After much practice, we have started READING!

Wow!  I didn't realize just how long it's been since I have had the chance to post.  I've been going through a lot in my personal life on top of the beginning of the school year craziness and just have not had time to add anything on here from our classroom.  So I would like to jump back in by bragging on my munchkins in their reading portion of literacy block!

We are trying to embrace the Daily Five reading program by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser.  You can order the book from Amazon here.  And I highly recommend you do!!!  :)

The first of the Daily Five is Read to Self.  We talk as a class how this should look and what it should sound like.  My students have gotten up to 15-20 minutes of nearly (I do teach Kindergarten...) uninterrupted independent reading.  They take their book boxes and a carpet square to their own spot around the room (as far away from everyone else as needed), and get to reading right away.  This is such a beautiful thing, I almost start to cry every day because it amazes me how well involved these young children are in books.  But enough gab and sap...  Let me show you what it looks like in our classroom!!!  :)

 The second daily five we are working on is Work on Words - though I have not taught them that term yet, as I have been unable to be in school for the past two weeks due to my personal stuff.  But we have been learning how to work with letters so that we can transition into Work on Words.

 Students pull a stick out of a cup that has a foam letter stuck on it.  They then use these cute pumpkin beads to make the letter on a foam mat.

 This helps them with letter recognition, formation, as well as fine motor!  :)

 At this station, they had a tub of rice with different kinds of letters mixed in.  They had to pull a letter out using tweezers and write it on the board.  Now we're working on letter recognition and writing, as well as fine motor, still!

 How cute are these letter dominoes?!  Found them at the Dollar Spot at Target!!!  I bought two so I used a marker on the back of each and put a squiggle of one color or the other so they can hopefully keep them in the right group!

 I saw this on Pinterest here and loved the letter racing!  However, I wanted to add some beginning sound pictures, so I spent a little time putting them together.  Please feel free to email me at dbloh7chickk@aol.com and I'd LOVE to share this with you!!!  Also, I found the cubes at the Dollar Tree in a pack of 50, called "Foam Counting Cubes."  I was so excited because not only are they easy to write on - they're SILENT!!!  :)

Letter Play

We start the year off practicing our Cluster Letters.  I get these by testing the kids on how which letters (and for some which sounds), they know.  I then tally up the letters.  I group them by 5-6 letters per "Cluster," starting with the letters most known and ending with with letters least known.  I then post the letters up, starting with Cluster 1.  You can find these letters all around my classroom.  We also do a lot of letter play with these letters until all of the students "own" these letters.  Our first letters we started with this year are B, O, A, X, and L.

 We make the letters with playdough and letter cookie cutters!

 We sort through letter tiles to find just our cluster letters and put them in the cups!

We sign along with the Fridge Phonics program for Leap Frog.

We "rainbow" letter our clusters.

 The more we play with letters, the better we will know them!

Classroom Ideas, mostly PINspired!

I will do my best giving credit where it is due to the Pinners I borrowed these ideas from.  Please forgive me if they are not correctly labeled and leave me a comment and I will fix it!!!

For my new Word Work center, many of the following ideas are inspired by this awesome teacher!  My students have a jar of the sight words I want them working on, they reach into the jar and CHOOSE the manipulative they would like to use to create the word.  I love the way that she gives them CHOICE!  What a great idea that most of us never think of!!!  We have all of this stuff shoved in our closets - let's get it out and put it in the hands of our kids!  Haha, something crazy coming from the Teacher Hoarder that I have become!!!  The greatest thing is, though - they're reusable!  So tomorrow, after the kids have used them, they're still there and not glued to something!!!

 

 Colored letter tiles

 Letter-shaped erasers

 Sparkly beads - they have to put these on rubber mats so they don't roll away - another reinforcement of "spheres."  :)

 Pipe cleaner words

 Pony beads

 "Bumpy Words" - they use crayons on paper over rubber mats.

 Pom Poms

 Candle words, inspired by this blogger.

 An assortment of beads - found at Walmart for surprisingly cheap!!!

 

I think these letter beads come from Lakeshore learning...  I picked them up at a garage sale, so I'm not sure.

The one problem I was having was that my students were going to the choice word work center and just playing with all of the cool new stuff.  So.....  I found an old digital camera I had lying around and taught them how to VERY CAREFULLY take pictures of their words!  Then, I remembered I have a digital photo frame that was given to my husband and me when we were married that's stored away and not being used....  So....  I brought it in and we now have a never-ending slideshow of the words THEY created!!!  It helps them to WANT to make new words as quickly as they can, and reinforces their word reading skills because the words are always changing!  They LOVE this!!!

 For the guided reading table:

 The star pointers were inspired by this blog.  I found them 8 for $1 at the Dollar Tree!!!!  GREAT deal and they're perfect for framing words AND pointing!!!  :)  The other things are actually drink stirrers I had leftover from my Master's graduation party from 2 years ago.  They're flamingos and palm trees, so the kids have a choice (there's that magic word again!) of which pointer they use.

 A great use for stretchable book covers!  Dry erase board/marker holders!!!  Cute, colorful, and CHEAP!!!  The best C's!  Inspired by this blogger.

Below is my Word Work station - inspired by myself!  :)  I bought the cart for $5 at a yard sale and transformed it!  This is where my students can select different materials for their Word Work center.  I'll post the transformation later....  The shelf is much more filled now as I keep finding more and more great things for it!