I've Learned....

Life in Special Education is celebrating all we have learned this year. I thought I might join in too! So far this year (we are only half way through our school year in Australia). So here we go....

Let's learn today








































I've learned:

  1. The person acting like a child in a situation is not always a child.
  2. Sometimes the child that I may be apprehensive about teaching, just turns out to be totally, absolutely, I’m-so-glad-I-met-you interesting!
  3. In the end, it is the effort I put in as a teacher that makes the difference.
  4. Talk, talk, talk to parents, they are a wealth of information on the little darlings.
  5. I can never have too many laminating pouches, ink toner cartridges, plastic pouches or files.
  6. Most of the time, simple is best.
  7. If something is going not-quite-right in life, I can always turn the music on and do the Hokey Pokey!
  8. Winners never, ever, ever, in a million years, let a fall keep them from climbing.
  9. Children will do just about anything for a Smartie or Jelly Bean J
  10. My classroom is at its best when I over-prepare and then just go with the flow!

Spotty Spiders - Teach the sp Consonant Blend


We've written a little rhyming text for shared reading with your little learners!

You can print the text in color or blackline to create a class book - or project it up on your board to read together. The predictable and rhythmic text will engage and support your early-readers.

Take the time to focus on the sp sound - as 'spotty' and 'spider' are repeated throughout. Talk about other sp words, other consonant blends that have s in them, like sl, sn, sk and st.

Use this rhyme for your introductory lesson on subtraction and talk about how the spider web loses one spider each time. 

October 2019 Update

The text now features 10 follow up activities for you to implement after your shared reading. These could be completed independently, in centers, groups or as a whole class.

The following activities and pages are included to springboard from the text
  • class discussion question starters
  • one page read + grammar activity (locate nouns and verbs in text)
  • comprehension activity (making connections)
  • comprehension activity (monitoring)
  • comprehension activity (predicting)
  • comprehension activity (questioning)
  • comprehension activity (summarizing)
  • comprehension activity (visualization)
  • writing a story - plan and write your own story about spiders
  • one page craft - cut, make and create your own cute little spider. Could be used to display with writing
  • phonics - find the 'sp' words and add them to the spider web
  • big shape tracing page - trace the spider (prewriting / fine motor activity)
  • pinning page - pokey pin holes in the spider - fine motor / quiet activity
There is now an art project to complement the text too - hop forward in our blog HERE to find it! 


Consonant Digraphs

I am passionate about the teaching of phonics and have dedicated much time over the last ten or eleven years to understanding more fully how to teach it, and also developing a huge range of resources to make the teaching of phonics both exciting and systematic.

I am busily working on pdf files of a range of my favourite resources to teach phonics, they are so comprehensive that they are taking a while to put together. I hope to make them available soon.

I love using the Jolly Phonics program to begin with in Kindergarten and then incorporating a range of ther resources and programs I have written myself.

Consonant digraphs are pairs of letters that represent a single speech sound (where both are consonants) - sh, th, ch, wh, ph and gh.

I usually focus on these after I am confident my students are reading and writing cvc words and also consonant blends. The Jolly Phonics program does introduce sh, ch and th quite early, and I have found my kinders can quite easily handle them.

Students need to be able to identify consonant digraphs in words. They need to be able to see the word from an 'aerial' perspective, not just a strictly left to right direction. That means they need to be able to "see" the chunk (graphophonic pattern) that represents the sound.

That is fantastic news! It means we can spend some time doing creative and motivating activities in the classroom that help your students to "see" the chunk as a separate sound.

One of the most simple, yet most effective is to write a series of words on the board or on chart paper and circle the chunks in the word that represent a sound, e.g. circle the sh in fish, wish, shed, shin and ship. You could also write these words using two different colours and use the same colour for all of the sh sounds.

The other good news is that there is a myriad of resources for teaching and learning phonics, particularly on the TpT website. Here is one I have just listed, called Catchin' Fish. It helps to teach the ch and sh digraphs that occur at the end of words.

While you are using this resource in the classroom, why not read some books about fish? Wish for a Fish by Dr Seuss is one that is always enjoyed, or a modern classic like the Rainbow Fish. See how many times the students can hear the sh sound when you read the book. Write them down on a list, and then circle the sh sounds in the words - so they come at the beginning, the middle or at the end of the words?


Free Farm Find!

I just found a great free download over at Vintage Teacher's blog. It is a great activity for learning forward number sequences with numerals to ten on the Smartboard. My class will love it, as we are visiting the farm next week for our unit of work on animals and meeting needs. Click here to check it out:
Be sure to leave her feedback on the TpT site once you have downloaded!

Double Bug!

I have just listed a new item on TpT and my website, called Double Bug. It includes some cute colourful posters to help introduce and explain doubles (yes, I am a very "visual" learner and teacher!) and a cute little printable card game to use in groups or a center.


"Double Bug" is a packet for helping your students learn the doubles strategy. 

It includes a printable poster set and addition game/center.

The colourful ladybug posters will help you introduce the concept of doubles to your students and also make an attractive display in your classroom. 

This game gives students the visual support of seeing the double, made up of two matching dot patterns. 

Students help their cute ladybugs to find doubles that add to make the numbers on their game board. 

This file features a teaching tips page, a detailed instruction sheet, ten display posters, six game boards, game cards cover page and worksheet





Click HERE to see it on TpT.





A great way to introduce doubles is to let your students use little mirrors. Give them a small quantity of counters or plastic teddies. Let them hold up a small hand mirror to see how their collection has doubled. Have them count out the new total. Ask your students to write number sentences to match a variety of "doubles" that they create with their mirror.

A great book to read to help introduce the idea of doubles is Two of Everything. (This is an Amazon Affiliate link)



Pencil War

Oh, its a Pencil War in the classroom at times!

Do your young students worry about how many pencils they have in their tub? Do they worry about how many they have of each color? Do they try to get the tub or tin, with the most red or pink pencils? Do they get all lost and confused when you ask them to "sort out their colors"?

Print and laminate a set of these sorting mats - one for each child in your class.

Ask your students at the beginning of each week to sort and match their pencils on the mat.

Ask them to place each pencil on top of the corresponding picture. Walk around the classroom and take a look at the mats. Distribute spare pencils to fill any gaps on the mats. 


Any leftover pencils (in tubs that won't fit on a mat) can go in a tub on your shelf called "spare pencils".

Each student should then have one pencil of each color in their pencil tub, and they have practised 1:1 correspondence while helping you to keep track of resources in the classroom.

If you have two students sharing one tin of pencils, ask them to combine their two sets once they have sorted their own mat of pencils out - this way there will be two of each color in their tin.

Click here to download from TpT for free!





cvc Worksheet Freebie

I have listed a new product on TpT called cvc Cut, Paste & Write - a collection of 10 handy worksheets to encourage your students to sound-out, make and write cvc words. Each worksheet has a different short vowel focus. There are 5 cut and paste sheets and 5 writing sheets. Here is a two page sample of the file.

The worksheets reflect our design principle of clear, uncluttered with high quality graphics - perfect for little learners - we hope you like them!



Cow and Farm Writing Crafts

Do you love using the farm as a theme for learning in Kindergarten? It is always a favorite with little learners and can be a rich source of a wide range of lessons and content across a range of subjects.
  • learn about needs and wants
  • learn about where things come from - e.g. milk
  • research animals and how they are similar/different
I love using the sounds that each animal makes as a springboard into learning the sounds of the letters. Sing a little song with your students to the tune of Old MacDonald Had a Farm and instead of saying animal names, replace them with letters and beginning sounds.  

There are so many beautiful books, poems and animated texts about the farm.  Barnyard Hullabaloo by Giles Andreae has a little poem for each animal and is always a hoot with children I read to!

farm activities for kindergarten

Read both fiction and non fiction and follow-up with a writing activity. We have a cow themed writing page to share with you today. You can use it for any writing activity of your preference, here is one idea for sentence writing:
  • tell students you will write about a cow today
  • brainstorm facts and knowledge about cows
  • model how to research new facts if needed
  • chart some keywords about cows
  • model how to write a few sentences (depending on writing ability of your students)
  • let students independently write from your model
writing about the farm

In the printable file we have also included a blank version - perfect for drawing your own lines on or for having students draw a picture.

sentence writing in kindergarten

From our home library, here are a few more of our favorite cow or farm books:

Clancy the Courageous Cow by Lachie Hume

Mrs Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley

How to Speak Moo by Deborah Fajerman

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf



I am off now to play with the plastic farm animals and play-doh with my Little Miss 4 - we love building fences, fields, trees and barns with the play-doh and then adding the animals for lots of farm-animal-noise making fun!

Mrs Wishy Washy and Pig Craft


I teach an Art Class for 3-5 year olds at my local church hall on a Wednesday morning. This morning we had a great time reading a very old but very much loved copy of Mrs Wishy Washy. Do you know it? It is a wonderful story, full of rhythm, rhyme and repetitive text for helping emergent readers.



While we were reading it, the little children role-played Mrs Wishy Washy by putting some soft toys into a plastic tub and getting them clean - this was the most popular part!

I provided nice clear, bold pictures of pigs for the children to "chip" with small pieces of pink paper. 

I have provided you with a free copy of this little pig in Google Drive: Pig Craft Template.
 
You could also let your students paint or decorate it with other collage materials.

We finished off with a story/song of 5 Little Ducks (Mrs Wishy Washy features a pig, cow and duck) and a short discussion about mother and baby ducks to fit in with upcoming Mothers Day. 


I have just listed a printable cvc word game / center activity that could be used with a unit of work on Mrs Wishy Washy. It is called In the Tub, and students have to match a cvc word with a picture to make sure all the pigs are clean! Find it in our store.



HUGE Savings in TpT Sale!

Tuesday is National Teacher Appreciation Day in the USA.

We Love Teachers Meme



To celebrate the TeachersPayTeachers website is offering their biggest discount ever - 20% off!

Many sellers, including my store will be offering our own sale - ours is 20% off
Therefore many great products will be up to 40% OFF!
 
The Promo Code is TAD11 and you will need this in the checkout to receive your discount.

It is good all day Tuesday from midnight to midnight Central Standard Time (USA).

I have purchased almost 100 items from TpT for use in my classroom, and can highly recommend the quality and originality of many of the sellers, who have worked so hard to provide fantastic resources to make your job easier - check out my blog roll to find some of my favourites - they will all have links to their fabulous TpT stores.

I can't wait till Tuesday - I have a list of 7 items on my wishlist already - I'm just itching to get my 20% off!