The Magic of Word Study & a FREEBIE {Tickled Pink in Primary}

At the beginning of the year, when we are working on letter sounds, we use these building word cards. Students fill in missing beginning, middle, or ending sounds and record the answer on the worksheet. You can find this activity here. 

Another way to work on filling in missing sounds is at our stamping center. Students LOVE using stamps! I use this center all year and just simply switch out the worksheets for the alphabet, letter sounds, CVC words, etc. You can grab a few of these stamping worksheets FREE in my TPT store here. 

I made these sound spinners so students can easily see that by substituting just 1 sound, they can make new words! I created spinner for beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  Students simply spin the wheel to show a new sound, read the word, then lift the flap to see if the picture matches the word they read. Then students will spin a new sound to make a new word! Each set of sound spinners comes with a worksheet for students to provide their answers. You can grab these sound spinners in my TPT store here. 

These CVC word cards are an easy way to help students practice building simple words. You can use magnetic letters, playdoh, dry-erase markers, etc. for added fun! You can find them in my TPT store here.

 During my small group, we use these mini cups to work on word families. I gave students a cup with a red word family on it. They then had a stack of blue letters, and put one letter in front of the word family to make a new word. Next, they could stack another blue letter on top of the other cup to make a new word. The word family cup (red) doesn't move until they've built 5 words. They can then get a new word family and start making new words. Eventually, I'll add harder word families and blend/digraphs instead of just 1 letter on the cups. 

Another way to work on word families is with these word families mats I got years ago from Lakeshore. I love that they are dry-erase and give the students a picture clue for the word family. My students really enjoy using these mats, and they seem to catch on to the idea of word families quickly. My students love to show me when they use a blend or digraph to make a bigger word. Word families are an easy way to help build student confidence in reading!

One of my students FAVORITE activities is Fluency & Fitness! I have created over 50 different sets so we can work on these for any and every skills possible. I love doing these because students can work on academics, get in some exercise for a brain break, and I don't lose any instructional time. You can find all of my Fluency & Fitness bundles here. 

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Spring into...Fluency & Fitness {w/Tickled Pink in Primary}

It's supposed to be Spring, but here in Indiana it snowed this week! Good news though, we have a TON of goodies to giveaway! 

At this point in the year, students (and teachers)  start to get a bit antsy for school to end and the focus tends to decline. My Fluency & Fitness bundles are a great way to get students up and moving, yet keep them learning at the same time. Students absolutely LOVE these, and they even ask to do them!! I don't think they even realize it's learning, because they are having so much fun (teacher win!) 

I picked 2 of my best selling bundles for our giveaway. Below you can see a class doing the Fry's 1st 100 Sight Words Fluency & Fitness. This bundle is included in the K-2 giveaway. 

These students are mastering the math facts with the Multiplication Fluency & Fitness Bundle.This bundle is in the 3-5 giveaway. 

You can even print the slides into small flashcards and use them during center time.

I have created over 30 different Fluency & Fitness bundles and keep getting requests for more! These bundles are great for any time of the year to get kids up and moving, but especially now when students are needing to get their wiggles out more and more. 

Enter below to win all of these awesome products!!!

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Spring Into....CVC Word Family Poems!

Gathering great resources for the classroom is something many teachers do all year long, not just at back to school. Now that spring is here, it can be time to refresh or give some new life to our teaching day, and we at EE are so excited to be able to give away some brand new resources to a lucky winner!

In Kindergarten, we work hard on learning to read! We unlock reading through mastering our letters and sounds, and then we move on to master blending and reading CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words.

Being able to read CVC words fluently helps kids see and become familiar with patterns in words, especially when looking at word families or word chunks (cat, bat, hat, mat, etc)

Word family poems are quick, fun, and simple way to practice building up fluency with CVC words!

There are 23 printable poems in the set, each one focusing on a different short vowel word family. This allows students to identify the patterns and rhymes in the poems and to get repetitive practice with reading them. 

The poems are made up of CVC words and beginning sight words, so they not only work on identifying word families and patterns, but build up sight word fluency too! 

You can choose to read the poems one at a time and then send them home for additional practice, or you can choose to collect them in a poetry notebook so that your kids can read them over again during Read to Self time or in small groups.

The great thing about them being printable is that there are tons of options - you could even send a set home and keep one at school!

The entire set of CVC poems is available HERE in my TpT store. You can also find it combined with alphabet and CVCe poems in the Phonics Poems Bundle. 

Know what's even better? You can WIN it, along with tons of other resources but entering the Rafflecopter below!

Happy Teaching!

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Technology Tips & Tricks with Tickled Pink in Primary

I'm excited to be showing you a few ways I use technology in my classroom! I think technology integrated into learning helps students stay much more engaged! I used to have a Promethean Board at my old school, and used it EVERY day! I loved how my students could interact with the board. 

One of my class's favorite brain breaks are my Fluency & Fitness bundles! To play you simply project your selected PDF onto a big screen and flip through the slides as fast or slow as you think your students can say the skill. When they see an exercise slide, they have to do that exercise until you click to the next screen. Teachers get to manually click to go to the next screen, therefore at the beginning of the year you can go slower, and once they master the skill, you can go faster! Feel free to sit on the exercise screen for awhile ;) I have many versions of Fluency & Fitness in my TPT store.

Here are examples of my CVC bundle and Number Sense bundle. 

    

Another game in my Number Sense bundle is 10 frames. Here's a short video of Fluency & Fitness in action!

Another way I corporate technology into my classroom is by letting my students use our iPad during center time. Here's an old picture of some of the games I have. I forgot to take a picture of how I've organized my apps. I created 2 folders on the homepage: Reading and Math. When it is reading time, the students know to click on the Reading folder, and they can play any of the games in that folder. The same goes for Math time.  Here's an example of a few of the games I have in the Reading Folder. 

They love the game Futaba. A picture pops up and the first player to find the word, gets a point. They can use this at the beginning of the year and hunt for the beginning sound in the word, and once they are readers, they can play it by searching for the word. 

 

This last tip is actually something one of my co-workers did. She has a friend that is a fireman, so for fire safety week in October, they Skyped with him. He was showing them the fire station, his equipment, etc. Then, the coolest thing happened...the sirens went off! He asked if they wanted to keep Skyping and follow him on their ride in the fire truck! When it was too loud to talk on Skype, they typed him questions and he'd respond. What a cool experience!!