Robots, Sight Words, Phonograms, and Beginning Sounds

Another week is over. The kiddos are at home with their parents and I am home with my family!  It has been a wild week with it being a full moon.  Here are some of the things we did last week...  

Our reading buddies came on Friday to read with us.  Every class at our school has partnered up with another class in a different grade level to be reading buddies.  My class is partnered with 3rd grade buddies.  All the students look forward to reading with their buddy. We try to meet with our buddies twice a month.

I added a new center to my ABC Center.  Beginning Sound iPads.  I printed out and laminated the letters that we have covered and the students then match the picture (app) to the iPad.

Practicing our letters and sounds.  We are practicing writing the letter correctly on the lines.

My students are having trouble with their sight words.  I decided to print off the sight words to have the students rainbow write them.  Then we added them to our Poem Notebook.

And more sight words...

We made our robot hat for the letter R.  The kiddos loved making these this week!

 We also practiced our oral language/oral writing.  I have taught them gestures to help them remember the beginning of a sentence begins with an uppercase and the end of a sentence ends with an end mark.  When the kiddos do Teach, Okay!  They practiced their sentences using college talk.  College talk is talking in a complete sentence.  Then I asked for students to share their sentence with the class.  Here is a video of one of my girls.

(I like to go to music.)

I am loving the different WBT strategies.  I just know by using these techniques that I will have the smartest class!

   

Week 3 of 2013

Another week down.  It seems this year is going so quickly!  Next week we already having to test for mid-terms that go out the following week.  We have a short week next week with Labor Day Monday and then we are also off on Thursday.  So much to do and so little time.  I also have to finish my Deliberate Practice Goals and turn them in.  I am having a difficult time deciding what goals I want to make for myself this year.  My breaks this year at school are consumed with pumping so it makes me feel like I am behind everyday.  However, it makes me happy that I am still able to feed my child with the BEST thing so that is my motivation to keep it up, even if I feel behind every single day.

Anyways, on to what we did this past week!

Every morning we begin our day with an alphabet song.  We use Read Well as our Reading Series so the song is a part of it.  We have already dove into the deep end with curriculum (we actually did the 2nd week).  The letters with pictures are the ones we have taught.  The Read Well program does a letter a week for the whole group reading.  We also incorporate Spaulding Phonics into our curriculum. 

This week I taught about the 5 Senses.  I always like finding new ways to teach concepts to my kiddos.  It keeps it interesting for me and the students.  I found a wonderful website that had a Lap Book on it. (This and That)  I love the idea of Lap Books and the kiddos always think they are so cool.  Here is the front cover of the book. (most papers for the Lap Book are on the This and That website)  I did change it a little bit, but not a lot.

The inside of the Lap Book.  I used the I Have Five Senses book from the website and the labeled tongue.  Then I found another flip book that I really liked so I added that to the inside of the Lap Book too. (Flip Book)

On the back of the book we completed this sound page.  I bought a 5 Senses Unit from TPT and I really liked this part of it.  The students loved guessing what cup had what in it.

Once we had all that 5 Senses completed the week was over.  I still have a couple spot we could have put something.  I will have to make sure I plan longer than a week for my 5 Senses unit so we can fill the whole Lap Book up.  I told the kiddos that they could add to it at home.  All my kiddos were able to name all their senses.  Wahoo!

Every week we have been adding to our PowerPix.  I just love WBT.  It has made such a difference in my class.  Here are the ones we have learned so far.  We go over these as a whole group and with our partners.

Here is my chart for my phonograms.  These are the ones we have learned so far.  As I told you before we have are diving into the deep end with it only being the 3rd week and already learning so much.  Each week we when we learn new sounds I flip over the cards.  This pocket chart is on my restroom door and is there for the students to use to help them learn the phonograms.

We had another Wolfelicious week!  I hope yours was Wolfelicious too!

What a week!

Monday we started back to school after our Christmas break.  I was excited to go back to see my kiddos and because I have a lot to do before the end of February.  I will be taking 10 weeks off once I have my baby so I have been wanting to get things in order for that.  I guess you would call it school nesting. (hehehe)  I hate that I will be missing so much school.  My last baby I only took 6 weeks off, so this one will be even longer.  I thought since it will be my last child that I should take a couple more weeks off than I did with the first.  

At my school teachers are required to provide two weeks of lesson plans when they take off for their maternity leave.  Well, I just couldn't do two weeks lesson plans!  I want to know what my students are working on and feel like I am still apart of their school day.  I have decided to work on lesson plans for the rest of the year.  Yes, I did say the rest of the year.  I couldn't just start making lesson plans for when I am due.  I needed to go in order to make sure I am covering everything that needs to be covered.  I actually love this idea!  I may start doing it every year.  I am not quite finished yet with it, but I am hoping by the end of next week I will be pretty close.  I am using crates with file folders in them to sort the lesson plans week by week.  I have finished up to the week of Feb. 8th.  I tried to put everything a sub would need in the file so all anyone would have to do is pull out everything from the files.  I hope I have enough crates.  :)

Lessons and lesson plans in crates

I like planning my whole maternity leave.  I understand they may not get everything covered but at least I know it was supposed to be and that the materials were all there for it to be.  

Only 15 more weeks to complete.

This week my class began the double phonograms.  My school has used Spalding Phonics or at least the phonograms of Spalding.  Then the school also got Secret Stories (red posters).  On the back of the posters is a little story that has to do with the phonogram.  It helps the students learn and remember the phonogram.  

 This quarter my students have to be able to tell me today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  This is always very difficult for my kindergarteners.  We go over the calendar every single day and this year I even purchased It's Calendar Time to help my students understand calendar better.  I decided to print off the days of the week and put them by my Smartboard.  When we go over today, yesterday, and tomorrow I have a student come up and point to the day that is today.  Then I tell them to slide to the left to tell me yesterday and to slide to right to tell me what tomorrow will be.  The sliding has really given my students a visual for which way they should be going to figure it out.

Our calendar journals we do also include today, yesterday, and tomorrow but the more we go over it the better. 

I have been thinking about my blog.  I absolutely love blogging and love hearing from my followers.  One of my New Years resolutions is to write consistently on my blog.  My goal is going to be to update you on what my class it up to each week until the baby comes.  I hope you come and check it out each week.  Thanks for stopping by!

Double Phonogram Help

After thinking about it overnight, I have decided to upload these phonics worksheets to my Teachers Notebook for FREE.  Yes, I said for FREE.  I think all teachers should share so we can have a world full of intelligent people!  All I ask is that you follow my blog, leave a comment, and like my store.

Today I decided to give a try on making some worksheets.  I decided to make some on the double phonograms because those are the ones that my students are having trouble with.  I have uploaded the worksheets to Teachers Notebook.  Click on the picture below to take you to my Teachers Notebook Shop to check them out.  Let me know what you think.  Are they helpful?  Could you use them?