Enjoy this free game, Race to the Capital! To play, students will read alphabet letter sounds as a precursor to decoding words. And for kiddos who are ready, they can use this for decoding practice.
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It is so important for our students to have a growth mindset in order to accomplish their learning goals! We've put together a packet of activities that you can use all year long in order to encourage children to learn that they can be successful and that learning depends on hard work and persistence. The packet is available here or at Teachers Pay Teachers.
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You will love this way to get kids writing!! You can use these as a permanent writing center, as worksheets, as literacy centers, or more... We offer this writing product in many themes!
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The systematic teaching of all phonological awareness skills is imperative to ensure a students’ future reading success. Daily, intentional instruction of, and more importantly, the “playing with" individual sounds in a meaningful way will build cognitive clarity as students experience how sounds work together to form words.
A child’s future reading success is directly linked to his/her understanding of phonological awareness skills. Consequently, daily intentional, strategic teaching of those skills must exist in the kindergarten classroom. The best way to teach these skills? Well the play way of course!
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My grandkids love Stomp Rockets! They are great for teaching STEM skills, such as cause and effect and trial and error, and very fun! In order to launch the rocket, kids jump on the plastic box, forcing air through the blue tube, and launching the rocket into the sky. There is a stand that comes with the rocket, but it's not very sturdy. Fortunately, the kids enjoy holding the rocket while they launch it (unfortunately, that makes it easier to point the rockets at each other).
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I love the simple Halloween songs of my childhood! I have continually shared these songs with my kindergartners year after year; always with the same reactions -- Kids love them. Following are the jpgs that you need to print as posters, and the mp3 you will need to sing the tunes with your classroom. These songs and more are part of our Halloween Thematic Unit. This unit also includes the piano scores.
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Here's a fun activity for you, via my grandkids. Grab a large cardboard box and have your kids or students decorate the outside of it with pictures of spiders. Then glue or tape to the inside roof of the tunnel as many black threads as you have patience for. In a darkened room, the black threads will be difficult to see, and it will feel like crawling through a spiderweb infested tunnel to the little ones that dare to crawl inside!
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October is Fire Prevention Month! Whether you visit a fire station, have firemen come to your school, or show a video about fire safety, make sure you address these simple points with your students:
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Trying to figure out how to dress for your school's Halloween or fall celebration? How about one of these storybook themed costumes? They're sure to be a hit with your students!
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Are you getting ready for your FALL Parent Teacher Conferences in Kindergarten? You will love this easy form that will make reporting to parents practical, authentic and a breeze! You will be organized and ready to discuss student progress with all of the data right at your fingertips!
Bonus! This packet includes our Fall Homework Intervention Packets in both English and Spanish. Send these packets home with parents to offer additional support for their child's academic learning.
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Then look no further! Sign up for your free trial of ESGI today! Use code B7227 to save $40.00.
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Election season is here, and this one in particular will be getting a lot of attention in the media. Help your young learners understand the process by using great literature selections to help as you plan a thematic election unit.
To get you in the mood for thematic planning, check out our podcast interview with Mary Parry, author of Sadie McGrady, episode #24.
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Young children can write and this writing should occur daily in the early childhood classroom. In fact, most students will write before they read! “Over the school year, students’ writing develops…with increasing levels of sophistication of vocabulary, syntax, and stylistic features” (Bailey & Heritage, 2008, p. 159).
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"EXPERTS IN LITERACY AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT HAVE DISCOVERED THAT IF CHILDREN KNOW EIGHT NURSERY RHYMES BY HEART..., THEY'RE USUALLY AMONG THE BEST READERS BY THE TIME THEY'RE EIGHT."
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The sensory table in my classroom is always a favorite of my students and a great companion to math, science, and literacy development as well! As children are able to experiement, discover, solve, estimate, explore and more, understanding of mathematical and science concepts are developed. When academic tasks are combined are placed in the sensory mix, students can expand even there literacy development.
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These documents serve as organizational tools for gathering information about language arts and math strengths and weaknesses of kindergarten students. Using these assessment, you will learn more about your students and will more easily determine the focus of your instruction.
Read MoreEveryone knows that ESGI is a great assessment tool, but it also has a class management tool, that is a great time saver as well. Read more here about how to use ESGI for Assessments.
Simply click on the class management tool located at the far right on the top menu bar.
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We all have had those active classrooms with “behavioral challenges.” In fact, the trend is that instead of one “hard” student in the school (as it was early on in my career), it is expected that most classrooms will have several behavioral challenges that change the tone of the room.
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Make the most of your student's sight word practice by providing them a great multi-task work page. Students are asked to color the word, trace the word, write the word, find the word, and then create the word as a puzzle. My students LOVE to do these pages. I have made them workbook style and used as single worksheet pages, they have loved them both the same. It is especially effective when I put the Heidi Songs Sight Word song on loop. By the end of the activity the majority of the students can spell and identify the sight word of the week.
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