Welcome to our Blog Swap and Hop. We have many teachers guest blogging on each other’s blogs today. Hopefully you will find some new ideas and freebies along the way.
My guest blogger is Michelle from Inspired By Kindergarten with a wonderful post about fonts. After you read her post, you can head to Forever in First for my post about Back To School goodies. You will also find a linky for the blog hop at the bottom of this wonderful post:)
Hello! I am Michelle from Inspired By Kindergarten and I am so excited to be guest blogging on Kinder Alphabet today! I’ve been teaching for 14 years (2 years Title Math teacher, 7 years First Grade and 6 years Kindergarten). I “met” Lidia through Facebook and was so excited to get the chance to guest post for her! I’ll be honest with you. . . when it’s someone else’s blog you put a LOT more effort into what you write. 🙂 It’s a little long today but FILLED with freebie!
Ok, onto our topic: Funny Fonts
For me it’s a love/hate relationship. Anyone out there use the old DIBELS assessment? If you did you’ll remember the horrible funky looking “g” they put on the first line. WHY? The kids would look at that “g” and just freeze up. Even giving them the answer and encouraging them to keep going was fruitless. Their confidence was gone and they were DONE. Ugh. And funky fonts are EVERYWHERE! There’s no getting away from them. So. . . instead of kicking, screaming and crying over it (me, not the kids) I decided to start teaching it. WOW. . . the letter naming confidence level of my kids shot through the roof! I saw huge improvement in my ELL students and all kids in general. The best part was it’s really not that hard to do! For the rest of this post I will stop rambling (promise) and give you 5 tips on how to get funky fonts into your classroom!
1. When you label the students cubbies, mailboxes, notebooks, journals, etc. at the beginning of the year choose a different font for each spot.
2. Put several sets of alphabet flashcards, each with a different font, in your reading centers. You’ll find these all over the web but to save you some time just click the pic for your free copy of these funky font flashcards (also includes a page with suggestions on how to use):
3. Save old food boxes to cut letters out of. This is a super cheap way to collect hundreds of funky fonts. Plus you get several sizes so they are great for all sorts of sorting! : )
I recently reorganized my stamps and kept the case the stamps came in. I saved it for sorting the smaller letters.
However, if you don’t have something like this you could have the kids sort the letters onto an alphabet poster:
Or a simple sorting sheet (click picture to download yours):
4. For more independent practice check out some of these packets from TPT:
5. Show a slide show of letters in different fonts. This is a new activity for me so I’ve only created one file so far. The first letters my class work on are M, S, R and T so I’ve created a PowerPoint that focuses on those 4 letters. The first part of the presentation is “shout it out” time where the kids literally shout the letters out loud as they flick on the screen. The next part of the presentation slows down so the kids can graph the letters they see. I even put some “non examples” in this part and a sad face on the graph for kids to use when “non examples” appear.
AND/OR
I’ve also included the jpg images of the letters from the Power Point. I plan on getting my students used to the activity and then loading the images onto a digital frame for kids to use during reading centers.
I found this awesome picture frame on Amazon.com last summer. It’s also a dry erase board so I can write the focus letters on the frame. Plus, it has a record feature so I can record a message to the kids and they can press the green button to hear it. Click on the picture to get one for yourself. Sorry, the picture frame isn’t a freebie! : ( : ( : (
However, I do have my MRST Power Point, jpg images and graph available if you are willing to be a guinea pig and try it out with me! All you have to do to receive a copy is follow this blog, leave Lidia a comment and include your e-mail address.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this blog post!
I hope you found something new and useful for you and your kinders!
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Excellent post. I used to teach kdg and we use DIBELS so I know what you are talking about with the "weird" g. One thing I did when I was teaching kdg (I now teach 1st) was I made a letter sort using every type of font, size, texture, etc… of letters I could find. I decided to bombard them with all types of letters. I really do think it helped.
Thanks for the tips, I hadn't thought about using different fonts for their name stickers.
Kelly @ I'm Not Your Grandpa, I'm Your Teacher
I've been collecting letters from boxes. My best friend and parents have even been saving them for me. 🙂 (By the way Lidia, I follow you but I'm not getting notices of your posts. Weird! Thanks for coming over to my blog today.)
❀ Tammy
Forever in First
I really like this idea of using several different fonts! And its a win win because I am obsessed with them!
🙂
Michelle
Apples and ABC's
I love the idea of the different letters and fonts! I will look at grocery shopping in a whole new way now! Thanks for the great ideas and I love that audiovox and looked it up online at Amazon.
Deb at Fabulously First
My TpT Store
Michelle, thank you for this wonderful post! I love the use of different letter fonts. It helps students recognize letters in different types of texts.
Great post! Thanks for all of the font sorting ideas! Those different fonts can drive the kids and us crazy!
Lori
Conversations in Literacy
I would love the file of the PowerPoint Letters. My email is katie[dot]bergthold[at]siloamschools.com
Great ideas for helping the kids generalize their letter recog. That is a great digital frame. I would love the file of the PowerPoint Letters. We won't be back at school until mid-Aug. but I would try it out for you then.
Donna W.
darryl40w@att.net
I love that you teach different fonts. I find that some children struggle with letter recognition in many picture books simply because they haven't been exposed to the fonts, but they can easily read the text in less artistic fonts. Real life text has many different styles of letters and it is important that children can recognize them all.
✿April✿
✿Grade School Giggles✿
I would love to try out that power point! what a great way to incorporate multiple intelligences! My email is saranorman01@gmail.com thanks for sharing and thanks to both of you for doing this awesome blog swap and hop!!!
I love the fun font flashcards! Thanks so much for sharing!
Michelle
Thank you for the wonderful ideas! I would love to try out the Power Point. I got a SMART board last year with a wall mounted projector (finally!) last year. My e-mail is michkenney@comcast.net.
Love, love, LOVE the idea of cutting letters out of food boxes. What a fabulous, FREE idea.
I'm your newest follower. 🙂
Cynthia
2nd Grade Pad
Lidia,
Thanks for letting me guest post on your blog! So much fun!
GREAT ideas! I would love to try out your powerpoint! I can't wait to use these ideas! (JLAlley@aol.com) Thanks for sharing!
I just started following your blog. I would love to try your PowerPoint. I have a digital frame I want to use in the classroom this year. Thanks. yjholloway@yahoo.com
I would love to try the powerpoint! Thanks.
dianebode@mediacombb.net
First of all, Happy Birthday!! I would love to win this! This is my second year teaching Kindergarten and all resources are great! If I do win, I would like the English version. My email is lindsey_toms@yahoo.com. Thank you so much!
Happy Birthday! I love the look of this set! My email is jpartainorcross@yahoo.com
Jill
Happy Birthday! I would love to win the English version…..looks wonderful! Thanks for the opportunity!
rachap26@yahoo.com
Thank you so much!
hansonfam5@msn.com