60+ Must Make Kindergarten Anchor Charts for the classroom. Covers classroom management, literacy and math. Multiple ideas!
Help those kids from getting the “summer slide” with this 100 page packet! Included is 50 pages of math and 50 pages of literacy including reading and comprehension, grammar, writing, and word work. This would also make a great addition for any beginning of the year work for 1st grade too! Click here to download. here …
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
K-1 POETRY UNIT I love teaching poetry to kindergarten and first grade students! Even though I have this labeled as Unit 8 in my Writing Series , I actually teach poetry throughout the entire year. We follow the same routine and students look forward to our poetry week every month.
This Vowels are Glue! CVC Word Song will quickly be a favorite in your classroom and it'll help your kids recognize the importance of vowels!
Last week I posted about my favorite FREE Math Videos for kindergarten. This week, its time to look at Language Arts videos! Again, if you don't have YouTube access at school, check out this tutorial to learn how to download the videos at home so you can transfer them to your work computers! I do this even though we have YouTube access through a filter, because you can't always count on the internet being up! Now, I don't believe in sitting the children in front of a video and calling that learning, but I do believe that using a fun song or showing a funny clip can help engage them. Normally I try to intersperse the videos throughout the day, so that we're not sitting watching videos for more than 5 or so minutes at a time. Let's start with alphabet videos and work our way up: KidsTV123 has a bunch of phonics songs (and some great math ones too!). This song focuses on the letter names, but there are several pictures for each sound. It's a great one for calming the kiddos down and getting them to focus. My kiddos now ad lib their own lyrics "A a a a a is for Alex and apple A a a a" lol! At the end of the video I pause on the scene with all of the letters on the screen, get out a pointer and have students come up to the board to point out a letter, make the sound and say a word that starts with that letter. Sometimes a kiddo will come up and say the same letter, sound and word as the person before them did - this is OKAY! That's where they are in the learning process - give them a few weeks and they'll soon be able to think of a new word for that sound or choose a different letter on their own! This song focuses on the letter sounds and again is a nice, calming song, great for after recess! I put it on and by the end everyone is ready to focus on a story or lesson! Your kiddos need that transitional time to switch mental gears. If you need something a bit more energetic, check out this "What Do The Letters Say?" video which is a parody of the ever popular "What Does the Fox Say?" song. We throw in some simple dance moves - crossing the mid-line with arm pumps, doing shoulder shrugs, arm circles, toe touches etc. When you're focusing on an individual letter, there are some great choices: Sesame Street has "podcasts" for each letter of the alphabet. These are each about 6 minutes long and contain some great old clips (I remember some from when I was little!) plus lots of new content! There is nothing like watching Cookie Monster eat the letter of the day! The use of humor makes the letters "stick" in students' heads better - we tend to remember things that evoke an emotional response! I love the Have Fun Teaching videos because they identify each letter as either a vowel or a consonant and they include tons of letter sound repetition! Hooked on Phonics has some free videos on YouTube, including this rhyming one. I like this one because it focuses on the pictures without confusing the kids with the written words so that they have to concentrate on the sounds. This video from Jack Hartmann will get your kids up and dancing while they learn their vowel sounds! I love how the chorus has students crossing the mid-line by tapping their knees and patting their heads. Once your kiddos are ready to read, you'll appreciate these next ones: There are a TON of sight word videos on YouTube. Some, like the one below from Have Fun Teaching, feature just an individual sight word, while others, like this Harry Kindergarten one, cover several sight words in one song. You can choose what works better for your class! If you're going to focus on one word at a time, I recommend coming up with some dance moves and having your students up and moving while they watch the video. This will make it much more effective than just sitting still watching. If you're not good at dancing, think about an exercise move - toe touching, shoulder shrugging, knee tapping etc. Come up with a set of moves for 2 letter, 3 letter and 4 letter words so that you have some moves ready to go. Also, ask you students to get involved - they can come up with routines for individual words and that will help everyone in the class learn the words! ELF Kids Videos has a ton of educational videos on YouTube. This one introduces a ton of consonant blends with great picture support and a chance for students to repeat each blend. At the end of the song I would pause on the screen with all the blends listed and have students use a pointer to select a blend, say the sound and name a word that started with it. This is a fun song for teaching digraphs, my kiddos always enjoyed it, although it can get stuck in your head, so beware lol! This is a great story video for giving your students a hook to remember the sh, th, wh, and ch digraphs. Alright, I'm cutting myself off here, that was more than 10 videos! Again, please support the people who make these videos by subscribing to their YouTube channels and checking out their websites! Did I miss any of your favorites? Rustle up a response below and share it please!
37 fun language arts games and activities to teach kids in kingergarten through middle school the fundamentals of language and literature!
This free Kindergarten sentence building and writing center is perfect for practice with making simple sentences for beginning writers!
We all know as teachers that the core standards are important - as they guide what we teach every single day. Many administrators in fact require that we have the standards and objectives posted every single day.
Expand students' understanding of adjectives with this fun adjective flower craft for kids! Find more ideas at ReallyGoodTeachers.com.
This grammar activity, Punctuation Stickers, is a fun way to practice adding the correct punctuation to the end of a sentence.
If you are on the job hunt, you may want to create a teaching portfolio. It is the season of job hunting in education and it may be smart to create a
Don't miss this great set of March Kindergarten Worksheets for your math and literacy practice this month. Perfect for home or the classroom.
