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SALE! SALE! SALE!

I'm having a SALE! Everyone loves a sale!

Is there something from my TPT store that you've seen and been watching? Well, take a look and your wish might be on sale...addition and subtraction word problems, emergent readers, writing picture prompts and much more!

Thanks for stopping by!

Click HERE if you would like to become a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers,
 

ENJOY!!!

 

Thanksgiving Graphic Organizer FREEBIE

I can't believe Thanksgiving is just right around the corner. I can smell those pecan pies baking now. I guess the diet will begin next year.

 

Anyway, I plan to read about "The First Thanksgiving" this week. I always have my students plan before they right, yes, even kindergarten students can plan their writing, especially if you teach them how to do it. My kiddos did a super job on their Bald Eagle books and their Pumpkin books last week after planning before they wrote.

 

I thought I would give you another FREEBIE (yeah)! Everyone loves freebies! This is the graphic organizer I plan to use with my students for their planning after we read and research about the first Thanksgiving. We will list words to make a Thanksgiving web including any words we think about when discussing the first Thanksgiving. I included a few graphics to help them remember the words they were writing. They can add more graphics if they choose to as they write words. See how many words/phrases they can write. You can write with them on chart paper and discuss the spelling  together or have them use their invented spelling to create their own organizers. You may want to do it together in the beginning and then let them do others on their own later in the school year.  

 

If you want this FREEBIE, click on the link below. Consider following me in my store to be notified when I post FREEBIES and new products. The clip art below is from mycutegraphics.com. They have some of the cutest clip art.

 

They will use their graphic organizers to write their "First Thanksgiving" book this week. I'll try to post some samples of their writing later. ENJOY!

Fix-It Up Sentences (Capital Letters and Ending Punctuation) FREEBIES Included

Students love finding mistakes I make. It makes them feel so important. Students also love finding the mistakes in these "fix it up" packets. I tell them that someone made a lot of mistakes when they wrote these sentences and that they need to find the mistakes and fix them.

This packet covers the following common core standard:

K.L.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

     a. Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.

     b. Recognize and name end punctuation.

If you love this, take a look at the two FREEBIES I am providing below. Enjoy! Please leave me a comment. I love hearing from you!

Click on the product below to download the Thanksgiving FREEBIE and take a look at my other packets including the same standard.

 

 

Click on the product below to download the Christmas FREEBIE and take a look at my other packets including the same standard.  

Other Fix It Up Sentence Packs:

 

 

 

I hope your students enjoy "fixing up" each sentence. Enjoy!

Sight Word Practice

How do you introduce and teach sight words each week? Our school system begins teaching sight words the first week of school. We introduce 3-4 words each week. We teach around 77 sight words during the kindergarten year.

 

We begin each day with sight word practice. I have a student tell me one word, tell how many letters are in the word, name the vowel(s) in the word and tell if the vowel is long or short, and tell if the word has any chunks (little words or special sounds we have learned). Then we spell the word while a student comes up to the board to make the word with magnetic letters (pictured below). Then we clap (consonants) and snap (vowels) the word.

 

After this, we write a sentence with each word wall word (pictured below). As I write the sentence, students write the same sentence on dry erase boards. As we write the sentence, we discuss capital letters at the beginning of each sentence, finger spaces between words, periods (ending punctuation) at the end of sentences, spelling sight words correctly by looking at the word wall, and stretching all other words to see what sounds we hear. Students are getting hands-on experience while doing this as well as guided/modeled writing practice. We constantly discuss what good writers do as we write each sentence.

After we write the sentences, we circle all the words we should know (sight words) and underline any chunks in the words such as "at" in cat. We also discussed how to change our sight word "like" to bike by changing the first letter (rhyming words). There is so much you can teach during this sight word practice. Then students touch the words on their dry erase boards as we read the sentences together.

 

**A great tip for storing dry erase boards. Use gallon zip-loc bags to store dry erase boards along with a marker and eraser. A small square of black felt works great for an eraser. This keeps the board, marker, and eraser all together in a bag and makes handing them out and picking them back up a snap.

 

At least once or twice a week, we do this same strategy of writing sentences with our weekly sight words except students write the sentences with paper and pencil (guided) as I write the sentences projected on the promethean board with the document camera. I love the document camera!

 

If you need some sight word practice or sentence writing practice with sight words, click on the links below. Thanks!

 

Word Wall Words (Sight Words) Sentence Writing (Pack 1)

 

Word Wall Words (Sight Word) Sentence Writing (Pack 2) - 6 pages

  

Sight Word Practice (Set 1) (Common Core)

 These sight word practice sets come in sets 1, 2, and 3. They also come in a bundle with all 3 sets.

   

This sight word practice below is great for a literacy center. Students read the words, stamp the words, and write a sentence with each word.

 

Sight Word Practice: Read, Write, & Stamp (Write Sentences) 76 sight words

 

The following sight word set is great to put in a writing center. My students love the sentence starters.

I like to play with my dog. My dog is black. I play at the park. My dog's name is Puffy.

 



After students write, we discuss details. If anyone still has questions about the writing, the writer did not include enough details such as the color of the animal or the animal's name. Students are also taught to use the question words as they write: where did you play, who did you play with, when did you play, what did you play, or why did you play? My students have become great detectives at finding details the writer has left out. This really makes the writer think as they are writing to try to include as many details as possible.

 

To get this pack of sentence starters (sentence stems) for a possible writing center or mini lesson, click on the product below.

 

 

This set includes 101 pages such as "I see my...".

 

 

I hope you found something helpful as you teach your students sight words. Please share some of your strategies for teaching sight words in the comments below.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing!

Kindergarten Writing - Making Books - The Bald Eagle

Wow! I can't believe we have completed the first quarter of school. These little ones have learned so much. I love teaching writing, and I am so excited that my kindergarten students are writing books only after being in school for 3 months. It is amazing at what these young students can do when you have high expectations of them. After reading informational books on the Bald Eagle (part of our Language Arts Frameworks), we created a chart (shown below) providing information about the Bald Eagle. This chart helped students put the information into sentences. The students made individual charts as I made this large one on chart paper. They used their charts as they wrote their sentences for their book. Other than having this chart as a resource, their writing is done independently. Take a look at out hallway display and their writing samples below.

Here is the first book writing sample: The Bald Eagle (I love their cover pages!)

The Bald Eagle (cover page)

The Bald Eagle has a white head and a tail. It is a good hunter.

You can not shoot Eagles. (pg. 1)

The Bald Eagle can eat fish. The Bald Eagle flied (flies) 100 mph.

The Bald Eagle has a brown feather. (pg. 4)

The Bald Eagle can fly fast. The Bald Eagle can swim.

The Bald Eagle has brown feathers.

The Bald Eagle eats dead stuff. The Bald Eagle is strong.

The Bald Eagle has yellow eyes. (pgs 2-3)

 

 

Now for the second sample:

 

The Bald Eagle (cover page)

The Bald Eagle can swim. It is large. It has sharp claws.

You can not shoot a(n) Eagle. (pg. 1)

 

It can go 100 mph. The Bald Eagle has yellow eyes. It's favorite food is fish.

The Bald Eagle can see. It has white on it's head and tail.

The rest of the Bald Eagle's feathers are brown. (pgs 2-3)

I love the Bald Eagle. You can not shoot a Bald Eagle.

It is a protected bird. (pg. 4)

 

These students were so excited about being authors and illustrators. After writing their books, we put them under the document camera to share with the class on the Promethean board while the author read their book using the microphone. Every student was eager to share their book.

 

We went on a field trip this week, and today students wrote books about our field trip. More writing samples coming soon! Stay tuned for future samples.