 40 graphic organizers included! Also some reading activities for students that finish early or need some more enrichment. One sheet is for partners to do together and one sheet is for the individual learner who can work at their own pace. You will be sure to find some reading logs in this pack too. There is even one for the entire class to keep track of the books you read together as a class. Plus so much more!!! All activities can be used with any book or any reading program you use in the classroom. You can find Book Talk here on my blog for a discounted price: Discounted Price:Sell ebooks If you ONLY want the Book Talk Questions, click the picture on the left. This pack has 10 pages full of questions students should be answering while reading their story. You can only purchase these questions here on my blog. Click to read more about it. If you ONLY want the book reports, Click on the picture below. Book Reports have 4 book reports with directions and a grading rubric. There are also 3 extra reports to use at anytime! You can ONLY buy this on my blog right now. Thanks for stopping by! See you soon,
These digraph phonics worksheets are a fun and engaging way for students to practice reading and identifying words with digraphs. There are 20 worksheets included for the following digraphs, double consonants and trigraphs: sh (beginning) sh (ending) th (beginning) th (ending) ch (beginning) ch (ending) ck wh ph qu wr kn ng mb ss ff zz ll tch dge Save 25% with the bundle here: Phonics Read and Search Worksheets How they work: Students read the words and search for the matching picture. You may also like: Alphabet Read and Search Worksheets – Beginning Sound Worksheets Short Vowel Read and Search Worksheets – CVC Worksheets Long Vowel Read and Search Worksheets – Vowel Teams Worksheets Blends Read and Search Worksheets – Blends Worksheets R-Controlled Vowel and Diphthong Read and Search Worksheets ♥♥♥ Follow me to be the first to hear about FREEBIES and updates ♥♥♥ ♥♥♥ Earn TPT Credits when you leave feedback ♥♥♥ I welcome and appreciate any feedback, comments or suggestions. You may also contact me on [email protected]
Learn how to teach silent e words through explicit phonics instruction. Use orthographic mapping, connecting sound to symbol. Learn about the many jobs of the silent e!
1st Grade English Worksheets are a great way to get your little ones off to a great start in reading. Worksheets are fun and perfect for little learners. We have all kinds of fun themes to keep them interested. Help them with reading comprehension, spelling, word sounds and more. Print all all of our worksheets […]
Five Fun Activities for Teaching Prepositions. Teaching prepositions through playing games & enjoyable activities for children to learn while having fun.
Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour
Here is a fun worksheet to practice the Wh questions with your ESL students. Have them read the statements and fill in the right word into the gaps.
Here's a great geography worksheet that doubles as a coloring page! Your child will get to practice reading a simple map of a park.
These fun reading games are quick to make - and so effective for learners in kindergarten and first grade! Such a great addition to your language arts instruction. #teachingreading #kindergarten #firstgrade
