Throwback Thursday–Working on our Sight Words

I’m throwing back this week with Hope from Second Grade Shenanigans! Here is a little post all about sight words!

***Originally Posted September 30, 2013***

In case you missed it at the end of last week, I posted a new little diddy.  This is something that I started working on almost a year and a half ago, and then started revamping this summer.  I FINALLY finished it!

I am in love with these activities! They are simple enough to do on a regular basis (for morning work, maybe?!), but still fun and engaging for kids! 

Here are a few samples..

There are three different types of response sheets….

 

 

 

Some mats for play dough stamping – great to print on BRIGHT paper!

And some bright and colorful cards for stamping words with letter stamps.  (There is a response sheet included!)

You’ll also find a fun little game that’s great for interventions or literacy centers!

Just click {here} to check it out!

What else do we do to review sight words?

One of my most popular posts EVER is {this one} where I shared this great sight word chants.

My kids LOVE this chants!  I keep them close by to use for little time fillers and brain breaks!

I also LOVE to use the Heidi Song’s sight word DVD’s – these are also great for a little brain break!  Anytime we can put anything to music, it’s a hit!

Another favorite are our sight word poems.  These poems have been around forever, but the kids do seem to love them!

Sight Word Poetry Pages: 100 Fill-in-the-Blank Practice Pages That Help Kids Really Learn the Top High-Frequency Words

I adore this fun idea!

and along the same lines….

Sarah Cooley {First Grader at Last} posted this fun game waaaayy back in 2010!

Of course, we are always practicing sight words during our literacy centers!

We read and chant our word wall…

We practice with our daily fix-its {here} (for the end of Kindergarten) and {here} (for the beginning)

We practice during our daily news…

We practice when we come into the classroom…

We practice when we leave the room…

We build our ice cream cones when we learn each new set of sight words…

We play lots of whole class games…

We build our words with magnetic letters, and mix them up and fix them throughout the day….

Sometimes we even stamp them on our hands!

We have secret, whisper words….

And so….so…..so….many more fun and engaging ways!

Phew! What are your favorite ways to practice sight words?  Leave a comment below and tell me your favorites, and I’ll pick a winner or two to win this sight word resource!

A Whole Lotta Random…What I’ve Been Up To!

I thought I would share with you some randomness that was on my camera over the past month or so!  In no particular order…

Some of you might know that my dad has had quite a rough year this year…in October, he was diagnosed with a very rare form of bile duct cancer and had surgery to remove the tumors.  In January he suffered a cardiac arrest episode and had TEN heart attacks – thank goodness he was in the hospital at the time!  He had bypass, and it was quite scary for a while.  He recovered, and continued with chemo, but still had a hard time healing from the bypass – he has been in an out of the hospital since March.  I’m happy to say that he is ON THE MEND!  The doctor’s are very happy with his progress, and he gets to stop chemo!  This is a pic of my dad, my husband and my brother :)

This is my little tiger.  She danced to Katy Perry’s Roar at recital this year, and guess who got to do the make-up?  She was purrrfectly perfect.

My niece graduated from high school in June.  I remember holding hear in my cap and gown when she was just a baby. Wow, how time flies!

This is just us.

The last day of school.  I now have a 2nd grader and a 7th grader. Wow.

And a final good-bye to my classroom.  Our Air Force Base school board voted to consolidate our two buildings.  We will now have one K-8 school, instead of a K-3, and a 4-8 building.  Packing up my classroom took most of April and May!

The biggest change for me came just last week.  I had the incredible opportunity to move to a school that was closer to my home, and to my girls’ schools. The caveat?  I would have to move to first grade.  So, friends, I am now a first grade teacher.  I promise I won’t leave my Kindergarten friends behind!  I’ll still continue to post and blog about all things Kindergarten AND first! 

Stay tuned….a new adventure awaits!

Chloe + Isabel–A New Adventure!

Hello Friends!  I bet you thought I fell off the face of the Earth?  Summer has taken me by storm!  Why does it always go SO fast!

We have our big family vacation under our belt – we spent 10 days in Florida exploring Disney, Universal and of course some beach time!  This week has been a week of relaxation!

Actually, no that’s not entirely true either.  I’ve been working on these:

The conference is in 2 weeks, and I’ve been working like a crazy lady to try and get these done! Will I see you at the conference?!

But, here’s what has been distracting me from getting my work done:

 

 

This one is soo sweet, and one of my absolute favorites:

I am so excited to share with you that I am now a Merchandiser for one of the hottest new jewelry brands out there!

I stumbled upon their jewelry and fell in LOVE and I know you will too!!

Here’s the story, friends,  I have set a goal for myself to book 20 online parties in the next 60 days! Oh snap!  Here’s the cool thing – if you host an online party, YOU can get free jewels!! And you can do it in your JAMMIES!  Teachers LIVE in their jammies in the summer don’t they? I know I’m still in mine :).

I’m also going away a chance to win a FREE pair of earrings today just for liking my Facebook page!

Want a bonus entry?  Browse my online boutique and comment below about a fabulous piece of jewelry that you would like to own!

Want to win TEN entries?! Contact me via my Chloe + Isabel FB page and book and hold an online Pop Up Boutique (party!) in the next week!

So fun!! I know you will all love this jewelry as much as I do!!

So like, comment, and contact below! Have fun!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Are you Ready for 1st Grade?

Lakeshore Learning, I company that I love whole heartedly, recently contacted me to see if I would be interested in checking out one of their newest products.

It’s a fun game show game called…. “Are you ready for 1st Grade?!”  Oh boy, doesn’t this look fun?!

What really got me hooked was the interactive components.  Check out this video:

There are games for children starting Kindergarten-5th grade!

They sent me the 1st grade version, and let me tell you it was a life saver the last week of school.  We played this game as a whole group in teams, but you could EASILY do this as a small group.  In fact, I am going to have this game close by my reading table to use throughout the year, because the cards increase in complexity!

Because it was the end of the year, and I have a mountain of boxes in my room (I’m moving schools in case you hadn’t heard), we kept it simple.  Tally marks on the dry erase board.  They could easily use the board to draw pictures to solve problems if needed.

 

I love the set up of the game! It makes it feel like a real game show!  I’m telling you, the kids BEGGED to play this game! It was a great behavior motivator for them!

If you are playing the game one one one with a child, this score/tally sheet is how you would keep track of which questions your child got right.

Then you can go right online and mark the questions the children got right/wrong and it will generate activities for them to do!

It even comes with play money!

This game would be super fun any time of the year, or as a summer learning game for your own children at home!  Be sure to stop over at the Lakeshore website to read the details!

Here’s the awesome news…Lakeshore is offering a $10 off coupon to all Growing Kinders readers!  That makes the game only $19.99!!  A whole summer (or school year) of learning FUN for less that $20!  Go check it out NOW!!

To get $10 off any Are You Ready? Game Show®, enter code 9141 at checkout or click here for a store coupon!

The coupon expires 7/31/14, so head on over there today!

3D Shape Fun + A Giveaway

We have had lots of fun exploring 3D shapes in our classroom over the past weeks.
First we reviewed 2D shapes and we recreated this great anchor chart.  If you know the original source of this anchor chart, please share it with me so I can give credit to the creator!  I love this chart! (This is not my version, I forgot to snap a picture of mine!)

The children made great connections between 2D and 3D shapes when they were on one anchor chart.
We also sang this song PLENTY of times!

We learned this poem (this chart is from Kindergarten Freckle Teacher) and sorted shapes from Mrs. Ricca’s Kindergarten.  You can download her cards here.

I love this anchor chart too – this is on my list to do for next year!  This chart is from Literacy and Laughter.

During play time,  many children chose to play with our 3D shapes and sorting cards!

We had a lot of sculptures being created after reading this fun book!

Of course, we had to do the ‘ol marshmallow and toothpick 3D shape activity! The children had a blast with this – especially when they found out they could EAT the marshmallows when they were done!

One of our MOST favorite activities have been these AMAZING Geometric Shapes Building Set from Learning Resources.

The children are OBSESSED.  It’s always a bit of a race to see who can grab these first during play time!  I love seeing the learning of math transfer over to play time – and the math talk they’re using….AWESOME!




They can be a little bit tricky to snap together (at least for me!), but the children really didn’t seem to have a problem connecting them all! Look at the creations they are making!

Since we have been focusing on 3D shapes the children have really enjoyed building 3D shapes, but many children are also using them to build 2D shapes.  I am excited to be able to use them to introduce 2D shapes at the beginning of the year.

So Learning Resources would like to give away one of these awesome sets (valued at $39.99!!) to one lucky Growing Kinders reader!
Simply enter in the Rafflecopter below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
NOTE: If you have won a Learning Resources giveaway on any BLOG during the past 6 months, you are ineligible to win this giveaway! Once 6 months have passed, you can enter again. Thanks!
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Oh, there is still a few more hours to catch the Teacher Appreciate Sale on TpT as well!
Click on the image below to head over!