Thanksgiving Literacy Centers

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November is finally here. I love Thanksgiving! I just finished my Thanksgiving Literacy Centers pack. Wow! It is 150 pages long. I like to use thematic centers to introduce new vocabulary and to keep students interested in learning and practicing their basic skills. What I like about this pack is that it includes 52 thematic words. You can use them to talk about family, food, and the first Thanksgiving.
Click on the picture to find out more:)

Some of the activities include:
1-  Alphabet Matching Cards
2-  I Have, Who Has Alphabet Game
3-  52 Picture/ Word Cards
4-  Clap the Syllables
5-  Beginning Sounds
6-  Writing thematic words that can be used
to make a mini-book
7-  Letter Tile Mats that will be used to count the number of letters in a word
8-  A few math games
9- Turkeys- Can/ Have/ Are
You can find the Spanish Thanksgiving unit here.
   

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Treats for Our Sweets

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Welcome to Kinder Alphabet. I hope that you are having a lot of fun finding goodies along the way. Teachers need some treats too, right? As you can see, some teacher friends and I have teamed up to bring you many Sweet Treats. Make sure to visit every blog for your freebies.
I have some Thanksgiving Printables to get you ready for November. I hope that you enjoy them!
You can get the Spanish Thanksgiving Printables here.
Happy Halloween!
   
Your next stop is at 
A Special Kind of Class



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CVC Fun, Fun, Fun!

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Are some of your students ready for CVC words? We have been having fun with some new activities. We are using CVC Bingo Mats, CVC Playdough Mats and other CVC Word Work Mats to help us notice patterns in words.   We have mainly been working on -at words, but I went ahead and created complete packs with words that end in -at, -an, -en, -et, -ig, -it, -ot, -ug, -in, -un, -og, -ad, -op, and -ap.
The first activity that we used can be found in this CVC Playdough Mats pack. 
We used this mat by looking at the word, sounding it out then rolling out the letters for the word. Instead of just using alphabet stamps to make the word, we explored using other manipulatives such as alphabet magnets and alphabet dice. This has been a fun activity. 
Another activity that has been super fun is this CVC Tic-Tac-Toe pack that I came up with. I was actually trying to make a different type of game when this idea came to mind. I just had to hurry up and put it together to see how it would work and I love it. This is not a competition game like the regular tic-tac-toe. It is meant for one student to use independently. It has been a favorite around here!! We have game mats and the corresponding picture/word cards for each of the 14 word families.  Beginning readers can use the word cards along with the the game mat. Students who feel confident with a specific word pattern will not need the picture cards! Look at the picture below to see how well it works. We write each word in a different color and cross out the word and the picture in the same color. The vowel is given in the center of the mat. Students simply finish making the words. I love to see the look on a child’s face when he feels successful!  Did I mention that I LOVE this activity? I love it!
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Emergent Reader

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Early Emergent Readers depend on the use of high frequency words and repetitive patterns to support their reading efforts. This is an “I can” flip book that can be used as a supplement to help your students identify and read the sight words “I” and “can”.  It includes 4 picture/word cards to create this mini-book. We used it this past week and focused on pointing to each word.

Oh, and I also have a sequencing activity for the numbers 1-20. 
It’s a cute monster theme that your students might like:)

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Wonderful Giveaway

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Greetings friends! We are SO EXCITED to surpass 1,000 followers on Freebielicious.
All of the FANTASTIC Freebielicious authors have teamed up for a giveaway like no
other. We will pick three winners, one from each category. Giveaway ends Sunday
night at 8:00 p.m. EST. GOOD LUCK and no matter what, EVERYONE WINS at
Freebielicious!! 

*YOU MUST COMMENT ON FREEBIELICIOUS BLOG TO ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY!! MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TOO. 
GOOD LUCK!

Check out these awesome donations!

Good Luck!
Now, HEAD OVER TO Freebielicious to enter. DO NOT ENTER HERE. YOU MUST ENTER ON THE FL BLOG! 🙂
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Literature Connections

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Hello. I am stopping by to post this request. These are the printables for making literature connections. They include: Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, and Text-to-World connections.

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The Quietest Pencil Sharpener: Review

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I had the opportunity to review The Quietest Classroom Pencil Sharpener  by ClassroomFriendlySupplies.com.  Wow! If you love SHARP PENCILS, this is the pencil sharpener for  you 🙂
It was nice to come home to this little box at the front of our door. I had been waiting for this product and was very excited to take a look at what this famous pencil sharpener is all about.

 This is what I found when I opened the box. You will find two items in this clear box. One is the pencil sharpener and the other item is a c-clamp to attach it to a table.

I was very impressed by the retro look. We used the C-clamp to attach the pencil sharpener to our table.       The kids were excited to try out this manually operated device. We got all of our pencils out and lined them up nicely to get started with each one. Then, we used it the wrong way. We put the pencil directly in the pencil sharpener and tried to sharpen our pencils.
We were getting dull pencils like this one. 
 Or very sharp pencils that had the tips breaking off later. 
Then, we saw the online video that demonstrates how to sharpen pencils with this product. All we had to do was open the top part of the device. I will attach the video demonstration so that you can see what I am referring to. Also, the sharpener was a bit wiggly, but I think that we used it on the wrong type of table. After watching the video, I noticed that the device wiggled less when I used it appropriately. I also held the top of the sharpener, instead of holding the pencil itself for extra support.  The results were amazing!! You will be able to sharpen pencils quickly and quietly. I recommend this product to teachers and office workers. As a kindergarten teacher, my only concern is that the pencils are probably too sharp for younger students. I am always afraid that the little ones might get hurt with sharp pencils. Even if you do not allow your students to use this, you can use it for yourself. One thing for sure, your pencils will always be nice and sharp when you write your lesson plans and during meetings. Many teachers love this product and use it regularly in their classrooms. If you do not mind the extra sharp points in your particular classroom, this sharpener is for you. But, you better hurry. This product is so popular that it keeps selling out.  The good news is that the company makes their best efforts to restock as quickly as possible.
Here is the video of the pencil sharpening demonstration.

Note: I received this free pencil sharpener in exchange for an honest review:)
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Phonics Fun

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Now that my son is in Kindergarten, his interest in reading, writing and numbers has increased tremendously. He likes to get started on “homework” as soon as he gets back from school. I keep running out of ink just in the activities that I make for him at home. So, I decided to create these bookmarks to focus on specific skills that we need to work on. They have been so useful and I am able to save on paper and printer ink too:)

Letter Identification Bookmarks: One of the things that we have been working on is letter formation and identification. This is what he is able to do with these bookmarks: First, he names the letter. Then, he follows this sequence to complete his work: Color it! Trace it! Write it! And at the bottom, he needs to find the uppercase letters in the left box and circle them. Then, he needs to find the lowercase letters in the box on the right side and circle (or color) those too.
Alphabet Fonts Bookmarks: I made these just for fun. I want to see if he is able to identify letters and their basic formation. He sees words written everywhere and sometimes does not recognize certain letters that are not written in a basic primary font. I call these “grown up” writing and are only meant to be used as exposure to other font types that are used on cereal boxes, toy boxes, store names, etc. 
Alphabet Dictionary Bookmarks: These bookmarks serve as mini-word banks that can be used as a reference when reviewing letters and beginning sounds. These visual cues will help students become aware of letter-sound relationships. First, he colors the first letter in each word. Then, he says something like this: The letter “C” says /k/, /k/, /k/.  Cat, Cat, /k/, /k/ /k/. We have a lot of work to do with beginning sounds, but he is eager to learn. I can’t wait to hear him read soon. 
Beginning Sounds Bookmarks: This can serve as independent work or as a quick assessment. Students will identify the words that begin with the target letter. Then, they will circle the corresponding pictures. I also included two more options for early finishers who might be a little more advanced. They will name the remaining pictures that were not circled and identify the first letter in those words.  Another option is to label the pictures. 
Label the Picture Bookmarks: These are good for differentiating instruction. Students who have developed reading strategies will be able to read the 4 words in the word bank to determine how to label each picture. Some will be able to label without looking at the words provided 🙂 We are not at this stage yet, but I have them ready for him!
Kinder Dolch Sight Words Bookmarks: This is a color it. Circle it. Write it. activitity. Coloring the crayon background makes the sight word stand out. Students can trace the word with their finger as they sound out each letter. 
Alphabet Playdough Mats Bookmarks: This includes uppercase and lowercase letters and a picture to represent the beginning sound of the letter. I did not get a chance to cut these bookmarks apart. I put them in a clear sleeve and my son used playdough to trace each letter. I asked him to name the letter and give the sound each time he traced a new letter. It was so cute to hear him say “R”, /rrrrrrrr/ each time he worked on the next letter on the mat.  
Sight Word Playdough Mats Bookmarks: These include the Kindergarten Dolch Words. This will help students identify the sight word and sound out each letter as they trace the word with playdough. It looks like we will have to use the sight word activities a lot right now. This is one of the things that Angel really needs to work on. 
Rainbow Writing for Sight Words Bookmarks: Each letter can be traced with different colors or color each letter in a different color as they read the word. Angel loves using watercolors to paint the words too. They can be decorated any way you want. Coloring the background just makes the sight word stand out. These can be saved to make a book of sight words.
Alphabet Sequence Bookmarks: I also included some very simple alphabet sequence activities. The student can trace each letter as he chants the alphabet and then write the missing letter in the sequence. I made two sets. One is in uppercase letters and the other is in lowercase letter. Right now, Angel looks at the alphabet line to see which letter is next. Later, I am going to put a copy of these in a sleeve to use as a quick assessment or staple of them together to make it into a book.
Alphabet Match Bookmarks: These are very simple like the alphabet sequence bookmarks above. I added all the uppercase letters with a space next to them. We will be working on writing the matching lowercase letters on the spaces. I also made a set with lowercase letters where the uppercase letter needs to be written on the space provided.
Oh, boy. We have a lot of work to do. The good thing is that learning does not stop at the end of the school day. It continues at home as well. Angel is eager to learn and I am loving it! 
Is this something that you could use? Just click on this Phonics Fun link or on the first picture at the top of the post to see it listed in my TPT store.
Here are some bookmark freebies for you 🙂
Oh. We also use this alphabet chart. I point to random letters first. Then, if Angel is able to name the letter correctly, he can circle it. It’s so much fun to see his progress. Click on the title link to get your free copy. I also included the 100’s Chart that we are using right now.

Alphabet and 100’s Chart by KinderAlphabet.com

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Fall Time!

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Halloween decorations were in stores way before the school supplies were up.  Well, today is finally the first day of Fall. So, how about some thematic activities for this time of the year?
1. Roll, Say, Keep!
 I made this Halloween Roll, Say, Keep game to help my son practice identifying numbers 1-20. He is loving dice games right now and this activity is just perfect for him.

2. Five Little Pumpkins
I also made a poster for the Five Little Pumpkins. This song provides the perfect opportunity to teach about ordinal numbers. Your students can act out this fun song too. Simply have them decorate a paper pumpkin and attach yarn long enough to have it hang around the student’s neck.  Then, choose five student pumpkins at a time to act out the song while the rest of the class chants the words. 

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Behavior Clip Chart

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Classroom Management Clip Chart.

I like to make students feel special about themselves in kindergarten. The past 16 years, I have used a the clip chart system. It is a wonderful visual for students to know where they are throughout the day. It helps them stay on track and try a bit harder when they need to.

I always refer to their behavior in royal terms. They must be following rules, procedures and stay on track with their learning responsibilities before I address them as princess or prince. It’s amazing to see how quick they change their behavior to prove that they are worthy of their royal titles. Sometimes I say, “I am looking for a princess that is looking forward” or “I wonder which prince will finish his work on time today.” This has always worked well for me.

Everyone begins with “Ready to Learn.”  Then, their clip will be moved up or down according to how well they follow rules and procedures throughout the day. I have three cards above “Ready to Learn” and 3 cards below it. I never have them move their clip down on the first warning. It just serves as a reminder. We begin to move clips down starting with the second warning. Once these students begin to demonstrate positive efforts, clips begin to go up again.

I like to use colorful clothespins. Sometimes you can find some neon colored ones at the Dollar Store. Here are some in primary colors that you might also be able to find in your local stores like Wal-Mart or Target. Just use a sharpie to label them on both sides. I place the boys’ pins on the left side and the girls’ pins on the right side of the charts so that students can find their clips easier. This also makes it easy for me when I need to label both sides of the pins. Make sure that the name is not upside down when you use the opposite side of it.

NOTE:
I introduce parents to our behavior system at Open House. Then, I start sending the Behavior Recording Sheet home daily so that parents can praise and celebrate their child’s efforts every day. I do not like to contact parents only when there is concern about their child. Daily communication is a great way to keep them informed.

These are the charts that I use. 

Here is a free recording sheet.
I am linking up with What the Teacher Wants. 

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