Do you reinvent the wheel every single week when it comes to centers, word work, stations.....whatever you happen to call them? Yeah, me too! I know better, I swear I do but it just never fails. I am here today to tell you that there IS A BETTER WAY! Let me begin by saying I am a big fan of Daily 5. I run my room about as closely to the Daily 5 model as possible but this is one area I just never could give in on. The sisters suggest having out materials for students to build words, write words, and work with words during this choice. It is that simple. It is called word work after all right? I have always felt the need for my work work choices to be very specific so that students could be working on what I wanted them to be working on. Wait a minute.....that's the opposite of Daily 5 philosophy. It's all about CHOICE and becoming a BETTER READER so why am I making all of the choices? So here is what I did. I put as many random materials as I could find in my classroom and made them available to students. THAT'S IT! Along with a sight word list to use as a reference and one fun morning of showing them what it was all about and I haven't looked back since. They are working SO HARD during our word work time because they are truly using materials they love and making good choices to become better readers and writers. It has been amazing! Here are a few simple, simple examples. Again...simple! I did not go out of my way for any of these! #1 Magnets I have a couple of really organized sets of magnets and then these just thrown in a clear shoe box. Guess which one gets picked the most? You guessed it! Maybe it's the bright colors or maybe kids are just drawn to chaos. Either way it's a win! #2 Wiki Sticks I lied. I did go out of my way for this one just because I've always wanted to use them. My students think they are really fun! One of my kiddos who struggles the most during word work time (and refuses to use a sight word list) spelled out "tatr tot" last week using these. He was pretty impressed with himself and I was too! I got these from Amazon. You can see them through my affiliate link HERE. #3 Pom poms I've used these for fine motor before but I've never just included them in word work. They get picked every round! I didn't originally tell them to use a cookie sheet to build on but I like how it keeps everything in one space. They came up with that idea. #4 Beads I had these from the Dollar Tree for my fine motor bins too so I just included them in word work for now. They are REALLY interesting to build with because you have to pick up each bead and set it on its side so it won't roll away. The cookie sheet came in really handy for this one. #5 Plain OLD white boards I have really old yucky white boards. Guess what? They don't care! I set them all on the shelf and they pick one, a marker, and a sock (they are baby socks) and write their sight words. Marker dry? DON'T COME GET ME! Just throw it out and get a new one! I put an old assortment of markers in here so we could weed out the bad ones. TIP! Put your sight word list in a sheet protector and students can cross off words as they write them. My students figured out that organization tip too. I love when they help me figure things out! #6 Letter Tiles These came with our Reading Street materials and they are really fun for building CVC words because there are so many vowels included. I encouraged them to work on sight words but I noticed one student building CVC words, blending them together, and then sorting them into real words and make believe words.You better believe I had him share out at the end of word work to show his classmates and now everyone is doing it too. Instant center.....no prep! #7 Scrabble Tiles Seriously though. I have been collecting these forever and I NEVER use them because well.....honestly I didn't know what to do with them. It bothered me a little that they were all capitals but guess what? My kids don't care! They love using the little stand to build words with and it does not matter one little bit that they are all capitals. #8 Letter Stamps I had these already and they are always a part of our word work so this was a station that just stayed the same. I do like that they have to focus on our new words of the week for this one. I have to be in a (little) bit of control sometimes! But my 2nd grade colleague just has blank paper at this station and they stamp any word they want. I'm sure my kiddos would love that too! I might switch it out and have them do that next week. You can get the STAMPS HERE and the STAMP PAD HERE. These are affiliate links which means I get a small amount if purchase through the link at no additional cost to you. Seriously love these though and they have lasted a long time! #9 Paper Centers Yes....I still need a little bit of control and my theory is that some kids will totally love using all of the hands on stuff but some kids still want to complete a paper like a cut and glue, word search, or write the room. I didn't do away with all centers, I just added all of the fun word work centers into what we already had going. BUT! This has already saved me a ton of time in the planning department. I put out 4 papers for the week and that's it. All my centers are planned for! You can see the centers I have available that are aligned with Reading Street stories HERE. This week our story is The Little Engine That Could. You can see the four paper choices on top and then all of the materials stored below. I love these containers from Walmart because the handles on the sides lock the lids down tight and keep beads, wiki sticks, tiles, and pom poms from flying everywhere. I have reflected a little bit on whether these were just working so well because my students are UBER independent right now or because this is just a great fit. I mean really, they are almost 1st graders after all! But I think that these would have worked great at the beginning of the year with some alphabet options just as nicely as they are working now. I put out similar items at the beginning of the year anyway, this would just be some added options. Would I overwhelm my students with all of this in one day. NO WAY! My students have been exposed to all of these items in one way or another (through fine motor stations, word work, or in small group with me) except for the wiki sticks. Those were brand new. I waited a couple of days to add those in to make a BIG deal about them. If this was the beginning of the year I would put out 2 choices until we were really solid with those choices and then add more in. Get the sight word list shown in the pictures that aligns with Reading Street Kindergarten words HERE. These types of centers work great with these Rainbow Word Sight Word lists too! Want to save this post for later? Pin it here! P.S. Get a FREE ALPHABET ACTIVITY when you sign up for my newsletter HERE!
Do you reinvent the wheel every single week when it comes to centers, word work, stations.....whatever you happen to call them? Yeah, me too! I know better, I swear I do but it just never fails. I am here today to tell you that there IS A BETTER WAY! Let me begin by saying I am a big fan of Daily 5. I run my room about as closely to the Daily 5 model as possible but this is one area I just never could give in on. The sisters suggest having out materials for students to build words, write words, and work with words during this choice. It is that simple. It is called word work after all right? I have always felt the need for my work work choices to be very specific so that students could be working on what I wanted them to be working on. Wait a minute.....that's the opposite of Daily 5 philosophy. It's all about CHOICE and becoming a BETTER READER so why am I making all of the choices? So here is what I did. I put as many random materials as I could find in my classroom and made them available to students. THAT'S IT! Along with a sight word list to use as a reference and one fun morning of showing them what it was all about and I haven't looked back since. They are working SO HARD during our word work time because they are truly using materials they love and making good choices to become better readers and writers. It has been amazing! Here are a few simple, simple examples. Again...simple! I did not go out of my way for any of these! #1 Magnets I have a couple of really organized sets of magnets and then these just thrown in a clear shoe box. Guess which one gets picked the most? You guessed it! Maybe it's the bright colors or maybe kids are just drawn to chaos. Either way it's a win! #2 Wiki Sticks I lied. I did go out of my way for this one just because I've always wanted to use them. My students think they are really fun! One of my kiddos who struggles the most during word work time (and refuses to use a sight word list) spelled out "tatr tot" last week using these. He was pretty impressed with himself and I was too! I got these from Amazon. You can see them through my affiliate link HERE. #3 Pom poms I've used these for fine motor before but I've never just included them in word work. They get picked every round! I didn't originally tell them to use a cookie sheet to build on but I like how it keeps everything in one space. They came up with that idea. #4 Beads I had these from the Dollar Tree for my fine motor bins too so I just included them in word work for now. They are REALLY interesting to build with because you have to pick up each bead and set it on its side so it won't roll away. The cookie sheet came in really handy for this one. #5 Plain OLD white boards I have really old yucky white boards. Guess what? They don't care! I set them all on the shelf and they pick one, a marker, and a sock (they are baby socks) and write their sight words. Marker dry? DON'T COME GET ME! Just throw it out and get a new one! I put an old assortment of markers in here so we could weed out the bad ones. TIP! Put your sight word list in a sheet protector and students can cross off words as they write them. My students figured out that organization tip too. I love when they help me figure things out! #6 Letter Tiles These came with our Reading Street materials and they are really fun for building CVC words because there are so many vowels included. I encouraged them to work on sight words but I noticed one student building CVC words, blending them together, and then sorting them into real words and make believe words.You better believe I had him share out at the end of word work to show his classmates and now everyone is doing it too. Instant center.....no prep! #7 Scrabble Tiles Seriously though. I have been collecting these forever and I NEVER use them because well.....honestly I didn't know what to do with them. It bothered me a little that they were all capitals but guess what? My kids don't care! They love using the little stand to build words with and it does not matter one little bit that they are all capitals. #8 Letter Stamps I had these already and they are always a part of our word work so this was a station that just stayed the same. I do like that they have to focus on our new words of the week for this one. I have to be in a (little) bit of control sometimes! But my 2nd grade colleague just has blank paper at this station and they stamp any word they want. I'm sure my kiddos would love that too! I might switch it out and have them do that next week. You can get the STAMPS HERE and the STAMP PAD HERE. These are affiliate links which means I get a small amount if purchase through the link at no additional cost to you. Seriously love these though and they have lasted a long time! #9 Paper Centers Yes....I still need a little bit of control and my theory is that some kids will totally love using all of the hands on stuff but some kids still want to complete a paper like a cut and glue, word search, or write the room. I didn't do away with all centers, I just added all of the fun word work centers into what we already had going. BUT! This has already saved me a ton of time in the planning department. I put out 4 papers for the week and that's it. All my centers are planned for! You can see the centers I have available that are aligned with Reading Street stories HERE. This week our story is The Little Engine That Could. You can see the four paper choices on top and then all of the materials stored below. I love these containers from Walmart because the handles on the sides lock the lids down tight and keep beads, wiki sticks, tiles, and pom poms from flying everywhere. I have reflected a little bit on whether these were just working so well because my students are UBER independent right now or because this is just a great fit. I mean really, they are almost 1st graders after all! But I think that these would have worked great at the beginning of the year with some alphabet options just as nicely as they are working now. I put out similar items at the beginning of the year anyway, this would just be some added options. Would I overwhelm my students with all of this in one day. NO WAY! My students have been exposed to all of these items in one way or another (through fine motor stations, word work, or in small group with me) except for the wiki sticks. Those were brand new. I waited a couple of days to add those in to make a BIG deal about them. If this was the beginning of the year I would put out 2 choices until we were really solid with those choices and then add more in. Get the sight word list shown in the pictures that aligns with Reading Street Kindergarten words HERE. These types of centers work great with these Rainbow Word Sight Word lists too! Want to save this post for later? Pin it here! P.S. Get a FREE ALPHABET ACTIVITY when you sign up for my newsletter HERE!
Recently, I have seen some debates on using centers and the Science of Reading. If you have been a teacher for a long time, centers were a HUGE part of Balanced Literacy. Recently, teachers have shifted away from balanced of literacy to research based Science of Reading. You can read my Science of Reading Post ... Read More about Centers and the Science of Reading
It can be challenging to come up with ideas for great word work activities that meet the needs of all your students, and it may be even harder to
This post could alternatively be titled "what works for me" because lets face it, there are a million ways to do centers, and what wo...
This free blending activity for kids includes 42 CVC words reading cards that will help your child train his/her blending skills and
These kindergarten anchor charts will give you the tools you need to teach math, reading, friendship skills, and much more!
Need to help your students get more hands on practice for their vocabulary words? I've got 5 fun vocabulary games you can use right away!
Dolch sight words list for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third-grade levels. Our free printable Dolch sight word lists provide you with colorful sight word charts for easy reference and assessment. Teach your child to read sight words with these full size PDF Dolch 220 sight word lists. We've also included a list of Dolch sight word nouns.
I have always struggled with spelling, and how to engage students in meaningful activities to practice their spelling words! I have tried just about everything under the sun, from rotating through teacher-selected word work centers, to a free choice spelling menu where students try to complete different activities throughout the week. Nothing seemed to work!
Preschool and Kindergarten positional concepts such as
Teach sight words with these fun sight word activities for kids in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. I love how simple and effective these printables and games are! #sightwords #teachingreading #kindergarten
Are you looking for kindergarten free worksheets? We put all of our freebies in one location to make it easier for you. Get these amazing...
Learn how to make sensory bags for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students to practice writing, drawing, and creating on.
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links I receive a small amount of money at no additional cost to you. Last year I saw a great post from Heidi at Heidi Songs about using her sight word videos with white boards. It was a big hit with my kiddos last year and today I decided we were ready to try it with this group. They LOVED it! It's a super simple activity that gets them connecting with the videos in a whole new way. Total engagement......very little effort. Win-win! To keep them from writing/ erasing/ writing/ erasing.....you get the idea....I simply didn't give them an eraser and told them not to erase with their fingers. We wrote each word one time and we kept going until our boards were full. That gave us about 13-15 songs which was a full 20 minute activity. They were sad when it was done! I gave them a tissue when we were done to erase really quick (handing out erasers drives me crazy, a quick tissue for each pair makes for fast clean up). Here is a video example from last year. If you don't own the videos you can get them HERE. I also have the alphabet videos which we use at the beginning of the year. There are a ton of engaging videos to get you singing and moving in your classroom. We love the math videos too! We can't get enough of Heidi Songs in our classroom! How do you mix things up in your classroom? If you want to remember to check out Heidisongs save this post for later!
Practice recognizing
Help kindergarteners compare length & use appropriate vocabulary with this FREE "Shorter and Longer" activity. Great hands on practice for comparing length.
FREE Number printables for kindergarten kids to review numbers 1-10. Tracing and writing numbers and number words, find the number, ten frames and coloring.
Hi friends! Today I wanted to share some of my favourite alphabet centres with you! I'm hoping that it can become a reference for your weekly centre planning :) 1. ALPHABET PLAY DOUGH MATS Do your kids love play dough as much as mine do? I'm always looking for new play dough mats to add to the mix. I made these this summer and the letters are big enough to use with play dough or other loose parts like buttons or pom poms! Play dough is great for developing finger muscles which will help our kiddos with their writing as well! You can find these mats in my TPT store by clicking on the image below: 2. ALPHABET TRACING BOOKS Although I don't like having too many worksheet-type activities, I like having some dry erase activities to help kids who are just learning to print their letters. These printables are super simple and great for beginning writers! It gradually gets harder from top to bottom. Click on the image below to see these printables in my TPT store. 3. ALPHABET CONSTRUCTION My old school used to have these and my kids loved them there. Scholar's Choice was having a sale so I finally snagged them for our class! The kids love how tactile these are and the cards are super helpful for the kids who need the support. You can find this "Letter Construction" set on Amazon or the Scholar's Choice website. Here are the links if you are interested in checking them out! Amazon.ca Scholar's Choice 4. ALPHABET PUZZLE I'm usually not keen on printable puzzles (I like the real thing for puzzles) but the kids surprisingly ate this one up! The picture makes it self-correcting and it was a great opportunity for the SK's to be leaders and help their JK friends match and learn the letters :) You can find this puzzle by clicking on the image below: 5. ALPHABET Q-TIP PAINTING I shared this activity last year but I'm going to share it again because it's always a hit! The kids use paint and q-tips to trace the letters! This is another one that is great for developing fine motor skills. You can grab these sheets for free by clicking on the image below! 6. ALPHABET PATTERN BLOCKS I have SO many pattern blocks.. so I was super pumped when I found these alphabet pattern block mats! Best of all they are FREE! They are by Confessions of a Homeschooler and you can download them HERE. 7. ALPHABET TWEEZE & MAKE I found these letters at Dollarama. I set them out with some centimetre cubes and tweezers and had the kids make the letters! 8. ALPHABET ROLL & WRITE I put some magnetic letters into these insertable dice and had the kids roll and write the letter they got. Super easy, especially if you already have insertable dice and magnetic letters! 9. ALPHABET READ & SORT I wrote letters on these white beans, wrote letters on the muffin liners and then had the kids sort the beans into the matching muffin liners. Cheap and the small beans make it great fine motor practice for those little hands! 10. ALPHABET FIND & WRITE For this one, I put some letter beads in a bottle with black beans and had the kids find the letter beads and write the letters they found on a whiteboard. 11. ALPHABET PICK & WRITE {ON CHALKBOARD} I love these chalkboard from Handwriting Without Tears! I have the kids pick a tactile letter tile, trace the letter with their finger and then write the letter on the chalkboard. These chalkboards are great because they are double sided so they can flip it over and do another letter while that side dries! 12. ALPHABET MONSTER MUNCH This centre has been a hit every year! I got some tennis balls from the dollar store and then cut a slit in the middle with an exacto knife. Then I hot glued some googly eyes to make them "Tennis Ball Monsters". The kids squeeze the side of the mouth, say the name of the letter and feed the monster. 13. FIND ALL THE LETTERS! Bingo dabbers are always a hit so I made this centre to incorporate them! Here, students pick a letter out of the bin, say the letter, find it on their sheet and dab the letter. Then they put that letter back and find another until all the letters are dabbed. If this is too easy, I also set out the same activity but with pictures in the circles so that they pick a letter, identify the beginning sound and dab the letter that makes that sound. You can download both sheets for free by clicking on the image below: That's it for now! I hope to add to this post when I can :) I hope you are able to use some of these ideas! What is your favourite alphabet centre? SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave SaveSaveSaveSave SaveSave
I have always loved words and am a self-proclaimed word nerd. I actually read the book Word Nerds, met the authors at a conference a few years ago, and got to lead a PLC in my school all about it! Research shows that a child's vocabulary is a key component to their success in school, on standardized tests, and in life in general! Those three reasons alone should be proof enough to any educator that VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION IS IMPORTANT! What I love about vocabulary instruction is that it's cross-curricular. The words found in children's literature are just as important as those found in content areas, like science and social studies, which, in my opinion, makes it almost effortless to incorporate into your instruction. However, the hard part of vocabulary instruction is making it interesting and engaging to students. Merely writing definitions can only go so far. One way to make vocabulary instruction more engaging is to provide your students a variety of ways for them to engage with a vocabulary and then allowing them to choose what type of activity will help them best learn the word and internalize its meaning. A vocabulary menu can accomplish this. Students are instructed to choose from the ...
“@operiumj Is that the Alphabet Arch from my website? ❤️❤️❤️”
These free pre-writing printables give kids practice with common strokes that are found in letters, and can be used in many different ways!
Kids will have fun while learning where do I Live with this printable activity perfect for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students.
Are you looking for my original Color Me Readers? While those books can be used appropriately to teach concepts of print, in the original blog posts I demonstrated their use with three-cueing. I did this
Check out the HUGE family themed writing center that will be delivered right to your email!
Learn how I set up my writing center for my preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. Plus get a writing center FREEBIE!
Create a Math Block I can't say this enough. An effective math block will help you tremendously! It creates routine and structure that you need to make sure everyone is on task. This is what I include in my math block: Engaging Mini Lessons Math centers Independent practice visuals throughout the classroom Use A
Download sample resources from our Kindergarten Mega Math Bundle to make hands on instruction an integral part of your math classroom.
Grab your FREE hair salon scissor skills printable to use with your preschool and kindergarten students! Use at home and at school!
This year for preschool we are part of a co-op preschool group. I put together name recognition activities for all the kids in the preschool. Here are the activities. Name sticks To make this activity. I got paint stick stirrers and used Mod Podge to glue the letters of the child's name on to the stick. Then used mounting tape to stick the letters onto the clothespins. Your child matches up the letters to spell their name. Name Block Matching This can be made in any word document or you could make make it easily be hand. Name Puzzles Here are free puzzles patterns for 4, 5, 6, and 7 letters names. You can either hand write your child's name or open in a word document to add your child's name Just right click on the each image, save and print. I recommend printing on cardstock paper so it is more durable 4 letter name 5 letter name 6 letter name 7 letter name Name Tracing You can download free front from this website to make these tracing cards in a word document. The font is called ABC Print Dotted. This is laminated and so it can be used over and over again. Name Path For this activity, you can use any word document and create a table. Then can choose what letters you want to use and what path to create to spell your child's name. This is also laminated so it is reusable. Progressive Name Tracing This idea is also part of the Preschool learning binder I put together. I download free front from this website to make this in a word documents. The names of the fonts are ABC Print Arrow, ABC Print Arrow Dotted, and ABC Print Dotted. All of these activities are stored in a laminated 9 x 12 folder. I used an X-acto knife to cut a slip in the top. I like this folder idea because it keeps things together and can be passed around easily to each home when it it our turn to teach preschool.
Download free Dolch sight words worksheets for pre-k or pre-primer. Learn to recognise sight words.
Teachers face a challenge at start of school year, wanting to know each student quickly. With big classes, learning about every students interests, strengths, and need areas is tough.
