Sight Word Games

I'm popping in today to show you a few sight word games I've created for my classroom and have become a hit with many of my students.  I've now created an editable version of one of the games for you to use in your classroom. This game is a freebie in my TpT store.  

 Back to the Hive is a sight word game that I use in my classroom.  The kids love it and it's a game that keeps on going... there's no end to the game which is so great when the kids are using this during literacy rotations.  No "I'm done, now what?" when you're trying to work in small groups!!  

The kiddos pull cards and read the sight words on each card. If the card is read correctly the player keeps the card.  There is also accountability with the other player as he or she needs to make sure the word is read correctly before the other player can keep the card.  

As the game continues players continue to pick and read cards.  If they pick up a "Back to the Hive" card, they need to put all their cards back and the game continues. 

The games I've previously posted align with the words in our Reading Street program.  I've had some requests for an editable version of the game so I've also posted that to my TpT store.  

While the Back to the Hive game is a favorite among many of my kiddos, I know that a change is always a good idea when it comes to games during our literacy rotations.  This "Cold Snap" game is a game I use during the spring months and the kiddos seem to love it as well.  Click on the cover for a link to this freebie in my TpT store.  

The game works with the same rules.  Kiddos pull cards and read the sight words on the cards.  If they select a "Cold Snap" card they must put all their cards back.  This game is posted to my TpT store as well.  

I have also created a version of this game that includes sight word sentences.  I think it's important to have the kiddos find and read these words in context as that is what is ultimately expected of them.  

I hope these are helpful and can be used in your classroom!

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Book Study: Graphic Organizers

This chapter confirmed the importance of using graphic organizers in my classroom.  I love that the book referenced the use of the right and left side of the brain as a benefit of using graphic organizers.  Such a great way to differentiate the learning process!

I enjoy using graphic organizers in my classroom because it allows my kiddos to record their thinking.  We tend to use graphic organizers/maps during our literacy block but I'd love to find some ways to incorporate them into our math block as well.

How We Use This Strategy:

During our guided reading rotations we use a ton of story maps.  I love that even if we use a different map the kids know how to use each map because the maps ask for the same information.  To save trees I usually put the pages in page protectors so we can write with dry erase markers and erase when we're done... we're trying to find ways to cut back on our paper usage!  

We also use sequencing pages in much the same way... there are a ton of great graphic organizers out there to respond to reading and we use them each day during guided reading.  When reading nonfiction we list facts on graphic organizers or use a main idea organizer to determine the main idea and details from our reading.  

 What I'd Like to Try:

I'd really like to try the word webs.  I think this will really help during our writing workshop time.  I have some kiddos that fall in love with a word and use it over and over again.  I feel like we're at the point in the year when we need to challenge ourselves to step up our writing.  I think offering up this organizer would be a great way for the kids to access the words and use them appropriately in their writing.  Can't wait to give it a try!

Don't forget to visit Fabulous in First to see all the amazing ideas people are blogging about!

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Five for Friday- February 17th

Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.  We survived a five-day week now we are on winter break for a whole week!!   

ONE: Valentine's Day
As luck would have it Valentine's Day and the 100th day fell on the same day this year!  It's a catch 22... on the one hand, it's nice to get two big, exciting days over in one fell swoop.  However, on the other hand, it makes for one crazy fun day!!

This week we did a ton of Valentine and 100th day read alouds and we used various comprehension strategies including making predictions and retelling stories.  The best way to fit it all in is to overlap as many skills as possible.  We have been working hard on retelling and predicting during our reading workshop block and this week's read alouds were a great opportunity to review and use these skills.  

We graphed and discussed our favorite color candy heart... orange won this year!  We also used these candy hearts to build our sight words for the week.  During our literacy stations, we have been using play doh to build the words but we needed to spice up the task this week.  The candy hearts were a great way to add something to this task this week.  

Our Valentine monster bags came out so cute again this year! I love these Love Monster books and the kids do too!  I couldn't find any large white lunch bags but the brown worked just as well!  

With all the candy that came with the Valentines, I was happy that we only had some sparkling water and a small ice cream cup for our "party".  It was just enough to make the day special without the kiddos having too much sugar!!

TWO: 100th Day

To celebrate the 100th day I had my kiddos bring in 100 items to count during our math block.  Before sorting and counting, I had the kids share their items and explain why they picked their items.  This went perfectly with the opinion unit we are starting in writing workshop... another great way to fit it all in!  

After sharing their items and their reasons, we sorted by 10s, 5s, and 2s.  This took some time but I saw my kiddos helping their classmates if they were done early, and I loved seeing this!  After sorting we skip counted and the kiddos got a real world application for skip counting that I think they appreciated this!!  

THREE: Reading Strategies
I still have a few kiddos that need reminders to use strategies when reading.  I have these decoding strategies on the wall by our small group table and we also have them on sticks to grab when reading.  But I wanted another way to give my most reluctant readers a reminder of these important strategies.  

During our small group readings I give them this strategy "bookmark", we review the strategies, and then as they are reading independently they clip the clothespin onto the strategies they use.  This helps them recognize the strategies that they are using.  I have sent these "bookmarks" home to help the families and I have made sure to put them in reading book boxes as well!

FOUR: Swag Tags

I've been feeling like my swag tags needed a bit of a reset this week.  That being said I tried something a bit different.  I awarded a few swag tags in the morning and then I put it on those students that received the tags to hand out other tags to students that were caught doing something well or nice in the classroom.  

I modeled how this would work and then placed a sentence prompt by the swag tags to help the kids tell the student why they were awarding them a swag tag.  This worked so well as the kiddos recognized these great behaviors in others and were so happy to tell other students to get a tag.  In some cases if no tags were left, they gave up their tag to a friend caught doing something well in the classroom! So proud of my kiddos!!

FIVE:  Friday Instagram Feed

I'm in love with our weekly Instagram feed! It's a great way to wrap up the week and celebrate all the learning and hard work that took place throughout the week.  This week I had my kiddos select their favorite part of the week as this task goes along with our opinion writing unit!

Have a great weekend... Don't forget to check out Doodle Bugs Teaching for more Five for Friday posts! 

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Book Study: Chapter 13

Today I'm linking up for Chapter 13 of the Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites book study.  

I'm excited to try some of the ideas in this chapter.  While I'm using some of the ideas in this chapter there are some ideas I haven't tried but think will be a great addition to my classroom.   

We all know that kids learn best when they have the opportunity to work with peers to discuss and teach what they have learned.  This chapter highlights the many different ways to accomplish this.  

How I Use This Strategy

We use "Turn and Talk" practically every day in our room.  We use this strategy to teach one another something we've just learned. We also use this strategy to talk about something we've read or to discuss our opinion about something we've done or read.  We even use this strategy to make predictions while reading a book.  This strategy is so versatile.  Nothing makes me more proud of my kiddos than when I hear them talking about and teaching something we've just learned.  

  Here we are "teaching" one another the definition of some new vocabulary words.  
We also use this strategy when buddy reading.  We use "Mr. Check In" to help our buddy ask us questions about what we've read.  It keeps us accountable and allows for some great conversation between buddies!!

Each day we work at literacy and math workstations.  During this time my kiddos work with a buddy or in a small group to complete tasks. Another great way to promote learning in the classroom.   

What I Want To Try

I'd like to incorporate some more buddy reading and Check In work to our weekly routines.  I think this can be beneficial to all of my students.  I'd also like try the Jigsaw strategy as part of the plant unit we've begun this week.  

Be sure to link up or visit Falling Into First to see what others are blogging about!

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Five for Friday: Summer To Do List

Today I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

This week I'm blogging about my summer to do list... as you can see it's about a mile long and I have not crossed anything off the list yet.  I've been working hard the first few weeks of the summer but I've tackled some long term projects that aren't finished yet! 


I thought I'd blog about a few things I've been working on so far this summer!!  

ONE: Reading Assessments
I enjoy doing reading assessments and I know they are vital to any successful classroom.  However, sometimes I have a "now what" moment when I look at these assessments but I'm not really sure what to with them.  I came across this amazing teacher author this spring and I can't get enough of her books.  I am reading all three of her books this summer!  and I'm hooked...so excited about what she writes about.  


The Literacy Teacher's Playbook is an awesome read.  She details 5 areas to assess reading and then names some assessments that can be used for each area.  Then the book details how to use these assessments to create goals and action plans for each of your students.  WOW!  This is what I've been looking for.  I feel like I've always had a stack of assessments but have not truly known what do with these assessments... until now.  

TWO: Small Group Reading Lessons

Like I said, I can't get enough of these books.  I'm right in the middle of this book but I took a break from it to read the Playbook referenced above. I wanted to really get a good sense of what these assessment would look like and how I would use them before I continued on in this book with mini-lesson topics and ideas.   
This book is about teaching reading in small groups.  However, the small groups look less like guided reading groups where the teacher chooses the book and more like strategy groups where students apply a strategy to a book they have chosen to read during the independent reading portion of reading workshop.  The book talks about these strategy lessons as explicit instruction in reading strategies so these strategies can be applied to any book rather than the current book the student is reading.  

THREE: Reading Strategies

After beginning the book about small group reading I was curious as to how I would actually explicitly teach these reading strategies.  The power of google... I found another Jennifer Serravallo book and ordered it right away.  I haven't read it yet but I'm excited to use it.  She lists 300 reading strategies that can be used in small or whole group lessons.  

The unique part of this book is that each strategy comes with a "how to teach it" section.  Many of the reading strategy books I have don't give enough direction when it comes to delivering a lesson.  This book does... it's going to be so easy to use as I plan small group strategy lessons as well as whole group reading workshop lessons.  

FOUR: New Room Decor
I've also been hard at work creating a new classroom decor pack.  After three years I'm ready for a change in my color scheme.  That being said I don't want to change everything... I just want to update a few areas in my room.  I decided to use these pastel polka dot digital papers as background for the cards and banners I'm going to use in my classroom. I need to finish this and post it to TPT this weekend... I've been working on it for too long already!

 FIVE: Summer Garden

On to some summer related pictures.  My husband and I decided to grow a small garden this year on the side of our house.  This is the first year we attempted to garden and we decided to keep it manageable to see how it goes.  

So far so good... we enjoyed our first cucumbers from the garden on Sunday and it was nice to know we were using ingredients we grew ourselves.  Nothing says summer more than a salad from the garden... even if only one ingredient actually came from the garden!  

Have a great weekend.  Don't forget to visit Doodle Bugs Teaching!

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Camping Week

Three and a half more days!!  I cannot believe it.  Last week was Camping Week and I'm popping on to share a few highlights from the week.

Teacher truth... this was the third straight week of themes and with trying to clean up the room and prep it for summer painting, I didn't do a ton of classroom transforming.  I need to be putting stuff away, not taking more stuff out!

That being said I did put up a "tent" on our word wall that I created using a blue table cloth from Walmart that cost $.97.  I reused the flame from last week's torch to create a fire!  Little prep but it did put us in the camping mood.  

For math tubs this week we played two camping themed games.  The first game was a review of place value.  The kids needed to read and build the tens and ones to determine the different campsite numbers.

The second math tub game this week had my kiddos practicing their doubles facts with a game called S'more Doubles. Little prep and the kids had a ball using marshmallows as markers.

 

During our literacy block we worked on putting different camping words in ABC order.  

We also reviewed several vowel patterns this week.  We built words using our red and blue magnets and then the kids had to record the words on these camping themed pages.  After building and recording 9 words, the kids had to use three words in sentences. Clearly it's the end of the year and I need new markers!

To finish out the week my kiddos got to write about whether or not they liked s'more as well as a campfire story they wnated to share with the class. This was a great way to tie paragraph writing into this themed week!

The kids also listed all the words they could think of that had a camping theme.  Some of them came up with a bunch of words!

This is the first year that I have done themed weeks to finish out the year and I am so happy we did it!  It was so much fun and it gave me a chance to enjoy the last few weeks with my kiddos!!

To all of you that have a few more days left, hang in there, we're almost done!! 

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Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for 
Friday.  Another week in the books and I'm so proud of my kiddos... they are working so hard and we're having some much fun together!
  

Here are some highlights from our week! 

ONE: Problem Solving 
We begin every math workshop session with an application word problem.  This week we began using these problem solving work mats.  The kids did a great job using these math tools to help them solve word problems.  I was very proud.  If you'd like more information about how I run my math workshop block, here is a link to a post I did over the summer.  

TWO: Calendar

This week we also began using our calendar workmats.  They were a big hit last year and I was so excited to begin using them again this year.  I waited a few days to introduce them until I felt the kids were ready.  I love how these mats add some math and ELA skills to morning meeting/calendar time.  This is the mat we'll use for now.  As the year goes on we'll add more skills and we'll complete two calendar pages.  We have not attempted the sentence fix it yet... possibly next week... we'll see how it goes!

  

  THREE: Book Logs
In previous years I've tried book logs and it was just something that I didn't think worked very well.  I thought my kids wasted too much time writing titles of books when all I wanted was for them to be reading during our reading workshop block.  After reading the Literacy Teacher's Playbook by Jennifer Serravallo I was determined to make them work this year.  

Using some ideas in the book I think I found a format that will work.  The kids did a great job writing their book titles for the first time this week and I think this will only get easier as the year goes on.  

FOUR: Writing Workshop 

Our writing workshop block is off to a great start.  My kids have really embraced the writer's life and they are so excited to write their own stories each day.  This week we really focused on touching and telling before sketching and writing across the pages.  I'm so impressed by the quality of writing that is produced when the kids use this method.  Next week we're going to focus on zooming in.  This can be difficult for some and something we'll work on all year but I'm so excited to get started.  

Five: Organization Tip

Can I tell you how excited I get when I open up a book to read aloud and I find some lesson ideas or a worksheet we've completed in previous years inside the book.  I have binders full of work and lesson ideas that I use on a weekly basis but there are always those stand alone read alouds that have a lesson or worksheet that go with it.  I was never really sure where to put these worksheets/ideas because they never really fit with the ELA units I have in binders.  

So I came up with this idea... stick the lesson idea or worksheet inside the book so when I pull the book the next time I know exactly how I used the book for a previous lesson.  It's always a nice surprise!  And... the kids love this book!  They couldn't stop laughing!

Have a great weekend.  Don't forget to visit Doodle Bugs Teaching!

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Peek at my Week - Winter Break Over

That's right... we had the whole week off for winter break!  It has been sooooo cold here so I was inside for most of the week!  During the day last Monday the wind chill hit minus 31...cannot believe this winter!  

Upside to this weather is that I got a ton of planning done and finished some games and activities.  My biggest labor of love was a sight word pack that aligns with the Reading Street program our district uses... this pack includes a ton of sight word activities that I use each week and my kids love all of them!

I'm excited to get back to work... a week off is great but by the end of the week I had a serious case of cabin fever.  Because we had the week off we'll be spending the first few days back reviewing expectations and routines... a week off is just enough time for my kiddos to forget some of the most important aspects of our classroom!  We will also celebrate our 100th day on Wednesday. I had my kiddos gather a collection of 100 items over the week off so I can't wait to see what they have come up with!

Here's a quick peek at what we'll be doing this week...

Click on the plans to download with hyperlinks!

In math workshop this week we're moving into our measurement unit.  I'm excited about this unit because there are so many ways to apply this to the real world.  During our math tub time my Firsties will be working on fact families, place value, and addition this week. This fact family owl game is an oldie but goodie... they haven't seen this yet so I'm sure they'll be excited to use it.  

We're also going to be using this St. Patrick's Day addition game.  I found some gold coins at the dollar store and it gave my the idea to create this game...I'm sure the kids will love using the coins to play this game.   

Addition to 20 game

We'll also be "Building Numbers" to review place value. 

Over the last few weeks I've been thinking about some new math tub games I want to create for the last few months of the school year.  During my week off I pulled out this book and re-read most of it. It's a great book with so many great ideas!  Lots of different ways to add meaningful practice to our math workshop time!.  If you haven't read this book pick up a copy.  I've read this book as well as her literacy work station book and both books are incredible!  Can't wait to start creating some new math games!

Have a great week!



Be sure to check out Mrs. Wills Kindergarten to see what others will be doing this week!

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