Phonemic Awareness Activities On the Go!

admin July 14, 2014 No Comments

It’s amazing sometimes where inspiration hits.  A few weeks ago I had to kill about an hour and decided to hop on over to Michael’s Craft Store.  As I was walking through the bead aisle I found this really handy plastic tote.  It was just the right size to fit picture cards!  Many of my teacher friends are constantly on the move and tote is just perfect! The phonemic awareness tote contains over 500 colorful pictures for teaching the Syllables, Rhyme, Beginning Sounds, Onset-Rime, Phoneme Isolation and Phoneme Segmentation.  Each skill area contains a common core alignment card, activity card(s) and colorful and engaging pictures.  The borders are color-coded per skill for easy organization. Although the tote found at Michael’s

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How to Paint a Cookie Sheet

admin July 6, 2014 No Comments

I have to admit it– I’ve been obsessed with painted cookie sheets for awhile now.  You see, I have this “thing” for color coding.  A few years ago I created a series of phonics-based activities that are intended to be used on cookie sheets.  The regular grayish cookie sheets- well… they just didn’t match my borders  .  Since that time I’ve been fiddling around with different primers, paint colors, paint types and gloss to get just the “right look” and functionality.  I think I have it now.   So, if you are interested in making your painted cookie sheets this is what you’ll need: Materials 1.  Cookie Sheet-  There’s a trick with finding just the right cookie sheet.  You will

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Blends and Digraphs Game Boards

admin June 29, 2014 No Comments

Oh, summertime!  One of my goals this summer is to revamp several of my earlier created activities and the Consonant Blends and Digraphs Game Boards activity is first on my list.  I’ve added several new game boards for a total of 20!  Each game board is also available in a black and white version so that they can be copied and sent them home with students for added practice.  The consonant digraphs game boards contains the production cues which is a nice companion to the Consonant Digraphs cue card.  Be sure to download the free cue card by  clicking the link below: Just click the following link: Consonant Digraphs Cue Card The Consonant Blends and Digraphs Game Boards are available through

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Teaching Homophones

admin June 27, 2014 No Comments

Click the following link to download this free poster Homophones Poster Many reading programs introduce the concept of homophones in second grade.  Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have a different meaning.  Our students need to be able to tell the difference in the meanings of these words and to use the correct spelling in their writing.  If students misspell words or use the wrong word in writing, the reader is not likely to understand what they are trying to say.  Here’s a list of common homophones that you may wish to introduce to your students. Click the following link to download this freebie Homophones Word List 2 Learning homophones can be tons of fun!  One way

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Fly Swatting Sight Words

admin June 25, 2014 No Comments

Using a fly swatter to swat flies (with letters, words or math facts) during small group intervention or in literacy centers has been an all time favorite activity. It’s always fun and engaging to add a little movement into any learning activity.  To assemble the activity all you need to do is place a strip of velcro on a fly swatter, print and cut out the flies, and then place a small velcro dot on each fly.  Students take turns swatting flies and reading the word on the flies they catch.   Very simple, but guaranteed to keep them practicing those words for a long time. The Fly Swat! activity for sight words is available in the Make, Take & Teach website and

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The Importance of Teaching Rhyme

admin June 22, 2014 No Comments

Before children learn to read, they must first have an understanding of how sounds work within words.  Learning to recognize and produce rhyme  is one of the very first phonological skills that children acquire on their way to becoming proficient readers.  Working with rhyme is an important component of the early childhood curriculum.  Research tells us that most children learn to recognize rhyme by 5 (which words rhyme:  cat, bug, rat) and can provide a rhyming word by 5 1/2.  When children appreciate rhyme and are able to provide rhyming words, they show that they understand that words are made up of individual speech sounds which can be changed to create different words.  That understanding is the basis of reading.  Here’s

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The Importance of Teaching Procedures in the Classroom

admin June 15, 2014 No Comments

Last week I was talking with several colleagues about the elements of successful small group instruction.  We started chatting about the core curriculum, determining skill based groups, materials for use during small groups and on and on.  We quickly, however, turned our focus to classroom management.  The reality is is that if classroom management is lacking there really is no way to run small groups.  Successful small group instruction is highly dependent upon having all the other children highly engaged and independent in their center activities.  In order to make those precious minutes of small group intervention count within the classroom, your instructional time needs to be free of interruption.  During this discussion, one of my collegues kept whispering “Harry

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Soccer Themed Activities! It’s World Cup Time!

admin June 12, 2014 No Comments

Soccer is my sport!  I love, love, love soccer.  My oldest child was five when we enrolled him in our city recreational league.   Our family has been hooked ever since.   You know how organizations are always short on volunteers?  Well, the soccer league was short on coaches.  When I was asked to coach I remember saying, “I’ll think about it” and the next thing I know I received a roster of 15 10-year-old boys.  Having never played soccer, I did what any rational person would do–googled “how to coach soccer.”  How difficult can it be- right?  Well, ever since I’ve coached all three of my kids recreational league teams as well as Lizzie’s travel team.  I loved every minute of

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Bowling for Sight Words

admin May 8, 2014 No Comments

Horray!  The bowling pins are back on the shelves at Walmart!  Last year I found these adorable bowling pins and decided to create a hand-on activity for learning and practicing sight words.  While they’re not exactly the same bowling pins as I originally purchased last year, they certainly will do the trick.  To create your sight word bowling pins simply print the pdf file below on an Avery label 8161 (1″x4″) and place the desired stickers on the bowling pins. To play the game, have the students take turns bowling and reading the words on the pins that were knocked down.  If the word is read correctly, he/she can keep the bowling pin.  Just a fun little game to keep

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Road Racers!

admin April 29, 2014 No Comments

The Road Racers activities are fast becoming one of my favorite activities!  It’s amazing how motivating a little car can be.  A month or so ago I created the activity for letters and sounds, and it was such a hit that I quickly created another to work on short vowels, word families and CVC words. When you download the Road Racers for the Alphabet, you’ll receive  35 road templates with letters following the sequence of a commonly utilized reading series. Review roads are included for each 4 and 8 letter sequence. Simply print the road templates and gather a few little dollar store race cars and you’ll have a ready-made activity for either small group instruction or for independent literacy centers.

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