singing the day away

Singing became a staple tool in my classroom my second year when I found myself teaching, reteaching and teaching our classroom routines and procedures some more and needing for my new kinders to not be rolling on the ground while being taught this piece that lays a foundation for our entire year.


I found then and there the power that songs and chants have with kinders. If you've spent any time with five and six year olds you've noticed they have a knack for tuning out things they've heard before, but love listening to favorite stories, movies and songs time and time again - so wherein lies the difference?

Singing works for me to have great classroom management skills, teach concepts and specific skills.

Now I find myself at any moment making up sing-songy directions to reinforce what I expect out of my kinders and it brings out the best in all of us. Over the years, I have made mental notes of the lyrics and tunes that have seemed to help make a few *clicks* in students' minds and for different topics as well. Here are five audio downloads that I sing combined into one freebie file:

 {R is a Bully}

 {Vowels}

{Sorting}

{vowels, Cc, r-controlled vowels, sorting, graphing}

I also love using a chant format to review sight words. Just as you practice the entire alphabet chart, we do something similar with sight words - in fact I have my sight word chant laminated to the back of our abc chart to make it simple to get to everyday. Then we zero in on a song to teach each sight word so that my kinders can recognize it by sight but also spell it independently.

  

I have to admit that this chant combined with these songs are one of my favorite things I have created and have been crucial to getting my kids off on the right foot for learning to read! I love using familiar tunes, like nursery rhymes and Christmas songs to build off of so that they are already catchy and just need a little learning infusion! 

I've made 31 now that I can use at the drop of a hat and combined them with word wall cards and two sight word chants easy for anyone to use (even if you're not a self professed singer)!

{Sing to Learn Sight Words}

More Sight Words

five days, five minutes

More Language Arts

playdough make the best word work center

guided reading - guided setup

kindergarten word work manipulative ideas

developing phonemic awareness

.com - a guided reading story

Injecting Rhyming into Your Day

Wherein lies the difference? Ever have a jingle or commercial you can't get out of your head? The music makes the difference!

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- Leslie

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sharing the love

A conversation with my favorite teaching friend led us to discuss that books are wonderful, but they don't have to be a mystery. What I mean is, my kinders don't have to view books created by published authors as these mystical things that are put together somehow, in some format that makes it wonderful, engaging and with every detail in the right place.

Let me preface here, the first time (and sometimes second time) we read a story we always just read for enjoyment. But the third and fourth time we are dissecting it and truly recognizing the features, specifics and figuring out how it was constructed. Can kinders do that?! Yes, a hundred times yes - with support! ;)

  

We categorize books that we've read 4-5 times in  a week by posting them behind my rocking chair based on these terms I thought fit many books we read. We talk about them all the time, and I many times edify my kinder-authors like, "You wrote information just like Melvin Berger," or "That's a different version story just like Lucille Colandro likes to write."

    

With that said, we use the picture icons seen in the corners to help my beginning readers remember the concepts and I put ones that relate to retelling and recognizing events in a story together in a free bookmark for your kinders. Today is about sharing the love! I plan on sending mine home as a reward for my kinders completing their story maps to plan out their different version of a "problem/solution and pattern" story. What a way to show how reading and writing go together!

 

What might you do with yours? I'd love to know!

flower power

At the beginning of the year I wanted my kinders to know that there were times that they were not allowed interrupt my small group or 1:1 instruction and figured that (since in years passed - me sitting at our kidney shaped table wasn't enough of a clue) they needed a stronger visual. 

Introducing....flower power.

I totally just grabbed some cheapy rings from the Dollar Tree store when they were having their luau stuff out. And as soon as that ring is slipped on my finger... snap! I am instantly endowed with flower power! I totally came up with the term on the spot as I was introducing the concept of working through issues together, problem solving, and asking three before you ask me.

{click to get yours}

I now just keep it with my guided reading group materials in case of needing a brief moment of no interruptions attempted but I haven't "had" to use it since we began in November. I guess there was some residual power left behind!

I think I got this idea for using a prop from Kelly Mikesell (elementary-teacher-resources.com). I remember reading a post somewhere and the teacher was wearing a crown during her GR instruction. The crown was a little too much for me to envision myself wearing, so I tried to find something that would be unique in the kinder's minds but that fit my style!