Five For Friday

I am linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday.

1 - This week we have been assessing the math standards for our 3rd nine weeks report cards. One of the standards was comparing 2D and 3D shapes so here are the shapes we are using to compare.

2 - These adorable little vistors came to our classroom on Thursday. They belong to a fellow kindergarten teacher who brought them to share with our entire grade level. My kinders loved seeing them.
 

3 - This was one of my literacy stations this week for my kinders. My kinders enjoyed finding the rhymes and it was very interesting to see how they spelled some of them.
 

4 - My kinders wrote after we read The Easter Egg by Jan Brett. I was amazed at this little fellow's writing. He worked so hard on decorating his egg and his story to match.
 

5 - This is a color by sight words sheet I made for my kinders to use this week. It is pretty simple but it practices some of the harder words from the Journeys reading series. I am posting it as a freebie for you too. I know it may be too late to use it this year but you could always use it for spring.
 

Bunny Color by Sight Words Activity Sheet

Sight Words Fun

This is an idea that I saw at the SC Kindergarten Teachers Conference. 

Brain research says that a person's eyes are drawn to the middle of a circle while your eyes are drawn to the edges of a square or rectangle shape. Since my kinders' eyes are obviously drawn to the middle of a circle as well, I typed up all of our sight words from the Journeys reading series on circles. They are enjoying reading the sight words this way. 

Another idea to review the sight words is to use the word worm circles. I created a different set for the first 3 units and last 3 units of the Journeys reading series. These word worms are available on TpT for $2.00 but they are on sale until Sunday night for $1.50. 

Journeys Kindergarten Sight Word Worms

To play the word worm game: 
Each student gets a circle. The teacher puts down the head of the word worm on the floor. The first student puts down his/her sight word and reads it. Each of the other students must read the sight words that are already a part of the word worm before they add their sight word to the worm. If a student has difficulty with a word, he/she may ask a classmate for help.  

Since I am in a giving mood, I am giving away 2 sets of my word worm games. All you need to do is enter through the Rafflecopter below. I will draw for my winner on Saturday so make sure you enter now.  
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Math Monday: April Math Journal Prompts

My April Math Journal prompts pack is finished. These are like the previous months' prompts with each being aligned to at least one Common Core standard. This month, many of the prompts focus on the addition and subtraction standards that my kinders are working hard on. This pack is $3.00 in my TpT store and TN shop.

TpT store                                       TN shop

SC Kindergarten Teachers Conference

Earlier this month, I went to the SC Kindergarten Teachers Conference presented by SDE. This is the first year I have been to the conference in 5 years because our district has not allowed teachers to travel for professional development unless they initiate the professional development. I was so excited to find out that I could attend. As in previous years, this was a wonderful conference that had so many wonderful presenters. 

I got to meet the fabulous Dr. Jean. She was the keynote speaker on the first day of the conference so she started all of us out by singing and dancing. It was lots of fun. I also went to 2 of her workshops. She gave some great ideas for teaching sight words to our kinders. One of my favorite ideas she gave was to write the sight words on paper plates as a different way to review sight words. The circle shapes draw the students' eyes to the middle of the circle which keeps their focus better than a square or rectangle shape. 

I decided to recreate her idea and make the circles on my computer. I made a set of sight word circles for the Journeys reading series sight words and my kinders are loving them. They think it is special to get to read the sight words from the circles.

 On the second day, I met the wonderful Heidi Butkus of Heidi's Songs. She was another great presenter. She led us in the singing of some of her songs and gave ideas for teaching CVC words and word families to our students. She also gave ideas for working with the struggling readers/learners in our classroom. 

I will be sharing more ideas from the conference in the upcoming weeks so stay tuned!  

Wacky Weather

This week we are doing our weather unit. I am using a lot of materials from last year in this unit but my kinders are loving it.

During our small group time, my students have been independently completing the weather work activity sheets from Caitlin at Kindergarten Smiles. These are great sheets that practice rhyming, CVC words, and teen numbers. They are all skills my kinders need to work on.

Our writing this week has been a weather journal. The pages for this journal came from Kindergarten Wars Weather Writing pack. Each day they have written about a different kind of weather that we are talking about. The first day they wrote about sunny days and yesterday they wrote about rainy days. I thought that both turned out pretty well.

On a sunny day, I go to the park. One sunny day I go play with my kitten. One sunny day I play with my dog.

 

On a rainy day, I jump in puddles. On a rainy day, I wear rain boots.

 

On a rainy day, I play in the mud puddle.

Friday Freebie - St. Patty's Color by Sight Word Sheet

Top o' the mornin' to you! I am just popping in this morning to give you a freebie you can use today. It is a simple leprechaun color by sight words sheet. Hope you can use it! Happy Friday!!

Leprechaun Color by Sight Word Activity Sheet

March Currently

I am so sorry that I have been MIA for a few days. Life has just been busy, but I have lots that I want to share with you over the next few days so stay tuned!

I am linking up with Farley for her wonderful March Currently linky party. Hop on over to her blog to link up. Here is my March Currently:

Like Love Hate:
I like jelly beans specifically Starburst jelly beans. They are so good.
I love jewelry of any kind. It is always a perfect present for me and my sweet hubby picks out great jewelry!
I hate doing jumping jacks. They have always been a despised exercise for me!

I am also linking up with Fifth in the Middle to find other bloggers from SC. This is a great way to find other bloggers from your own state.

Friday Freebie: Word Family Practice Sheets

I have been working on creating some word family practice sheets to have my students practice the word families we have learned so far. I am sending these sheets home with my students so they can practice reading the words with their parents. Since many of the words are CVC words, they shouldn't have any problems reading them. I am also hoping that the parents will be able to understand word families better through these sheets as well. 

These sheets are a downloadable pack through my TpT store for free. I hope you can use them as well. Please leave me some feedback if you download them.

Word Families Practice Sheets

Eggcellent Easter Unit Giveaway Winner

The winner of my Eggcellent Easter Unit is:

Suzanne S! 

I will be emailing your unit to you so check your email.   

Thanks to everyone who entered. If you did not win and would like to purchase this new unit, it is available in my TpT store and TN shop for $5.00.

TpT store                                    TN shop