Noodle Necklaces

We focused on the sound of letter Nn last week and made noodle necklaces. The kids always love this activity! I colored some noodles with alcohol and food coloring.

Several of the children decided to make patterns with the noodles: bonus!  = )

I also printed out our sight words in BIG letters and taped them to one of our classroom doors for word practice. I love the way they turned out!

I used DJ Fat Chat for the font...it's hard to tell in the photo just how big they are, but most of them are about 6 inches high and 10 inches long, depending on how many letters are in the word.

Thanks for checking in on my little corner of the kindergarten world~   = )

Small Pocket Chart Freebie

I love the ideas I've seen using the alphabet activity for sorting letters that are tall, small, and fall. This one is my favorite. I decided to print the poem and use it in one of my small (Target dollar spot) pocket charts on my reading focus board for the beginning of the year.

Later, I can move it to a center and have children sort letters by their characteristics.  I cut the poem into strips and matted them on black, blue, red, and green paper.

Click here to get your free copy of this chart. : )  Have a great day!

Paint Chip Word Families

I'm sure you've seen them all over Pinterest...paint chip ideas galore! Last week I went to Lowe's to look at paint samples (for a home improvement project) and was thrilled to find paint chips with squares already punched in them!  I thought it would be cute to make something like this, but punching the squares would be kind of time consuming...good news for us, Valspar paint has made it easy! I grabbed a few extra paint samples and headed home to make these:

I fired up my Cricut and cut several letters to create the word families. (The black letters are cut at 1" using the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.) After they are laminated, I am going to cut them apart on the white line. I made strips of letters for the children to slide behind the square to make words. I haven't created a recording sheet yet, but there are several ways to differentiate this activity. For now, I put the word family on the bottom of the strip, but they could choose any letter strip and see how many real vs. nonsense words they make, practice reading CVC words,  or keep a record the words they read. We all know what an important part onset rime word families play in developing reading and writing skills.

 Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Writing Center

Here is my writing center...it has crayons, markers, colored pencils, stencils, letter stamps, beginning sound stamps...and all kinds of fun paper for the children to use. There is a shelf to the right of this table that holds quite a few of the supplies. I also added my scissor stand...an idea I originally found on Pinterest.

This is how I store stamps for the children to use for beginning sound stamping...I found this tool caddy at the thrift store. The drawers have dividers, so I have two letter sounds per drawer. These stamps are just the "picture" stamps. I have all of the letters in another tool caddy on the shelf to the right.

I made a cute label for the top of the container!

To begin the year, I put my ABC bottle and a popcorn bottle with the children's names in it. They color the letter or the name when they find it in the bottle. It's an easy activity for them and it's a good way to introduce them to the center. They can, of course, also do "free" writing there if they want to.

Thanks for looking and have a super day!

Beginning Sound Gems

Hello! I have a FUN idea to share with you!! I saw this idea on Pinterest using large "gems" from the dollar store. It's a great way to practice sight words, so I thought why not use this same technique for other skills??? I printed small clip art pictures and letters and made beginning sound matching gems. I love the way they turned out! I still have to make a cute bag to put them in. I can just see all of the possibilities for these gems...can't you??? Thanks for looking and have a great day!