Another week is upon us. I tried to plan on Sunday, but the sun was shining and the pool was calling my name. I am on week 3 of school and we are learning about Colors and my 2nd favorite color book; Brown Bear, Brown Bear. (Next week is my favorite color book) We are reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear all week. We are working on Concepts of print, by the end of the week I am hoping to have several who can touch the words as I read. I have a felt board set we will use for retelling as well. We are learning about the author and illustrator this week, the person's name and their job.  We will practice word tracking with my Concepts of Print booklets, the school version this week.  We will also be learning our color words. We will sort all types of objects by their color. We will match colors and color words. We are still working on name the letters in our name, finding our names, and writing them beautifully. We are going to do a letter hunt on Thursday around t......

I was inspired by Greg Smedley's post about Number Recognition here . A simple, yet effective activity. Why not do the same thing for letter? I have a few kiddos who do not know the letter names. I realized that Greg's technique for numbers will work just as well.  **Who I am kidding, I am 'stealing' the idea. After all, the best teachers Beg, Borrow, and "Steal" ideas.** I focus on two letters a week until they are all taught and reviewed. I do 4 consonants than a vowel and word families. My class is 85% second language learners, so everyone can use a little more practice with letters and sounds and vocabulary. I made a letter mat for each group of 4 letters and one with all the vowels. The letter mats are made to be printed on Legal sized paper. Of course with a PDF you can select Fit or Shrink Oversized Pages to print on letter sized paper.  The letter cards are made to be printed on letter sized paper. I made th......

Here it is; my TpT challenge Masterpiece; hosted by Teach Create Motivate , Third in Hollywood , Peppy Zesty Teacher , and Sparkling in Second . I created this for reinforcing letters and sounds.  Many children come into Kindergarten knowing most or all of the letters and many of the sounds. They no longer need a week on each letter. Yet, they need to master the sounds and shapes of the letter. They need to recognize the letter in different fonts for reading. This set provides resources to practice the letter names, letter shape and beginning sounds.  What do you get?  Each letter has three options for font sorting. You get two pages of color or black and white letters, in a variety of fonts for sorting; mats are included. These are great for small group or center work. Each letter had a printable page for font sorting. This can be used as independent practice, homework, or just use it for the students who still need help, instant differentiation. ......

Sorts are a great way to teach vocabulary, visual discrimination, and classification skills. They skills necessary for both reading and math. Children begin to classify things very early, they make piles all over the house. Children begin by sorting objects visually and later they can tell you about the sort; i.e. "These are dolls and these are food" The activities in this sorting bundle will help you child sort objects in a variety of ways: Letter/Symbols/Numbers, Letters/Words/Sentences, & Land/Sea/Air Vehicles. Each sort targets a different skill. All three of these sorts contain large cards and work mats, smaller cards that are the perfect size for a pocket chart, and black ad white versions for independent practice. Letters, Numbers and Symbols targets visual discrimination, letter and numeral recognition. Once children become familiar with the alphabet and numerals, they should be able to sort them correctly. Add the symbols to this sort gives a possible ......

I admit that my New Idea isn't mine at all. I teach in a rural school, with 85% of my class being ESL students. I have 4 who did not attend any type of Pre-K program. They are learning to speak, understand, read, write, etc... all at the same time. Because they don't have the Pre-K background, they don't know any letter names or sounds. Some can't even write their name. One of my personal goals this year was not to rush teaching the letters names and sounds. I want to give the students who need the exposure plenty of time to learn the letters. At the same time, I don't my kiddos who are reading to be bored with the letter activities. Yes, I teach small group, but I was looking for something fun for the whole class. At some point this summer, I stumbled upon the Interactive Alphabet Notebooks by Rowdy in Room 300 . This notebook is exactly what I was looking for. There is an art activity for each letter. Then there is a find the letter, handwriting pract......