Vowel Team Flashcards, -ai, -ay

Hi Friends,

I had a special request to make some flashcards for young readers to practice vowel team skills.   These umbrella flashcards  for words with -ai or -ay are the beginning of this request.  I will add more vowel teams later this week.

The ai-ay vowel team flashcards will give beginning readers opportunity to practice words that have –ay at the end of the word of –ai in the middle of a word.  Because it may be hard for beginning readers to remember to say the long a sound these vowel teams I have made 2 versions of these flashcards.

Version 1 – words are written normally, no modifications.

Version 2 – the vowel team is underlined to remind your student that these vowels work together to say the long a sound.

Also included is a raindrop game board. 

Students place the cards upside down.  Each player has their own game board.  For each card they read correctly they get to put a marker down on the board.  The first child to cover all of the raindrops is the winner.

Click here to download the flashcards

Have a great week and enjoy spending time with your students!
Jill

Newsletter April 6, 2018

Our kindergarten is planning a trip to the Albuquerque Zoo next month.  Last night we had a fundraiser to pay for the trip.  It was a huge success!  I am so grateful to all of the parents and community members who supported our efforts to make the children's kindergarten experience educational as well as exciting and fun.  Thanks again everyone.

I listened to a TED talk this week about parenting by Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former Dean at Stanford.  I enjoyed it so much that I listened to it twice.  It is 15 minutes long and worth the time.

     Last week we had a great time reading stories about how things grow.  We started off the week with a great book about Oscar, a cat who is taught about different animals by a frog.  They explore how animals are born or hatched and the changes they go through as they grow up.  The children found this book very entertaining.  They were especially interested in mammals and were surprised to find out that they are a mammal as well.

      Another great story that we read as a class was about Zinnia.  We follow her through the many stages of planning, planting and harvesting a flower garden.  The students were so excited to plant their own seeds to grow.  We planted the same seeds that grew in the story: zinnia, sweet pea, sunflowers and cosmos.  Hopefully in about 2 weeks we will have some little green buds coming up through our soil.

     I recommend these books and the following materials if you want to grow a flower garden like ours.

Hi Friends,

I like to send a newsletter home each week with my students.  I include a little information about how parents can help their children learn how to read and how they can help their children with math.  In this week's edition I have a write up about listening comprehension.  I want parents to know how important and influential they are in their child's success at school.  On the back of the newsletter I have a coupon that parents can sign and return to let me know they read the newsletter.  When the kindergartners return the coupon I let them move their clip up on the class behavior chart.  Being reliable in taking things home and returning the things I need back is definitely a behavior I want to reinforce.

You can follow the link below to read this week's newsletter.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you have a great week doing wonderful things for your students.

Jill

Week 22, Newsletter, February 5, 2018

Happy Valentine's Day!

It will be time to change the decor in my classroom in a few days.  This just takes a few minutes and I even have the kinders help me with changing the numberline because it is down low to the floor.

I have a set of alphabet and number posters in my TpT store with a Valentine theme.  There is a circle in the top center of each poster so you know where to punch a hole to hang these on a small command hook.

These are the command hooks I use in my class.  They are perfect for hanging the alphabet and number posters.

For the next 3 days only, I will have these posters on sale in my TpT shop for 20% off.  That makes this room decore ridiculously affordable.  Grab yours now before the price goes up on February 1st.

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https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-Day-Alphabet-Number-Posters-Thematic-Room-Decor-3180405

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-Day-Alphabet-Number-Posters-Thematic-Room-Decor-3180405

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-Day-Alphabet-Number-Posters-Thematic-Room-Decor-3180405

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-Day-Alphabet-Number-Posters-Thematic-Room-Decor-3180405

To continue the Valentine's theme I have some sight word flashcards to practice the first 100 Fry words.  They are super adorable!  I like to cut my flashcards around the heart shape, but there is a rectangle outline you can follow as well if you like cards with that shape. Until February 1st, these cards will be free in my store.  Go grab them now!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentine-Heart-Sight-Word-Flashcards-3619617

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentine-Heart-Sight-Word-Flashcards-3619617

I hope you have a great week and your preparations for Valentine's day make you happy and fill your students with joy!

Jill

Happy New Year It's Penguin Time

Winter is in full swing and Christmas has passed.  This time of year the students in kindergarten like to learn about penguins.  Little learners like to learn about winter animals.  Here are a few items created to make your classroom and your teaching reflect the love for these birds.

Penguin Decor

I hang the alphabet and number posters with small Command Hooks so  I can change decor easily and frequently with our themes.  Each poster has a small circle in the top center to indicate where to punch a hole so they can easily be hung on the hook.  

The posters include the letters A-Z, plus the digraphs ch, sh, th, ph, wh, and the double consonants.  These cute posters will give students a reference point to turn for help. 

The number posters are 0-20 with numerals, number words and a ten-frame on each poster.

All of the posters can also be printed multiple to a page to create flashcards or game cards for Old Maid, Go Fish or Memory.

Penguin Alphabet Flashcards

These cute flashcards are a great way for little learned to practice naming and matching the letters of the alphabet.  Cut on the line for rectangle shaped cards or loosely follow the penguin outline to have penguin-shaped cards.  So much fun for little hands to play with.

Penguin Swim Game

 Here is a fun penguin themed game that helps practice sight words.  Pick a card, read the word, and if read correctly, move forward the number of places indicated on the card.  The first one to the finish line is the winner.

Have fun with your classroom as you learn about penguins.  

Just posted to TeachersPayTeachers, these cute bat-shaped flashcards to practice Fry's first 100 sight words.  They come in full color and a blackline version.  Have fun learning to read sight words.

Going Batty Flashcards

Week 4 of K3 Plus Summer School Program

This summer school class is just terrific.  They love to work at centers and especially when they go to computers.  This week we turned to "Teach Your Monster to Read" and we are having a blast learning the names and sounds of the letters.

Click on image to go to newsletter.

Week 3 of Summer School Kindergarten

Here is the newsletter from the 3rd full week of Summer School.  We have worked hard in 3 short weeks to make new friends, learn the school rules, and begin learning how to read.    This class is awesome!

Click on image to go to the newsletter for the week.

Week 2 was Water Slide Play

     We had a great time today during our water play.  We set up the water slide, brought out some wading pools and took our water table outside to play with the tubes.  The weather was hot and the water was cool and it was a lot of fun to play.

Kindergarten Happenings Week 2

Click on the link to go to the newsletter for the week.   A copy is also in each child's backpack.







   

News Letter Week 1 of Summer School

Week one of kindergarten was great.  Click the link to go to the newsletter I sent home last Friday.

Kindergarten Happenings Week 1

 

What a busy first week of Kindergarten!

Follow the link below to get a copy of what we did last week.  We have learned  a lot of skills for completing our work with our best effort.  These few days spent working on expectation and behavior will pay big dividends when it comes to making gains academically.

Kindergarten Happenings Week 1

We are working so much with play dough that I am asking each child to bring a 4-can package of play dough.  The attached list will let you know when your week to sponsor play dough is.

This is going to be a great year!

Lesson Plans for this week!

I am so lucky to be linking up with this linky party.  Its my first one!  Check out my week!

This coming week I will be at a conference for 4 days.  Although I love to get trained in new techniques, it has always bothered me to leave lesson plans for a substitute.  I am always worried about what the kids will actually accomplish.  This week, being gone for four days could be a real disaster if I don't plan well.

Last week I started new learning tubs with the students.  There are 5 tubs, one for each day of the week.  My class is also divided into 5 mixed ability groups.  When I put the two together, voila!  There is a tub for each group for each day of the week.

I found some amazing learning centers on TeachersPayTeachers and my students are just loving them.  This week will have students practicing skills in language arts and math all day long.

Last year a colleague of mine told me about Planbook.com, a lesson plan website.  I played around with it a little and I just love it!

I am able to schedule my day, tag my lessons with the Depth of Knowledge, ESL strategies, and Common Core State Standards.  I can collect data about my plans such as which DOK do I teach most at?  Which Common Core Standards do I need to teach more often?  Do I shy away from a particular area?  Am I particularly focused in one area?  I LOVE this website.  When I have suggestions, it seems they are always willing to comply or give me directions in a method to achieve what I desire.

This weekend I learned how to insert graphics and I have been busy doing that.  Here are some pictures of my lesson plans.

It looks like a LOT of planning...and it is!  My district requires a lot of documentation that we are trying to meet the needs of all learners.  I am grateful that it is easy to import plans to the upcoming year and tweek them as necessary.

This week I will be able to add more graphics that match what I have in the tubs.  I am so excited to have learned how to do this.

Learning New Things

I spent a little bit of time during spring break to clean up my blog and learn about interesting features.  I became determined to add a "button,"  not that I really need it, but I just wanted to know how to do it.

I tried a lot of different sites to help me through the steps and finally stumbled upon

GRAB MY BUTTON!!

This was so helpful.  This free site took my information and created the text I was struggling with and now I have a button.

Thanks so much!

March 14, 2014 Newsletter

Here is the news for this week.

Kindergarten Reading Suggestions

Here are the books we are listening to this week.  You might want to check them out at the library or add them to your own library.

St. Patrick's Day FREEBIE!

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with this I have...Who has? freebie!  Click below to get the game.

Common Core Standards Addressed with this game
K.SL.6 - Speaking and Listening: speaking audibly
K.RF.3c - Reading Foundational Skills: recognizing sight words

Newsletter for the Week

Here is what we did this week.

Here are some books we read this week.  They are worth a trip to the library to pick them up.  As you read with your child this next week, why not practice the skill we have worked on this week?  Look at the book and determine the structure used to organize the story.  Is it categorized, is it written in rhyme, is it told through the seasons.  All these things help us to become better readers as we understand what we are reading.

Addition Book

This book is so cute. The class made it last week while I was at a conference. Many of the students are beginning to understand the concept of adding groups together and also figuring out a missing addend. My thanks to Deanna Jump for creating her wonderful math materials that I like to use. This is one of them.