Alphabet Exploration

 One of the main components of preschool and kindergarten is introducing the alphabet including letter identification, correct letter formation, and the sound[s] of each letter.

There are a lot of ways to do this. 

A lot of hands on manipulatives ways to do this.

But nothing quite beats getting a pencil [and in the case of these exploration pages, crayon, highlighter, and pen!] into the hands of those little learners giving them access and practice to each individual letter.

I use these alphabet exploration pages weekly with my 4 year old class.

They love to sing the rainbow song while we rainbow write each letter.

And they really love using the highlighters to write the letters and then to find them on the reverse side of the page.

So much letter knowledge exposure in so many different formats all on one little page.

I just uploaded the Alphabet Exploration Pack to my TPT store.

Grab them for only $1.50 for the next 5 days, then they'll increase in price to $3.

Have a happy Thursday!

Reading and Handwriting Fluency for First Grade

As I was looking through some older files last night, I found these gems.

Reading and Handwriting Fluency for First Grade.

We used these every day my last few years of teaching.

The growth in both reading fluency and handwriting was unreal all across the board.

With an added bonus of vocabulary development and introduction to non-fiction short passage reading, these little 5-10 minute blocks of time each day became one of those things I refused to sacrifice on shortened schedule days.

My little firsties loved them.

And so did the 2nd graders down the hall.

I uploaded my files today to TPT.

There are some FREE packs...

First Grade

Water and Seasons

Introduction to Reading and Handwriting Fluency

And some that are only $1.50.

October

November

December

January

February

March

That's a screaming deal for a month of no-prep practice!

Hop on over and take a look!

Maybe they'll become one of your go-to daily activities too.

Hey, howdy, hey!

 Well, friends. [If anyone is still here!]

It's been a while.

A long, lllllllllllong while.

I'm still here.

Still teaching preschool.

And loving [almost] every minute of it.

Those of you who have been around a while will remember my "little Goose."

She's now all graduated and being an adult.
Nannying for 3 families and working at our local gas station deli.
And going dancing, and hanging with new friends.
Taking an unintentional gap year before she gets her phlebotomy license because she couldn't bear the thought of not nannying those sweet babies she's been with for over a year.

Sometimes we're lucky and her work schedules align so "Teacher Kayslin" gets to come help at preschool.
We love Teacher Kayslin days!

Anyway, that's what's going on over here these days.

I really want to get back to blogging. 

And sharing resources.
I've missed that creative aspect of teaching!

So how about something new and fun?!

I've uploaded that number activity you see in the last picture to Teachers Pay Teachers. 

And I've made it a free resource.

All About Numbers 1-10

Thanks for being here <3 .

[Sight Words] in Pre-K?! You bet'cha!

Well, hello there! :) 

Preschool has been an adventure.
A wonderful, glorious, exhausting adventure.

In May, I finished up my 2nd full year.
That first group of little Glowworms graduated and are headed off to Kindergarten this fall. 
There might have been tears.

2 weeks later, we had our first session of Kindergarten Boot Camp. We worked really hard on reading, math, and writing. And sight words. Yep, sight words.

I had introduced the game "FAST PLAY" with the ABCs the first part of the week, but was quickly informed that it was "too easy!" So...one day after my kiddos went home, I whipped up the SIGHT WORDS edition - just the first 31 sight words.

We played with 6-8 words each day. I love how easy it is to grab only the words that need the most work and play a quick round or two of FAST PLAY. Each round takes less than 5 minutes. It's fun, it's fast. And it's effective!

 

You can grab SIGHT WORDS FAST PLAY at Teacher's Notebook or Teachers Pay Teachers! It's only $3 [but will be on sale through June 21st!] and covers those first 31 critical to reading words.

But the included directions aren't the only way you can play FAST PLAY! 

You can shuffle the cards, keeping the whole stack in your hand. One card at a time, flip a card over onto the table. The first student to read the word correctly gets to add that card to his/her stack. The "winner" is the one with the most cards when you run out of cards in your "dealer" stack.

My little Fireflies absolutely LOVED both versions!
Thanks for stopping by!

[number sense activity pages for numerals 1-5]

Hi again. :)

Happy Wednesday! Today was a funny day at preschool. 

Back story...
Last week was spring break, so no school for the whole week. Saturday night I ended up with bronchitis which only worsened on Sunday. Little Goose ended up with the stomach flu on Sunday and threw up pretty consistently every 2 hours all.day.long.

Consequently, I canceled school for Monday. :(
And Tuesday. :( :(

Goosey was better and went to school yesterday. I was starting to feel better [except this horrid cough, but hey, #bronchitis]. And then Grammy started with the stomach flu.

Sigh.

Luke's about ready to move out for a week. Ha!

So I sent a text last night - "Heads up. I'm still coughing, but shouldn't be contagious. Goosey is better. But now Grammy has the stomach flu. I'm planning on school tomorrow but wanted you to be aware of what's going on so you can decide if you're sending your littles or not. I'll open all the windows in the morning and continue to sanitize everything. I'll have on guard diffusing in the classroom."

This morning I had one little guy show up at 9:25 [school starts at 9:30]. His momma and I chatted until about 9:35 when she decided to just take him home. I told her I thought at least a couple of kids would show up... 

She said it was no big deal and they left. At 9:36, I had another little guy come. His momma and I chatted for a minute and he decided to stay. Just as his mom was leaving, another little guy showed up. 

That was all. 

Preschool, Party of 3. 

Not a whole lot of new academic stuff today. Ha, ha.
We wrote in journals, briefly talked about the letters K and k, read stories, played play-doh, played puppets, painted, played outside, and colored with sidewalk chalk. 

It was fun, but my teacher heart smiled when they kept asking if we could be letter detectives or work on our math page. 

Luckily Grammy is feeling better and Luke is showing no signs of illness, so I *think* school is a go for tomorrow!!

Tomorrow is my little littles. My threes. My Glowworms.
They're darling. And hilarious.

We've been working extensively on numbers 1-5. We've made cube towers. We've counted objects. We've written the numbers and traced the numbers, and colored the numbers, and stickered the numbers. They were ready for something more.

Before spring break, I introduced the new Number Sense Activity Pages. 

 


They were hooked. So funny to see them remind each other about where the sticker dots go on a ten-frame. And to say out loud the steps of writing a number. 

 


The flip side of the activity page is the writing page. We write the number 5 times each with a pen, a pencil, a crayon, and a marker. Then we draw that number of objects in the box (I've updated these to use simple shapes). They hate writing with pens. It makes me giggle when they have these big annoyed sighs when it comes to that part. #theyaresopickedon ;)

 


I've listed these pages in both my Teacher's Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers shops. The file sells for $3. 

But...[you knew that was coming, right?!]
I'd like to give away a copy or two of this file! :)

Leave a comment with your email and I'll send it to you to use with your classroom or your own kiddos.

**Giveaway ends Friday, April 14, 2017**

Thanks for stopping by!

[upper/lowercase letter sorts] and a giveaway ;)

Each Monday, my "bigs" [4-5 year olds] start the week by learning about the letter of the week. 

I introduce the letter. 

We talk about how to write the letter. 

We compare the new letter to the other letters we've learned. 
What looks the same? 
What is different? 

Then I let them take turns writing the new letter [either upper or lowercase] on the white board. 

 

Often we'll read a picture book that features a character starting with the new letter. 

[side note: Have you read these books?! Hilarious!!! Pirates Love Underpants and Aliens Love Underpants - we read them both during Uu week - and I just saw that they also have Monsters Love Underpants and Dinosaurs Love Underpants!!]

And then we head back to the tables to complete a letter sort.

Good practice with scissors and glue [funny side note - these kiddos really REALLY love using liquid glue! I often give them a choice of liquid or stick glue for this sort and almost always they'll choose liquid!!].

 


Once the sort is complete, we use these drawing sheets to learn to draw on the back of the sheet, an object that starts with the letter of the week.

It's a quick, light, simple way to introduce the new letter or to reinforce what the upper and lowercase letter look like.

You can find the file here [Teacher's Notebook] or here [Teachers Pay Teachers].

But...I'd like to give away a few copies of this file. If you think this would be useful in your classroom or home, please leave a message with your email and I'll send you a copy! :) 

**giveaway only valid until April 13, 2017**

Thanks for hanging out with me!

[back in the saddle again...with a super great preschool resource]

Whew. This preschool thing has been a whirlwind of activity, hard work, tears, smiles, frustration, accomplishment, and joy.

After not finding a curriculum that I loved, I started creating my own. Week after week, I wrote, edited, rewrote, edited, experimented, rewrote, and finally found a system that I am super pleased with.

Not all components are complete. But they're close. :)

Today I want to share with you a favorite from my Fireflies class (4-5 year olds). They're in that early stage of discovering how letters work together to make words. They are writing phonetically and asking me how to write all sorts of words. It's so fun!! Early on, I decided that my 4s were going to leave preschool with a foundation of letter understanding [correct formation, sounds], beginning spelling skills, knowledge of reading [title, words in a sentence, tracking], and a base of early sight words.

We've been using these foldable mini books for a few months now, and it's been magical! ;) 

Every day my littles beg for reading time. They can correctly identify the sight words from these books [is, for, I, see, a, the] in other passages and in environmental print. I get frequent texts from parents with their littles pointing to one of these words in the newspaper, in books, and on signs. My heart smiles a little bigger with each text. 

We use the first book on Mondays [class meets M/W/F]. First they highlight each time the focus letter appears in the book. Together we identify the pictures and discuss any unfamiliar pictures [umpire for example] so they "know" what the last word on each page is. Then we read together the whole book. I watch carefully for correct tracking and correct as necessary. Each student circles the word "is" on each page and checks with their partner for accuracy. Each student then draws a line under the word "for" and checks for accuracy. Next, they whisper read to themselves. Again, I'm watching for tracking. Finally, as they color, I go to each student and have them read at least one page from the book to me. This book goes home to read and keep.

The second book we use on Wednesdays and Fridays [I just keep their copies on Wednesdays and send the books home on Fridays]. Because the books use both "a" and "the," they're a little more challenging. We go through the books in a similar fashion as before. We simply focus on the word "a" on Wednesday and the word "the" on Friday. "I" and "see" are reviewed each day.










Our complete ABC curriculum includes these mini books, an upper/lowercase sort [Mondays], an initial sound sort [Wednesdays], and a tracing/alphabet activity page [daily]. 

You can find the foldable mini books here [Teachers Notebook] and here [Teachers Pay Teachers]. 

The sorts and activity pages will be finished and listed soon.

I love the print and go ease of these books. I love that my littles beg to read them. I love how quickly they're giving my Fireflies a base of high frequency sight words. But mostly, I LOVE teaching preschool!!