How the "Champion of the World" Conquered Sight Words

 Are you a big sports fan?  How about your students? Whether it's football, baseball, basketball, skating, soccer, tennis or something else, chances are someone in your classroom LOVES sports!

I'm tutoring a first grader who is BIG into sports, and realized the key to keeping him engaged in sight word practice is right there: baseball, football, soccer and basketball.  I did what teachers have always done - went looking for just the right resource to help him master his sight words.  I didn't FIND it, so I MADE it:

Each sight word card includes an image of a child involved in a sport, from karate and canoeing to gymnastics and lacrosse, there are LOTS of choices. I made cards for letters, pre-primer, primer, first, second AND third grade words - who knows how far we might go with this fun theme?! - and made it a game because if it feels playful we're more engaged and for longer. 

 

To play: He gets a chance to read each word, if he gets it right he puts it through the goal and scores a point. If he misses a word I get to keep it - unless he gets an extra point card and uses it to "steal" my words by reading them. I don't get to read anything unless he misses, so I end up with very few word cards in my hand. Clearly the game is rigged in his favor, and there's an incentive to focus on any words that are missed because he might still get another chance to get them from me. There is nothing more satisfying to a kid than winning a game against an adult!

 

My student loved the soccer goal, and he loved the basketball goal, and we have practiced sight words, scoring goals for each word he reads.  He informed me one day that he was "The Champion of the World" at our game. (Score a big win for me- he WANTS to practice reading with this game AND he's mastering new sight words!)

Then he asked about a football goal. And a baseball field - with just baseball player cards - please? I guess you know what happened next:

Now I'm trying to think of a way to incorporate making and using a paper football (here's a video I found that shows how to make one, and another video with the rules) as a reward for doing well with this sight word game.  If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Reading sight words is wonderful of course, but we need to read and understand them in sentences, paragraphs and whole stories, not just in isolation.   More sports themed learning to the rescue!

Each of the 18 sentences and matching pictures in this set is heavily focused on preprimer and primer sight words - and sports vocabulary, of course! By limiting how many sentences we work on at a time I can change the degree of difficulty.  Since I'm working 1-1 with my young sports fan we do these on a table top, but they also work really well as a literacy center in a pocket chart - and take up very little space in a busy classroom that way!

Soon we'll switch over to winter sports sentences, and since we're also reading transportation themed sight word readers we'll read and match sentences about cars, trucks, fire engines and more.  I can keep this up for as long as it takes him to master reading! 

So who's winning in this game?  Is it the "Champion of the World", for scoring more points than teacher?  Is it me, for achieving my goal of increasing his reading fluency and skills?  No dear reader, it's better than either of those scenarios, it's a great big win-win!

Ferociously Good Fun with Tyrannosaurus Rex and Friends

I'd like to think I'm an innovative teacher, constantly learning new things and sharing them with the children I get to see, but recently I realized something dreadful.  I had sunk into a dinosaur rut!

Perhaps you've been there too - I have so many favorite dinosaur books that I stopped paying attention to new ones.  Between Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp, all the wonderful dinosaur books by Bernard Most, Bones, Bones, Bones, and Ten Terrible Dinosaurs, who had time for more?

Thank goodness I spent a little time recently rediscovering the dinosaur books available!  Now I have some new favorites to share, just in time for my dinosaur theme. 

Dancing with the Dinosaurs by Jane Clarke - so cute!  Who would have expected all the dinosaurs to have moves like these?  The ending shouldn't have taken me by surprise, but it did - and when I read it to my kiddos they squealed with joy.  I won't spoil it for you - go read it!

Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freedman.  I know, I'm really behind, the underpants series has been around for a while.  I have no excuse.  I do wish dinosaurs and cavemen weren't depicted together, but the way the children enjoy this one more than makes up for it.

Dinosaur vs. the Library (and all kinds of other things) by Bob Shea.  If this doesn't get your junior paleontologists excited, I don't know what will.  Simple pictures, lots of roaring, and an adorable dinosaur that every 3 or 4 year old will imagine being.  Prepare yourself for lots of roaring!

Chalk by Bill Thomson. OH MY GOODNESS!  This is a phenomenal book, as is Fossil, also by Bill Thomson.  The illustrations show extreme perspectives in a super realistic way, and tell the whole story in this wordless book.  You'll want to use this with pre-readers, but even adults will enjoy this gem.  I recently paired it with The Book With No Pictures to teach reading skills to kindergarten and first grade students.

I started by showing the children The Book With No Pictures, and enough of them had seen it before to know that it's a very funny book - of course they wanted me to read it to them!  Of course I obliged!  (Is there anything better than reading to kids?!)  One of the magical things about this book is the use of font size, color and type to show you how to read it.  Even children who aren't comfortable readers yet can analyze the way the text looks.  Big font = big voice.  Different colors?  Must mean different voices!  Text about a robot monkey is written in a very robot like font - so we read it with robot voices.  I love how expressive the children can be as we reread parts of the book with the font choices in mind!

Late in the book it uses the word "preposterous".  I like to reread that page, and then ask the children what they think that word means.  Have they ever heard it before?  No (at least so far no-one has), yet they all tell me more or less correctly what it means.  This opens up a discussion of context clues, and how good readers can figure out what words mean!

After reading The Book With No Pictures, we read a book with no words: Chalk.  This is important to me because at this age so many children realize the importance of print that they don't necessarily want to read the pictures - but it is such a useful part of decoding text for them!  As a reading teacher I've often told students to look at the pictures for clues, but I don't model doing that often enough, and I think many children begin to think of it as "how a baby reads", or not "real" reading.  By taking away all words, readers get to focus on the pictures and on how they tell a story, creating meaning and telling the narrative.  What great skills!

 It makes sense to follow up our reading lessons with some reading practice, so we work on dinosaur sight word mystery pictures.  Click on the picture and check out this pre-primer one.

My preschool and early kindergarten students also enjoy working on dinosaur words with this word building activity.  With 14 pages of dinosaur words to build, this is a fun, hands on center for letter learners - I slip the pages into sheet protectors (easier than laminating!) and put out our 1" letter tiles.  Ta-da! Instant literacy station!

If you read my blog very often, you know I like to include a free resource in my posts - and here's a free counting, sequencing, and addition activity.  Click the picture to go to my TeachersPayTeachers store and download it - and if you like it, please take a moment to leave feedback so I know to keep offering freebies!

There are a lot of other dinosaur learning activities in my TeachersPayTeachers store - I hope you'll stop by and check it out when you're prepping your dinosaur unit.  Until then, thanks for stopping by!

Paula

Back to School Essentials: Freebie and Blog Hop with the #Kinderfriends

Back to school season is a little like a game of hide and seek - there's a countdown, and then, ready or not, here it comes!  It's that time again - at least it is in the U.S. - so the #Kinderfriends thought we'd help you out with some ideas, teacher essentials, tips, tricks, and freebies.

One of the kazillion tasks we have at back-to-school time is putting student names on everything.  Cubbies, notebooks, folders, mail boxes, grade book, desks, individual book boxes, attendance markers, class graphs, journals.... the list goes on and on.  It always seems like I think I'm done labeling supplies, only to remember there's one more thing to put names on!  Just when you think you have it all done, you get 3 new students, and have to scramble to find the supplies to make their names match everyone else.  Teacher tip #1: Make a list of all the places you've put student names, and save 3-5 extras of any special materials you used.  Put them all in a zippered baggie, and store them with your student files.  You'll be so glad to have these when those new kiddos start arriving!

I think everyone knows that setting up routines is a super important part of back to school time!  Our students need to know what to expect each day so Teacher tip #2: is to post a visual schedule.  Our preschool and kindergarten kiddos probably can't read yet, but they can understand pictures.  I've found that making a visual schedule that shows pictures for each of the blocks of time in our day really helps them to understand what's coming up throughout the day.  When will mommy get here?  After math time.  When is recess?  After we do morning meeting and reading rotation.  Whatever your schedule is, posting it will help your little ones know what to expect, and will cut down on some of their questions.

Of course, our kiddos also need to learn a multitude of smaller routines: like how to hold scissors, how to use and put away glue, what we expect for bathroom behavior, where to line up, how to put books back on a shelf, etc.  I like to teach those skills the first week, and even focus on one new skill each day until we've gone over them all.  Teacher tip #3: Setting up expectations for routines the first week will save you cleaning up those glue bottles, or fussing about line behavior all year long.

While we're getting off to a good start, we also need to be thinking ahead to the biggest challenges of the school year.  If you're expected to teach students 30 sight words by the end of the year, or how to write numbers to 100, you can't wait several weeks to get started.  The biggest, most difficult tasks become much more doable when broken down into tiny chunks.  Teacher tip #4:  Break down the biggest challenges into smaller parts, and get started right away.  

Remember, these are little people we're teaching!  Getting started on challenging activities doesn't mean boring drills and worksheets all day long.  You'd rather have fun, and so would your kiddos!  Teacher tip #5 Make it fun! Play learning games, read and write silly stories, incorporate hands on activities and interaction throughout the day.  

One of the ways I like to make reading fun, is  to use reproducible readers with my students.  I love that we can read them individually or in small groups at school, and that I can then send them home for more practice.  I tell my students that when they take their books home, it is their homework to read it to someone at home 5 times.  Each time they read it, they have mom/dad/caregiver/grandparent/sibling - who ever it is - write their name on the back cover.  When they have 5 names on it, they can bring the book back to school and I'll put a stamp or sticker on it.  You might have them store these books in an individual book box at school, or let them take them back home again.  

Since I enjoy using reproducible readers, I decided to make one free for you today! This one has predictable text and sight words, so even the youngest children can be successful readers - and this booklet gets you off to a good start with sight words: I, see, a, red.  Just click on the square image to go to my TeachersPayTeachers store and download it.  If you can also take a moment to leave feedback, it would make my day!

Here's what you get:

If you like this reproducible emergent reader, and you'd like more like this, the freebie is a small sample from:

The full version includes both b&w and color versions, plus a larger pocket chart version for each of the 10 major colors.  Each of the booklets has a different predictable text, and between them students practice 22 pre-primer and primer sight words!  You can find this, and many other great back to school resources in my TeachersPayTeachers store, along with 20 other free downloads!  I hope you find something to help make your back to school season wonderful.

Thank you for stopping by!  For more ideas from the #Kinderfriends, hop on over to:

14 of the best ways to get your students to practice spelling

This week a friend mentioned how painful it is to do spelling homework with her daughter.  She's tried a lot of things: writing the words, putting the words in sentences, flashcards, but nothing seems to help, and it's torture for both of them.  Sound familiar?  Well, I'm here to tell you that spelling practice does not have to be painful!  You can also use these fun ideas to practice sight words, math facts, or anything that needs to be memorized. 

1.  Write those words!  "Yeah, done that, hate it," you say?  I bet you weren't writing them in a layer of sprinkles on a cookie sheet!  How about writing them in chocolate sauce or honey on a plate?  (If When you spell each word correctly, you get to lick your finger.)  How about a layer or salt or flour on a tray?  Or using tic tac candies to make each word?  Once you start thinking about it, you'll come up with a lot of fun ways to practice!

2.  Text them.  Tell me your elementary age kiddos don't want to use their phones - or yours!  Have them sit with you while you're cooking dinner/ grading papers/ reading a book, and let them type and text those sight words to you or a family member.  Limited text plan?  Try emailing them!

3.  Learn the sign language alphabet and have your child finger spell their spelling words.  Here's a cute video to help you learn!

4.  Use magnetic letters to make the words on your refrigerator, a cookie sheet, the side of a filing cabinet... so many options!

5.  Write the words in shaving cream.  My kiddos LOVED writing and drawing in shaving cream, so we always did this to clean the tables in our classroom.  Simply spray a blob of foam on the table, then let the children smooth it out on the table top, then write in the it.  A quick hand swipe erases and resets the foam for the next word.  When you're done, your table top will be clean, the room will smell great, and that tricky spelling practice will be done!  (Your child may get some on her clothes, but it's basically soap, so it washes out beautifully.)

6.  Let your child write the spelling word with special writing tools.  Try markers, crayons, colored pens, that special pen on daddy's desk, scented markers... whatever it takes to make it fun.  Can your child write each word in all the rainbow colors?  (Yeah, you just got him to write each word 7 times!)  You can grab this rainbow writing page in my TeachersPayTeachers store, or just write them on regular paper.

7.  Is your child super active, or does he want to live in the backyard after school?  You hate to squash that healthy energy with homework, but it has to get done.  If you have a trampoline, try having your child write each word in big letters on  index cards, and hang them around the trampoline.  She can then jump and spell each word.  No trampoline?  Use sidewalk chalk to write the letters on the pavement, and jump from letter to letter to spell the words.

8.  Invest in a set of letter stamps and a pretty stamp pad, and have your child stamp out the letters.  For many children the lure of playing with rubber stamps will motivate them.  Can't afford rubber stamps?  How about alphabet cookies or pasta?  Or even a set of letters cut from junk mail or magazines?

9.  Grab an old game of Twister out of your cupboard, or at a garage sale, and write the letters on the colorful spots.  There are 24 spots on the game board, so put x, y and z together on the last spot, and then jump from spot to spot to spell the words.  Can't get a Twister game board?  Try making one on poster board!

10.  Play spelling tic tac toe, bingo, or dots, or whatever games your child enjoys, using a spelling word to mark your space.  Your child will read and write the words over and over in each game, enjoy some fun time playing with you, and you'll both agree spelling practice has never been so much fun!

11.  Write letters on toy blocks and build your words.

12.   Paint the words, or make the letters from play dough and spell them out - this feels a lot more like play, and a lot less like work!

13.  Use bath crayons and write in the tub.  If your child loves a long soak in the tub, washable bath tub crayons are the thing for you!  You can also write on the tub in shaving cream, just like I suggested in item #5 - and now your child is practicing spelling words and CLEANING THE TUB!

14.  Write on pretty paper.  Try colorful post-it notes, or fancy letter writing paper, or use regular paper and pop the finished list into an envelope and send it to your favorite family member. 

Brainstorm with your child for even more fun ways to practice spelling, and together you'll conquer those spelling test blues!

Tips and Tricks for using Mystery Pictures in Your Classroom

 

My students love mystery pictures.  No, not just a little bit, they really LOVE mystery pictures.  Do yours?  I'm all for anything that motivates my students to do skills practice, so I thought I'd share a few tips I've figured out along our learning journey.

1. For our youngest learners reading the color words can be a challenge - so start out by looking at the puzzle as a group, and have the children color over the words with a matching pencil or crayon.  This also ensures that they HAVE the matching color, and know where it is. 

2.  Keeping track of which spaces you've colored can be tricky, especially if there's a long list of numbers.  I teach my students to color one space, then cross out the corresponding clue before going on to the next one.  They can even pick up where they left off after a break, because they can see exactly which clue to tackle next.

 3.  Do you have a young perfectionist on your hands, the child that always turns in picture perfect work, but takes  f  o  r  e  v  e  r  to complete anything?  This trick will help you both stay sane:  teach your children to mark the color for each space, but not to color it thoroughly right away.  A quick scribble scrabble in each space will allow them to see how far each color extends, and to color the whole picture at once, rather than one space at a time.

 I prefer to color one direction (for me that's up and down)...

 ...and then to touch up the unfinished top and bottom with some sideways coloring afterwards.  It neatens everything up. 

 4.  Those tricky edges!  You don't have to slow down to color all the way to the lines if you put your finger along the line and use it to stop your pencil. 

 5.  Of course, you want to find puzzles with the right level of challenge for your students.  We all know that you'll never ever have a class with everyone at the exact same learning level, so you'll need to differentiate.  My hundreds charts mystery pictures come with 3 skill levels for each puzzle, so it's easy to find one that's just right.  The ladybug mystery picture in these photos is a level (a) puzzle:  the hundreds chart is numbered, there are clues for the picture itself, but no background (so fewer spaces to color), and the text is a little bigger.  Level (b) puzzles include a numbered hundreds chart with clues for all 100 spaces, and regular sized text, while level (c) puzzles come on a blank hundreds chart, so students have to fill that in before solving 100 clues.

 6.  You don't have to limit mystery pictures skills practice to numbers!  You can find puzzles for letters...

 ...sight words...

 

... addition, subtraction and multiplication...

7.  If coloring this much is an issue, or if your class is just beginning to work on numbers to 100, try doing hundreds chart mystery pictures in your pocket chart!

There are even pocket chart mystery pictures for double digit  addition and subtraction:

Not sure where to start?  How about some FREE RESOURCES?

Is there a skill or theme you'd like to see as a mystery picture?  Let me know in the comments, I'm always looking for new ideas for fun learning projects!

TPT Seller Challenge Week 1: Makeover Madness (and a SALE!)

For the next 4 weeks I'll be participating in a TPT Seller Challenge, hosted by 4 great bloggers (see their links at the end of this post).

This week's challenge is to take a product, and make it even better. I'm really excited to participate, because that's exactly what I've been working on for the last 6 weeks or so.

Over the last year, I've made 38 sentence picture match activities - wow!  When I first began making them, they were 10-12 pages, included 12 sentences and pictures to match, 1-2 vocabulary pages, 1-2 follow up worksheets, a leveled list of sight words used, and of course, directions.  They make awesome reading centers, and when I taught kindergarteners, they LOVED them.   

Recently I decided to add a little more to my sentence picture match sets, and I've been working at it.  My current and revised sets have 18 sentences and pictures to match, including more diverse reading levels, so teachers can choose the sentences that are just right for each student or reading group, challenging but not overwhelming readers with different skill levels.  I've also been enlarging the graphics to make them more appealing to kiddos, adding thematic writing paper, and a greater variety of worksheets that cover even more skills.  I think these are good changes!

One of my sets that I needed to update was this one:

Looking back at it, I wanted to make the vocabulary pages more appealing, so I added a border, spread the vehicles out, and enlarged them.  I also added a page of road signs.

Next, I added 6 more sentences and pictures, including a couple of questions.  The extra sentences added the following words: this, police, trash, green, have, you, ever, been, in, taxi, cab, some, call, these, love, bugs, five, road, signs.  Many of these are sight words, but others are transportation vocabulary words, and are included on the vocabulary posters - supporting students as they decode each sentence.  The enhanced vocabulary pages also work well with the thematic writing paper I added.  I chose to use a fire truck picture on the writing paper, so it can be used with a transportation, community helpers, or fire safety theme.

Here is the resulting update:

What do you think?  I'm really happy with the improvements, but I'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions.  Is there another skill you'd like to see added to my sentence picture match sets, or maybe a theme you think I should make a set for? I am open to your suggestions either here on my blog, or at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

As part of the makeover challenge, I'm putting this product and all 38 of my sentence picture match activities on sale for the next 4 days, through Friday June 19th.  If you are a bargain hunter (and who isn't?!) you may want to consider getting my other sentence picture match products at lower prices before I update them.  You can always re-download for free on TeachersPayTeachers, getting improved products at no extra cost!  To find out if any of your purchases have been updated, go to the My Purchases tab.  Updates will have a red message below them that says Newly Revised Re-download.

Thanks for stopping by, have an awesome day!
Paula