We use the following ABC sign language videos to learn and review letter names and sounds. This technique engages the whole child in a fun way by introducing visual aids, a song, and movement to help children learn and retain letter sounds quickly. Using the signs also helps children develop the small muscles in their fingers which help control the pencil when writing. Click here to read more about the benefits of learning the ABC sign language. Click here for a link to download a free sign language poster to use with the videos. (This is also great for little brothers and sisters.) Click below for tutorials. The first one is slow, the second one is faster, and the third one is fastest. We are currently using the third one in class. Sight words are so important and for that reason taught in many different ways throughout the year. I would love to be able to tell you that there are 5 words each week all the kids are learning. However that would require me to teach all of the children the same words in a one-size-fits-all approach. This would be much easier for me true but not what is best for the kids. Years of experience have taught me that kids come to kindergarten knowing some, none, or all of the words. For that reason I teach the words during small reading groups. Each group is working on 2-3 new words each week. We won't move to new words until the kids in that group can read and write those words. Some weeks it takes longer and words spill into the following week but we never move on until they can read and write the words. I know many parents want to work on these words at home so I'm going to attach some resources to the bottom of this post including the lists of words. This link will take you to my favorite sight word tool. It's a collection of videos from Heidi Songs that helps the kids learn these words by singing and dancing. By now I'm sure you've heard the poem and listened to your child read it in their poetry folder. Did you know last Friday we even ate some real alligator pie? I told the kids the story of how I had to travel deep into the swamp to buy the ingredients; crushed alligator bones sweetened with sugar, gator juice, and chocolate covered dried alligator eyes. Each little chef made their own pie and then quickly devoured it. The kids worked in small groups to make models of the wetlands in science lab. The model included different types of wetlands including a swamp, a bog, and a marsh. They poured water into it to see how the swamp helps to filter out the pollution before the water returns to the ocean.
Here are some pics of the birthday butterfly helping tag the monarchs for https://www.monarchwatch.org/
Today the kids continued to practice Read-to-Self and also learned how to Read-to-Someone during Daily Five. They thinks it's so much fun to sit with a friend and share the book.
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