America the Beautiful

We just wrapped up our "Living in America" unit!  This unit is such a perfect time to focus on nonfiction book characteristics, informational writing, and so many other standards while instilling a love of country!

I really did used to loathe this unit because it just seemed too abstract for kinders.  I thought how in the world would they learn all the facts and did they really even understand what a state or a country was!!!  Those concepts seemed too out there!  But then I realized it wasn't so much about the facts and deep concepts! This unit was so much more about WHY our country formed, HOW it was begun, and HOW it has changed. When we started to focus on the deeper understandings, everything became easier and more fun to teach. 

We found video clips from United Streaming and Brain Pop! Jr.. We researched and read lots of nonfiction books.  The kiddos talked a lot and had some great discussions with each other and more importantly with their families.  Their understandings grew deeper the more they shared with others!

And what happened was, our students began to feel a deep love and sense of loyalty and pride for their country.  Trust me, they learned lots of facts and information, but more importantly they learned the whys and hows of America...the big picture!  

This inquiry approach feels so right!  The kids were able to think deeply about the hows and whys and hopefully as they study America's history over the years, they'll begin to see trends and how it's all related.  And many of the same struggles of early America are part of many other countries' stories as well.

Well...this post turned into a bit deeper place than I meant to go!!!  But I just loved watching it all unfold this year, and feel like it will stay with my kiddos over time. Not all the facts, but the whys and hows!

In the meantime... Check out these amazing informational writings they did in the now!!!

Peace out for now!

Back to School GALORE for Kinders! I'm in LOVE!

Woo-hoo!  We FINALLY finished up our newest unit JUST for KINDERS!

And I have to say I have a little crush!  You know when you have a picture in your head of something you want to create, and well...it turns out all CRAY-CRAY and you are like, "That was NOT what it looked like in my head!"  Yeah...been there, done that!

So this project ACTUALLY turned out like what was in my head...can I get an "AMEN!"

I can't wait to get back to school and start working on these writing, math, and emergent readers with my kiddos!  I think they will love them, but more so I think they will be great for keeping kiddos engaged with meaningful and appropriate activities AND we'll be building our class community all the while!

Here are a couple of my favorite things!

PROJECTS that BUILD COMMUNITY

This project may also be purchased separate from the pack!

This flap book project has kiddos drawing and writing about themselves, their classmates, teachers, and a little about their 1st week in kindergarten.  These make great hall displays and a nice keepsake for families!

EMERGENT READERS

and

GETTING TO KNOW ME

 WRITING, GETTING TO KNOW MY
CLASSMATES, and MORE!

Grab these 2 CUTIES for FREE!

This pack is ON SALE TODAY for only $4.00...that's 50% off...woot! woot!

Be sure and come back tomorrow!  We have a BIG giveaway with products from some of your favorite sellers up for grabs!  Have an awesome Tuesday!

Reflecting on Instruction- How we Love to teach Reading

Hope everyone is having a super summer!!  We are definitely enjoying out time off :).

Pictured above are my Boys (1st 2 boys my kiddos and the 2nd 2 my nephews)

and Cristy and her cute fam!!!

We recently reflected on things like pencil sharpeners, behavior management, pouches vs boxes, and how to get the wiggles out, but this post will be on research based instruction. We will try to make it short! Maybe we will just write several posts on instructional likes and dislikes :).

We Love: Cafe, Daily 5 Reading, Multi Sensory Phonics, 6 Traits Writing

The majority of our kiddos really excelled at reading!!!  Why??

We loved using Orton Gillingham Multi sensory methods to teach phonics (letters, sounds, blending, segmenting)!! It was hands on and minds on! It met the needs of diverse learners. We followed the sequence of letters from the book Recipe for Reading.

For the absolute best training on using Orton Gillingham, you should attend the 30 hour training conducted by the Institute of Multi Sensory Education!  It was expensive, but well worth it!! Click the link below to check out their site.

Cafe Rocked! We taught the kiddos strategies so they could be independent readers. They didn't rely on anyone else to help them figure out words!!

We used Science and Social Studies non-fiction texts as well as a variety of fiction texts to teach mini lessons on the strategies. We modeled using the strategies then gave students opportunities to practice using Daily 5!

What's Daily 5???
Read to Self
Read to Someone
Work on Writing
Listen to Reading
Word Work

Daily 5 was an awesome way for the kiddos to practice the strategies we introduced!

Needs: More Training on 6+1  Traits
Our kiddos were pretty great writers, but they really could have been better!! We would love a little more training on 6 +1 Traits writing. Do any of you have any experience with this way to teach writing to kiddos??
Let us know what you use to teach writing.

Part 3: Interactive Sight Word Packs - Choose 1 FREE!

Part III: Interactive Sight Word Resources:
"everything but the kitchen sink" Activity Page!

This FREE pack is for the sight word COME!  We have been using these packs for about 2 months now and we are TOTALLY loving them!  They are really helping our kiddos remember how to read and write these tricky sight words!

So here is part 3!  You can check out Part I: Flap Books or Part II: Emergent Readers if you missed those posts!

Here's the 3rd activity we included... 
Sight Word Activity Page!

Click either image to grab the pack for FREE in our TpT store!

This sheet is great for giving your kids some REAL time working with the word.  This will help the word “stick” in their brains and works on MANY kindergarten standards such as letters, words, tracking, writing sentences, handwriting, syllables, and more. (LOVE hitting LOTS of standards in 1 go!) 

We have created individual packs for each sight word (We are up to about 40 words so far!).  Then if your kiddos are having a hard time with any particular word, you can get the pack that works on that word.

Many folks have requested we offer them at a HUGE savings in a bundle, and we've done that now too!

Please tell us what you think of this pack. Can you see it working for your kiddos?  Is there a standard/skill you would like to see included?  We would LOVE any feedback you can give us!

We hope you enjoy the freebie!  And if you have made it this far...you can also leave a comment with your name, email address, and 1 more sight word you would like to try out for FREE!  We will email you that Interactive Sight Word Pack over the next few days!  We hope you enjoy!!!

Rosa Parks for Young Kiddos

Happy Monday!! Hoping for a Second full week of school in a row!! Not looking hopeful because of another round of Wintery Craziness is headed to GA! Yikes!!

Anyway! We love discussing famous people with our Kiddos! They really become so interested and excited about learning! We are so excited that we just finished a mini pack on Rosa Parks! We really needed a recording form for kiddos to take notes, some emergent readers to guide a discussion and a place for students to write what they learned!  Our kiddos did such a great job!! They impress us more and more each day!!

Check out this fun mini pack! FREE today Only!

Let us know what you think!!!

Dream BIG!

WOW!  It's amazing how big our little's hearts can be.  We have spent the last several days learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and what he stood for.  It's been very touching watching our babies realize that people can be cruel and heartless, where others can stand up for what is good and right.

I honestly think some of them can not even grasp how others could have EVER felt that segregation was right.  I think they maybe got their hearts broken a little bit over the thought they may never have been able to have some of their bestest friends if it weren't for people like Dr. King.  It's been quite touching to watch.

We wrapped up our study of Dr. King by writing about their own dreams.  What kind of world did they want to live in?  What change did they want to see that would make a difference?

As you might expect...some of them quite deep and meaningful, others "out of the mouths of babes"!

Serious ones...

"I dream that people would not fight and they would learn to love each other."
"I dream that people would not steal stuff.  There would be no robbers."
"I dream that people won't litter.  They need to make our Earth beautiful."

"Out of the mouths of babes" ones...

"I dream that little babies would quit hitting people all the time."  (This cutie just brought a new addition home from the hospital a while back, and she is NOT loving the baby arms swatting and flailing!)

We have to give a shout out to Kooky Kindergarten for this ADORABLE craft.  There are simple directions to follow, they ALL turn out adorable and unique, and they make for a great hall display!

The "I Have a Dream" page is from our Martin Luther King, Jr. : Peace, Love, and Dreams pack!

We hope you found some meaningful ways to teach your littles about this very important American hero too.  Please share your creative ideas with us.  We love to change things up from year to year!

Peace, Love, and DREAM big!

Interactive Sight Word Flap Book, Reader, and More! Part 1

We have just finished posting a FREEBIE that we hope you will love as much as we do!

This first pack is for the sight word COME!  Our littles are having SUCH a hard time remembering this word for some reason.  And I swear, this word is in EVERY stinkin' book that we use to test them on fluency and comprehension.  And if they don't know it....boom!!!  It doesn't matter how well they do on everything else...this one word kills them.

So we were really thinking of ways we can spend more time on a sight word to really help it STICK.  But you know our littles...it's got to keep their attention, be engaging, and FUN!

So we came up with 3 activities that really give the kiddos time to explore the new word and to manipulative it in a TON of ways.  We think these activities are fun and they keep the kiddos focused.

Here's the first activity we included... Sight Word Flap Books

Click either image to grab the pack for FREE in our TpT store!

Each flap book is copied front to back.  Students cut along the dashed lines and they are able to lift the flaps for some sight word FUN!  You can see by the examples exactly what the kiddos will be doing.  Each flap book works on several standards such as handwriting, word identification, reading, tracking left to right, writing, and more.

We are thinking that we will create individual packs for each sight word.  Then if your kiddos are having a hard time with any particular word, you can get the pack that works on that word.

If these work well for folks, we will bundle ALL of the sets and sell the set at a BIG discount.

Please tell us what you think of this pack. Can you see it working for your kiddos?  Is there a standard/skill you would like to see included?  We would LOVE any feedback you can give us!

We hope you enjoy the freebie!  We'll post about the other 2 parts over the next couple of days!

Emergent Readers - Individual Packs for Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving

Hey guys!  Just a quick post to let you know we separated our BIG Fallin' for Fall Emergent Readers Bundle into smaller packs.

We know you may only need 1 particular set to fit into your classroom plans.  Hope this makes it easier on your wallet and your planning!

Happy Columbus Day!  

Let's READ! Getting books into your kiddos' hands!

It's so important to get GOOD FIT books into your kiddos' hands!  We have a TON of great guided reading book sets at school that work really well for our CAFE strategy groups.  BUT...what about getting these books into our kiddos' homes??  NOT SO MUCH!

Our librarian loves us, but not THAT much!  We can't let the littles take these perfectly suited books home since they are library sets.  Our kiddos DO, of course, get to check out library books, but these are not always "Good Fit" books where they can apply all of their new strategies to help them read.

SO...we came up with some EMERGENT READERS that are PERFECT for getting books into our kiddos' hands that they can TAKE home and actually READ!!!  It can be so frustrating for our guys to know all these new strategies and then when they open their library book...it's just FRUSTRATION-VILLE because the strategies aren't working...not a GOOD FIT!

These readers use almost all of the PRIMER and PRE-PRIMDER Dolch words, making them perfect books for most of our readers at this point in the year.  We included an easier version and a more challenging version for 5 of the readers, since we do have some kiddos who are already in the 100 word club.  (Read more about our word clubs here!)

These readers are great for working in guided reading strategy groups

on standards such as tracking left to right/top to bottom,

reading sight words, blending unknown words, using picture clues,

reading for meaning, and much more!

Use the You Be the Author version to work on writing standards such as spacing, capitalization, punctuation, blending, sentences, and more!

So we hope these might be helpful to you too!  We love watching our kiddos discover the JOY of reading and finding out just how powerful words can be!

Please visit our TpT store and download the preview of this pack.  We included the emergent reader, LEAVES (all 4 versions), for FREE as a thanks for your awesome support of our blog and store. 

Download the Preview at our TpT store to grab all 4 versions free!

And as always, we will give away this pack to one winner chosen randomly from ALL the comments left below!

 Now...off to the front porch to drink coffee with the hubs, pooch, kitty, and kiddos and enjoy this GORGEOUS fall day!

Sight Words made EASY! - and a FREEBIE!

Sight words!  They are a BIG deal---a really BIG deal---a HUGE we gotta learn these words to read kinda deal.

We jump right in and begin introducing sight words from the get go.  We usually start with SEE.  They can easily write a MILLION sentences if they know this word.  Most all of them know I and a so throw in SEE and what do ya' got???  "I see a ...(choose about 1/2 the words in the English language and you are good to go)"  Endless possibilities for writing!!!  Granted...it ain't the most creative writing, but once the kiddos see the POWER of words, they get hooked pretty fast!

So to make it really meaningful for the littles and FUN too, here's what it looks like in our room.

We use Orton-Gillingham Phonics.  If you don't use it...BEG, PLEAD, and otherwise promise to give your first born to your administrators if they will send someone to the OGP training!  It is the GREATEST thing E--VAH!  (It's basically a multi-sensory approach to phonics instruction!)

Not a paid advertisement...just love those people!...

Now onto what it looks like in our room!  We show them the new sight word printed on card stock.  We let them look at it, think it over, and ask if anyone thinks they have a guess.  Then we "tap it out".  Basically that means we hold out the arm we DO NOT write with and we use the other arm to "tap out the letters".  We say "s-e-e spells see".  We touch our shoulder for the first letter, our elbow bendy spot for the second letter, and our wrist for the last letter.  Then we sweep from shoulder to wrist when we say "spells see".  This is great for your auditory and kinesthetic learners.

Then we do cheer cards for each word.  There are a MILLION places to find cheer cards.  Here are a few we made up on our own.  Grab this FREEBIE at our TpT store!

We usually draw about 3 or 4 cards to practice the word.  So if we pulled Karate Chop, then we would all stand up, get into our best karate stance, and then chop as we say each letter.  When we say "spells see (or whatever sight word you are working on) we karate kick, then finish it off by yelling HY-AH!  We repeat each chant 3 times before we pick a new card.  THEY LOVE THESE STINKIN' CARDS!

Seriously...they BEG to do these!  These are great for auditory and kinesthetic learners too!

After that we practice thinking up some sentences using the new sight word.  I'll write the sentences on the dry erase board or Activboard.  I write any sight word in RED and all other words in BLACK!  This helps them quickly see the POWER in knowing their sight words!

For our last activity, we use these word sheets we created for Fry words 1-100 and 101-200.  First we have them back write the word on their neighbor.  Then they finger trace it on the paper.  Next we let them pick their colors and rainbow write the word.  (3 or 4 colors works perfectly).  Then they use a pencil to trace the words.  Next they will try it out on their own.  Then we circle the new sight word in the sentence together.  We let them try to read it on their own first, then we'll look for sight words together and blend other words until we have the sentence figured out.  We work on tracking left to write and counting the words in the sentence.  We used a mixture of punctuation marks throughout the pages so we could hit that standard too!  Next they will illustrate the sentence.  And finally, they will use their new sight word to write their own sentence.

Fry Word 1-100 Pack on TpT!           Fry Word 101-200 Pack on TpT!

These sheets are the BOMB DIGGITY, because we teach like 100 standards all in one big sha-bang!  OK so maybe not a hundred, but A BUNCH!

They cover a TON of Common Core ELA standards like sight words, tracking left to right, writing simple sentences, handwriting, blending and using sight words to read, punctuation and capitalization, illustrations, spacing...you name it!

Our kiddos are learning their words super fast.  And no they are not ALL jumping on the sight word bandwagon just yet.  It will take time for some of them, but many of them have hit the ground running and they are on FIRE for sight words!

Hope these cheer cards can help you get your babies excited about sight words!  Let us know what great things YOU do to help your littles learn these words!

Disclaimer---Please DO NOT beat us after you have tried this with your kiddos for the first time!  You will WANT to beat us, you may want to pull our hair, or kick us in the shins, but please resist!  The first couple of sheets you do with them will be SLAP TORTURE!  To make it a bit easier, we do the first several together.  I show it on the Activboard and annotate over it and we complete the sheet together.   But then all the sudden by the 4th sheet or so, the clouds part, the sun shines, birds sing...and they will GET IT!  Then it's smmmmooootth sailing from there!  You will LOVE us again and you will feel bad if you kicked us!  :)

Learning Celebrations- they make a difference!!!

Hi Friends! When I first moved back to Newnan 6 years ago and started teaching at Arbor Springs, Cristy taught me about the most awesome culminating activity for a unit of study. It is called the Learning Celebration! Thank you so much Cristy for teaching me how to get parents and kids more invested in our classroom and even more excited about learning!

Probably everyone already knows about a Learning Celebration, but in case you don't I'll explain :). Seriously how could I go 12 years, think I was a pretty good teacher and not know about a Learning Celebration??????

Well just in case you find yourself in the boat I was in several years ago and have not ever had  a Celebration, this is a MUST DO activity!  All you do is spend several weeks on a topic/unit like Living/Non-Living things, Author Study, Friendship, Community, Reading/ Writing Strategies, etc... Really it could be about anything.

Then you have your kiddos complete an activity like writing about the topic and then illustrating, creating a PowerPoint, using craft materials to make something and then write about it, etc.... This also can be anything.

So our first Learning Celebration was a huge success!! We spent the first several weeks learning that good readers can read books 3 ways; read the words, read the pictures and retell. We have also been learning that good writers' borrow ideas from books and that good citizens need rules to keep everyone safe and learning.

So, using the book No, David! by David Shannon, our kiddos had to brainstorm and discuss with a friend all the things they might do at their house to make their grown-ups yell, NO!  You should have heard some of these friends!! They are hilarious!! Check what some of our friends had to say!!

Well, for the celebration, all you have to do is announce the Learning Celebration in your newsletter or make a cute invitation inviting parents into your classroom. Don't forget to invite your administration! The parents love to see the support and the admin loves this type of parent involvement.

Cristy and I schedule our Learning Celebration at the beginning of the day so parents can just maybe go in a little for late to work.  The turn out for both of our classes was AWESOME!! Only 4 or  5 families from each class were missing.

So after you invite the parents, either take digital pictures of your kiddos work or scan their work, then put their pictures into a PowerPoint. If you don't have a projector and activeboard, then the kiddos could just make their pictures on large construction paper to hang or on chart paper.

When the grown-ups come in, we give a brief welcome and intro explaining what was taught and the project,  the kids share their work, then we can discuss any important things that we want parents to know   (like the new report card or incremental grading).

 Anyway after discussing our important info, we share a quick slide show with music of pictures we have been taking since school started! Everyone loves a Learning Celebration!!

Try one!! You'll love it!!
If you have had an awesome Learning Celebration tell us about it!!
If you have not had one, We challenge you to have your first!!! We have several a year, but start with one and you will be hooked! What topic will your first Learning Celebration cover???

Have  a great week!!

Oh Big Brother! Friendship Journal

So, before we get busy with some K business, who saw Big Brother tonight?? Who do you want to win??? We don't know who we want to win, but we sure are glad they finally got Amanda out of that house! She was driving us crazy!!

What will we watch when this season is over?? Survivor? Bachelor? Bachelorette?
Surely there will be some awesome reality TV on that we can't live without! You know something to play in the background while we are blogging until weeeeeeeeeeeeee hours of the night :).

Moving on to some kindergarten business!!
Yay!! During Daily 5 we are finally about to give our kiddos some choice!!! Yahoo! We have built stamina for Read to Self and Work on Writing!! The kiddos will choose tomorrow which they would like to do during Daily 5 instead of being told which one they have to do!!  We know they are going to love choosing.

We knew it was time for choice when one student said, "Are we going to do any-fing else u-ver than Weed (Read) to Self? It is kinda getting bor-wing!"  

Oh TEACHERS let's just say "Here's your sign" or actually Here was OUR sign! Give those babies some choice!!

Now on to serious business! ELA Common Core Unit 1 is all about friendship. This unit incorporates lots of books about friendship. We have read books about Frog and Toad, books about Piggie and Elephant, and many other books about friendship!!! Let's compile a list of all our favorite books about good friends!!

What are your favorite books about Friendship???

Below is a Friendship Journal with some writing prompts. If you are interested, just click and grab!!

Please, give us some titles about friendship!! We are looking for books to add to our collection and Friendship Unit!
Have a great week!!

Phonics Boggle! It's Game Time Baby!

Been a little slack this first week of summer!  Page is kickin' it at the beach for the month!  One of us has to do some kind of work, right?  So---while the hubs is mowing grass I am sneaking in here to write a post before I forget how to do it! ;)  Summer---it'll do it to ya!

Here is a game we play with our kiddos!  They like it!  No---they LOVE it!  As in, begging us to play it...all..the...time!  We play this on Thursdays as part of our phonics time for Daily 5!  Trust me, the littles learn their days of the week quick like so they will know EXACTLY when we should be officially playing!  And---they---do---not---like---it---one---bit---if---we---try---to---skip---it!  It's not that we WANT to skip it, it's just that it takes about 12-15 minutes total to play the game, get scores, and crown the champions!  PEOPLE...this is SERIOUS game time!  BUT...there are just some days that we maybe get a teensy weensy bit behind and we try to skip this to get back on track!  Trust me---DO NOT SKIP THIS---if you ever start it.  Nobody wants an angry mob of 5 year olds coming at them all crazy eyed!!!

So...hopefully we have you interested!  What is this amazing game, you ask (you are asking, right?  If not, just pretend and come along for the ride!)?

It's really a very simple game to play, but they think it's the BOMB DIGGITY!  Shhh!  We are NOT gonna let them know that we totally made this up!  They think we are PROFESSIONALS!

Here's how you play!

First you need to gather up some chart paper or other large writing paper...big enough that a group of 4 or 5 kiddos can gather around it and all still see!

Then we divide the smalls into groups.  We try to divide them evenly depending on phonics prowess! ;)

We pick a team captain for each group.  Again, we make sure that all of the team captains are around the same skill level to make it fair!  No one wants to get stomped!  Team captains change EVERY time we play the game.

Then we spread the groups out all over the room.  We set our timer (We have an AWESOME timer that we show on the Activboard so they can see their time counting down.  Not to mention that it has a VERY LOUD timer that goes off and cracks them up because I still jump---every---single---time!) and off we go!  

Teams work to think of words that work on whatever phonics skill we are focusing on that particular week.  Early in the year it's a single letter.  Later it may be a digraph or two.  These pictures are from late in the year and we were working on blends with l.  They are masters of the game now and can handle it!  

The room is SO STINKIN' quiet while they play!  QUIET!  I mean like pin drop quiet!  I know, I know, you probably don't believe me!  But you see, as the kids are calling out words to their team captain, they must WHISPER or risk another team stealing (BOO! HISS!) their word!  SCORE one for the teacher!

(Remind me again why I ever want to SKIP this game???)

After the time runs out (We vary the time between 6-10 minutes depending on their skill level and which skill we are working on that week.) all the groups come back together and we score the teams.

One captain comes up and we call out their list of words.  If ANY other team has the same word, then we ALL cross it off of the lists.  NO points are earned for these words!  If NO OTHER team has the word, then we circle that word and that team earns one point.  We continue to score each team in this way!

Then we list all of the team scores, write greater/less than sentences on the board, and determine our winner!  The winning team picks out of the treasure box (goodies that cost me pennies but they think are as good as GOLD...candy, stickers, necklaces, plastic bugs...)  All the other kiddos get a "consolation prize"!  Mostly because  the consolation prize is CANDY and I LOVE CANDY!  Usually a couple of M&M's or Skittles or something! 

In the beginning of the year, some of their 'words' look crazy...all phonetically spelled.  But we don't really care because we are focusing on hearing the sounds in words, not spelling.  As the year goes on though, the writing gets much more conventional!  That's nice to see too!

And there you have it...PHONICS BOGGLE! Fun, right!

What kind of fun games do you play with your kiddos?  Either link your blog post about one of them below, or give us a little description in your comments!  We'll all be armed with some NEW games to head back to school!