SIGHT WORDS

Hi there!

Today I want to share with you the way that I have been teaching Sight Words in Kindergarten for the past few years.

So far in my teaching career I have worked with two different reading programs - Open Court and Journey's Common Core. Both of these programs only require Kindergartners to learn about 40 words by the end of the year which I quickly realized is not enough to help them become fluent readers! So, I took the Journey's word list and combined it with some of the star words that our First Grade teacher uses and created my own sight word curriculum for the year.

By the end of the year I expect students to be able to read 95 words by sight (no sounding out, no guessing, they just have to have them memorized). You may be thinking that this is too much for such little learners, but trust me it is not! My kids get so excited each time they pass a color set that they beg their parents to practice with them and they speed right through the words. This year more than half of my class had the entire word list memorized by February and they have all started working on the first few sets of words that our First Grade teacher uses. (Three of my boys had them done by Christmas and are reading at a second grade level now!!!!)

Of course, there are a few students who still have a set or two to work on and I tell them and their parents that that is OK - everyone learns at a different pace, and as long as they have the rainbow done by the end of the year they will have mastered all of the Kindergarten words and the first few sets of First Grade words. Plus they have all summer to review :)

At back to school night I explain this whole thing to parents and give them the first set of words to start working on and a letter that explains how to get started.

A few weeks later I start the first round of testing and anyone who passes takes home their orange set of words and gets to color in the red line of their rainbow that I display in the classroom.

From then on I do scheduled testing once a month and they don't just test on their new set - they have to be able to read all of the sets that they already passed and the new one. I keep track on a progress monitoring sheet that I keep in my reading binder, and if they miss any old words I send home a note that looks like this:

When they pass all of their rainbow words I make a huge deal out of it because, well, it is a big deal! (And it doesn't hurt that the other kids get jealous and want to do the same!) I got permission from my principal to give them a free dress day, they get their face on a rainbow up on my sight word superstar board, and I give them the first page of First Grade words to get started on.

If you like what you see and want to try out my Rainbow Sight Words in your classroom then head on over to my TPT store and pick up your own copy by clicking on the picture below!

Mother's Day

It's almost Mother's day & this year I made my own craft for the kids to do but then found an adorable activity on the blog Teaching with Love and Laughter and I just had to do both.

First we read My Mother is So Smart! by Tomie DePaola. If you don't have a copy of this book you can read it for free on www.wegivebooks.com!

We talked about what is special about our Moms and then completed a super cute directed drawing activity from Heidi's blog and writing activity from Teaching with Love and Laughter that you can read more about here. The finished products were so cute that I just had to share!

Then, we did the very simple (and seemingly boring in comparison to the first one) craft that you can buy at my TPT store by clicking on the picture below.

Have a great weekend!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Everything in my store is 20% off for Teacher Appreciation Week! Plus you can get an extra discount when you use the code THANKYOU. Enjoy! :)

Subject-Verb Agreement

According to our Journey's Kindergarten Curriculum, I am supposed to be teaching subject-verb agreement this week, however, we do not have any of the resources that go along with the plans, so I had to get a little creative!

I made my own little subject-verb agreement unit which includes posters, whole-group pocket chart activities, and independent practice worksheets and I used them with my class before sharing on TPT. The kids really seemed to get it by the end of the week & I had fun teaching because I love testing my own products with them and I love interactive learning!


We started out with a lesson on what the subject and verb are in a sentence by looking at some posters from the unit and discussing the example sentences. Then we worked together to find and circle the subjects and underline the verbs in a few different sentences that I projected up on the screen (these are included in the packet & can be used as a pocket chart activity as well).

And of course wrapped it all up with a worksheet for independent practice:

In our next lesson we looked at another poster and discussed the fact that the subject and verb need to agree with each other. I told them that they have a "meeting" and agree on who is going to carry the letter S. If the subject is plural then the subject agrees to carry the S and the verb doesn't have to worry about a thing. If the subject is singular, however, then the verb agrees to carry the S and gives the subject a break. Then we read the example sentences on the poster and I made sure to very clearly point out and emphasize the fact that when the sentence was talking about more than one WHO or WHAT (A.K.A. a plural SUBJECT) then the subject got the s!!!!! (I hope you can sense the overdramatic articulation and repetition that I used in this discussion from my italicizing, bolding, and underlining☺️ ).

Feel free to take this freebie for your class!

Once I felt like they sort of got it, I whipped out a pocket chart activity and told them that I would read the sentences out loud and that they would help me choose the correct words to put in the blanks. For the first few sentences I pointed out whether or not the subject had an S at the end to help them choose the verb that did or did not have it's own S. After that I let them do it all by themselves.

When we finished completing the pocket chart sentences, we headed back to our tables and did a "Do the Subject and Verb agree?" worksheet. (They were all laughing a little too hard when I read the sentences aloud that didn't make sense).

If you want to try this unit it out with your class, you can click on the picture below and purchase it from my TPT store. Have a great weekend! 

Earth Day

This week we celebrated Earth Day in the middle of our "Taking Care of Earth" unit. That worked out pretty nicely...almost like I planned it that way, huh? 

We spent this and last week learning about the Earth, it's natural resources, and our responsibility to take care of the environment by reducing, reusing, and recycling. I use this fantastic curriculum from EngageNY to show the kids pictures and read to them as if "Mother Earth" is talking to them. If you look around their website you can find more resources such as picture flip books, lesson plans, etc. 

We also used a few activities from a Go Green for Earth Day unit that I picked up a few years ago (I can't seem to find where I got it, but if I do I'll add a link!)

On Earth day we did lots of fun activities from that unit as well as my own Taking Care of Earth Unit.

 We did some ten frame matching with earths and raindrops:

Then the kids did their own ten frame worksheets but filled in raindrops instead of counters:

Next we did raindrop addition. I projected this little mat with two storm clouds on it and placed different numbers of raindrops on each side. Volunteers came up to the board to count, write the addition problem, and add:

Our next activity was an Earth Day Syllable sort. I gave each of them a card with a picture on it and we took turns clapping out the syllables and then placing the card in the correct pocket chart.

Finally we got to the part that I was most excited for - our Earth Day craft:

We started by writing on this heart template

1. Why we love the Earth

2. One thing that we promise to do to take care of it

(Disclaimer: The only word that I spelled for them was "Earth", the rest they came up with on their own)

"I love the Earth because it is my home. I promise to pick up trash."

"I love the Earth because it is our home. I promise to not lit(t)er."

"I love the Earth because it has natchrul (natural) risosis (resources). I promise to throe (throw) uwae (away) my chrash (trash)."

We glued the writing hearts to a larger red heart and then put them aside. 

For the Earths, I gave them one green piece of land at a time and showed them where to glue it so that it would actually resemble our planet in some way:

Lastly, I gave everyone a giant letter I and a giant piece of paper to put everything together on:

Once everyone finished, I cut them out and hung them up on our classroom door:

If you would like the templates for the craft that we did, you can click on the picture below:

Or if you would like all of the worksheets that we did in our taking care of Earth unit and the craft you can grab them all together here.

Auction Project

Every year our school hosts a Casino Night fundraiser for parents and teachers. It's a really fun night! Everyone gets all dressed up and we have a really nice dinner, drinks, gambling, dancing, etc... One of the biggest "money makers" at Casino Night is our silent auction. The K-4 teachers are supposed to put together some kind of class art project for the parents to bid on and the proceeds go to the school. This year I came up with a very simple project that turned out really nicely and I want to share it with you!

First I gave each student a long, thin white strip of paper and had them draw a flower on it. I was very specific about the fact that they had to draw the petals at the very top of the page and that they could make the stem as long as they wanted. I also asked them to make it unique - to draw the most beautiful flower they could imagine and NOT copy the person next to them.

Next I cut out all of their flowers and made sure to rewrite their names on the backs so I wouldn't forget who the artist was for each one. I used mounting tape to put them all down on a large, black piece of paper and cut off the bottom of the stems. (If they had a cool stem I made sure to add it back on to the bottom of the page).

Then I used a paint marker to write each of their names next to their flowers and put the whole thing inside a 16x20 black wood float frame that I bought at Jo-Ann Fabrics (for less than $20!).

Finally, I printed out the quote, "Every child is a different flower, and all together make this world a beautiful garden", in exactly the font and size that I wanted.

I placed the quote underneath the glass and traced it, and here is my finished project: