Word Work Checklists {...with Mrs.Plemons' Kindergarten}

Do you have a love hate relationship with word study in your classroom? I know I've tried a million different routines but I always struggle with figuring out how to differentiate for student needs. But then in a magically moment of wisdom I came up with a simple one page printable that saves me loads of sanity!

Truth be told I hate figuring out what to have my students do right away in the morning when they come in. I struggle with not wanting to give them busy work but still wanting to get them engaged in learning right away.  That's why I decided to create a simple word work checklist that students can do first thing in the morning when they arrive.

To differentiate these checklists, I first decide which words my students need to work on. Depending on the students' abilities and the time of year the word lists may include their name, sight words, color words, word families, spelling patterns, etc. I do hand write all of my students words on their lists each week but often I have groups of kids with the same words, so I am able to write it once then copy it for each kid to save some time.

Then when students come in for the day they grab their list and pick from 8 (or more) choices to practice their words.  They pick one choice for that morning and color it on their paper. I ask them to choose a different activity each day.  Here are 8 of the "all the time" options I have. 

Play Dough

Cubes

Whiteboards

Stickers

Rainbow Write

Stones

Magnets

Beans

I also add up to 3 additional choices each week to keep things interesting and I usually just draw/write those on the bottom quickly before copying.  Some of the other options I add include:

Alphabet Beads, Stamps, Tiles, Magic Words (write with white crayon then water color paint over), Clothespins, Squishy Bags (ziplok bags filled with hair gel, write with Q-tip), and Dot Stampers.

You can grab the FREE printable word work checklist here:

I hope you can use this idea in your classroom to help simplify your work work and cut down on the prep work you need to do!