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| I downloaded these rhyming cards from Lana Holzer's blog http://acreativeclassroom.blogspot.com/ and had them laminated. |
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| The kids practiced matching them up to one another and you can see, it got a little silly! |
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| They had to choose their favorite pair... |
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| and write their own rhyming sentences. |
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| This is a bit of a challenge so I tried it with my higher group first. They worked on this while I Progress Monitored for NWF last Friday. |
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| They did a good job and "got" the concept. I will do this with my other groups but with more guidance. |
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| She even made up a third line! |
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| I just looked over and saw this and my heart melted. I have never even shown them the Whisper Phones! Why, I do not know, especially after I see this! I love these kids. |
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| Ok, another literacy center that I have incorporated once a week is for the kids to write and illustrate four of the Amazing Words from our story on a Four Square paper. I usually have them complete this as a center on Wednesday. (On Monday, they make a Four Square paper using the letter of the week.) I am loving their illustrations and the reinforcement it provides for the practice of these words that are often not the words that I would choose as "Amazing" from the story. |
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| They have to read the words to me before they receive an "S". |
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| At the listening center, the children illustrate a picture from the story but I have them write a sight word from that week as practice. I know they should be writing a sentence about the story they just listened to but I have them writing their little fingers off so I ease up on them at this center! |
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| Of course, we started with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in honor of President's Day-especially since we were in school that day! The children were able to choose which President's hat they would like to make and had to write two facts about that president on their hat. We did this first thing in the morning when they walked in-hit 'em while they're fresh! Abraham Lincoln Was Our 16th President George Washington Was Our 1st President |
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| I took their photo to include on their If I Were President... scrapbook page. |
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| They each wrote about what they would do if they were president one day! |
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| I love that they will automatically go to the Word Wall or their Word Rings to spell their sight words! |
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| We also make a Famous Americans book throughout the year. This page about Abraham Lincoln will go into their books. We have already made our Johnny Appleseed and Martin Luther King Jr. pages and will add George Washington, Theodor Geisel, Eric Carle and some famous Alabamians-George Washington Carver and Helen Keller. These page are incorporated into our units throughout the year. I would like to complete a Famous American study every month, ideally-maybe next year! |
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| We used Deanna Jump's directed drawings to make portraits of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. I love the TLC art we usually use to make these pages but Deanna's version was so much simpler, faster and used less paper! |
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| Here is our American Symbol tree map. We have almost completed our study of the American Flag and what EXACTLY the pledge means to us. We will learn about the American Bald Eagle next and chart facts about each symbol. |
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| Here is a literacy game that Deanna included in her America unit that helps children to identify ending sounds. |
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| This is the scrapbook page from last year for If I Were President... it was one of my favorites! |
I have been trying to find a more durable way to make word rings for my class so that they have sight words on hand. At our Habitat for Humanity (my reason for being there could be a whole other blog site for me-you should check out my sister at http://sheendeavors.blogspot.com/ and see what all she does and why she makes HFH a regular stop for her!) I found a sample box for laminate countertops (odd, right?). They are strong and have a hole already punched in them-perfect for our Word Rings! I write our sight words on each card, attach to a metal ring and we are rolling! I can't tell you how excited the kids were to get these rings and they truly use them to help in their writing. |
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| We play Sight Word Search at small groups. I say a sight word and they race to find it first-they are fierce! |
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| We used this poem for our pumpkin unit, of course. Everyone has their own Poetry Journal. We add a poem to our journal every few weeks. Mrs. Meacham's Classroom Snapshots http://www.jmeacham.com/ has a detailed description of her Poetry Journals on her site along with a long list of poems and graphics for you to use. Some people are just incredible! She shares this and many, many other ideas that I can't stop myself from swiping! |
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| We use yellow to highlight sight words that we have learned so far, orange to highlight punctuation marks and green to circle rhyming pairs. I teach them how to master this skill in small group but soon they will be able to complete this job independently at a literacy center. |
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| We highlighted sight words in our Brown Bear, Brown Bear book. It is amazing to see how much confidence utilizing this skill gives a child. |
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 They can be found on http://www.scsk12.org/SCS/subject-areas/Kindergarten-Kove If your district has adopted the Scott Foresman reading series, this website will be your best friend! Also check out http://web.mac.com/donna.glynn/Kinderglynn and of course, http://classroom.jc-schools.net/waltkek/. |
