An ABC song {FREEBIE}

I've been using this alphabet song for a very long time.  I use it as part of my morning routine/ carpet time.  It loosely goes to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".  At the beginning of the year, I do it more as a chant because I want them to get the correct pronunciation of the sounds.  The only problem with this song is that when kids sing it, they tend to add the "uhh" to the end of the sound- which is why we start it as a chant instead of the tune.   Last year, I also began using Jack Hartman's Workout to the Letter Sounds (the open version so we could use our words) some days just to give us a different way to do it.  Anyway, my old copy of the song that I had for my calendar area didn't have very cute graphics.  With all the amazing artists on TpT, I was able to find almost all of the words I needed (even ox which was always hard to find).  Click on the link to get your copy ABC song.

The Busy Beach FREEBIE

We are in the middle of an ocean unit.  I found this book in our Common Core Unit Book Tubs. It is a great book to connect to math.  It goes through different animals on the beach and how many legs they have all together. Click on the link here to get a FREEBIE and enjoy the pictures below that show some of my student samples.

High Frequency Word Fluency

I really think high frequency words will be the death of me this year!  This particular group seems to be having a very difficult time learning the 75 words that they need for mastery by the end of Kindergarten.  I think part of it is that they came in so low- not knowing many letters and sounds- so we had to really focus on that at first and push sight words to the back burner until they mastered letters and sounds.  Another part is parental involvement- my kinders that have parents who will practice the words at home have mastered those 75 words weeks ago.  Unfortunately, many do not practice at home and we can only do so much at school.  Anyway, I made this recording sheet.  I know it's a little late for this year, but I will definitely use this with next year's group.  Get the freebie here

High Frequency Words Day 4

Here's another quick and easy idea to incorporate sight words into other literacy stations.  I have an art station, but my administration frowns upon stations that do not have literacy standards closely linked with them.  So sometimes I feel the need to make my art center more academically rigorous.  I created a sight word mitten match that we are going to use for a couple of weeks in January.  I used the words that we are learning when we come back in January but left a couple of blank pages at the end so you could write in your own words and shape boxes.

Click here for the freebie.  BTW, I love, love, love the shape box font that I used here.  It is from Clips by Carrie.  Before I found it, I was spending way too much time making shape boxes with tables- yuck! or drawing them by hand- ugly!

It's two freebies for one blog today, I guess because here's another idea I've used.  It's an alternative to the Read It, Write It, Stamp It I wrote about a few days ago- no stamps for my little ones to break...  Get the freebie here.  I am planning on making sets of these and the Read It, Trace It, Stamp It for Fry and Dolch words and one other activity and selling them. I just finished the High Frequency Word Station packet for the Fry List.  It's in my store here.  I am working on the Dolch list and it should be up soon.  I think I am done with my High Frequency Word posts.  Hmmm, what's next?  Maybe word families?  Maybe math centers?  Not sure yet...

High Frequency Words Day 3

Yet another day posting about High Frequency Words.  I kind of like these themed posts.  They keep me focused on a topic and, hopefully, I am sharing some things that are valuable to someone else.  Today, I want to focus on some whole group things I do to teach sight words. 
One of my kinders' favorites is a Power Point Slide show.  I make it with the entire quarter's words and we read it every day.  I make the words bounce in or rotate and they love it.  I mix up the words each day so they are not getting used to the same sequence.  It's just a quick and easy thing we do whole group every day that words well for us. 
Another idea I have is for an interactive white board.  If you have Smart Notebook software, there is a tool you can use called the Random Word Generator.  You just put the sight words you want to focus on- I think you can put 25 in at a time.  Then the kids push a button and it randomly picks a word.  Lots of fun!  There's also a dice that you can program with words and the kinders can roll the dice and read the word. 
Of course, we also cheer and chant the sight words.  I did not make any of these up- some are taken from Dr. Jean and some came from other unknown sources over the years.  Our favorite is the basketball chant.  The kinders stand up and pretend to dribble the basketball and spell the sight word- then when they have spelled the word they shoot the basket and say the word. 
We also really like the marshmallow clap chant.  We pretend there is a marshmallow between our hands that we are squeezing together as we spell the word and then say the word- one squeeze for every letter and then a really big squeeze when we say the word. 
We also love, love, love the cowboy chant.   We turn our chairs around and sit the "wrong" way on them like we are straddling a horse.  Then we get our lasso and wave it in the air for each letter of the word.  When we say the word we throw our pretend lasso out to get that cow and pull it in to say the word. 
The swimming chant is another favorite.  We take a swimming stroke for every letter of the word as we spell it.  When we are finished, we hold our noses and go underwater while we say the word. 
What whole group things do you do to teach sight words?
And, I am also curious how many sight words your kinders need to know by the end of the year?  Our goal is 75 (the first three Fry lists).  And, what list do you use? Fry? Dolch? Something else?

High Frequency Words Day 2

Today is my second day of sharing my ideas for teaching high frequency words.  This is really two ideas in one freebie.  The first I call Trace It, Write It, Stamp It. It has five words that we've recently been learning on a page for the students to trace, write and stamp.  My kinders love this station and, until recently, everything has been going great.  However, a new little boy in my room is somewhat destructive and the stamps we've been using all year are all of a sudden falling apart. And, the new stamps I put out since the old ones were breaking are now also falling apart. :( So, this one can't be a weekly station anymore. 

On the back of this page, I also have a word box and writing practice page that I sometimes add.  Sometimes the kinders just do rainbow writing of the words when they finish this one, but this other sheet is fun too.  The kinders find the word shape box and write the word and then practice it.

The second idea is a game called Roll a Sight Word.  You have to print the dice and put it together. (Recently, I've been purchasing the small wooden cubes you can get at Michaels and then just writing the words in permanent marker and saving for future years.)  The idea is that they roll the dice and write the word on the graph- saying it and spelling it aloud.  If they roll Erase a Word, they have to erase a word of their choice.  The goal is to see which word "wins" by making it to the top of the graph.

 These ideas are in my TpT product here.  But I made one for 2nd quarter words this year that isn't exactly the same as a freebie.  Click here for the freebie. BTW, I am having a New Year's Sale on everything January 1st and 2nd at my TpT Store.

High Frequency Words

I don't know about you, but teaching high frequency words is not my favorite part of kindergarten.  Our kinders need to know 75 words by the end of the year.  Some years that is not a problem because the kinders come in very ready- knowing lots of sounds and letters.  But when you get a group of kinders that don't know any letters and sounds at the beginning of the year and they need to know 11 sight words by the end of 1st quarter, it can get a little frustrating.  That is me this year!  Most of my kinders came in not knowing very many letters and sounds, so that was our primary focus for the first half of the year.  Now that they know their letters and sounds, it's time to really buckle down and get them where they need to be (50 words by March).  I have the problem, again, of not having enough resources provided for me.  The reading series our district adopted a bazillion years ago teaches the kinders maybe 25 words. That's not going to help me reach my pay for performance goals now is it? So, I am looking for some fabulous ideas for teaching high frequency words.  We use the Fry list of words, but we've mixed it up a bit to get some more common words toward the beginning.   So, I am looking for some great sight word resources.  I have a sight word work station and I need some fun and meaningful activities.  What do you do to teach sight words?  Over the next few days, I will share some of the things that I do, but I'd love to hear some of your ideas as well.
I've made a game with our sight words called Roll It, Read It, and Write It. 

Click here for the freebie. And check back tomorrow for another one of my ideas for teaching sight words.