Teaching writing in Kindergarten always shows tremendous growth in your students. They will start Kindergarten barely able to write their name to being able to write a few complete sentences independently! But, just how do you get there? This writing blog series will teach you all about the writing progression
Developing fine motor skills takes years of practice to build that coordination and dexterity. Strong fine motor skills help kids be able to get dressed independently, write, draw, and more. This doesn’t happen overnight, but with years of practice starting from when children are little. As a teacher, you need
A growing trend I’ve noticed is that more and more Kindergarteners are arriving with underdeveloped fine motor skills. With the rise of technology, many students haven’t had much practice holding a pencil, using scissors, or even playing with playdough. As a result, they struggle with handwriting and other essential tasks
Flashcards may seem like the most boring teaching tool. The main way to use phonics flashcards is to practice naming sounds, and I do use them especially during our phonemic awareness daily warm-ups. However, there are many other ways you can use flashcards! Here are a few engaging ways to
If you are a teacher, you can probably figure out this sentence written by a 5 year old: “The bdrfi iz prpl.” When I asked the student what it said, they proudly pointed to each word and read, “The butterfly is purple.” Although you may feel inclined to have the
My first year teaching Kindergarten, I realized I did not understand how to teach phonics. With the exception of one Early Literacy college course, I knew nothing about phonics or how to teach students how to read properly. These are the 5 phonics instruction mistakes I made my first year
Are you looking for some ideas to create engaging phonics lesson activities? With your phonics instruction, you want to first make sure it is systematic and explicit, and done daily. However, this doesn’t mean it needs to be boring! Here are my top 4 simple and engaging phonics lesson activities
My phonics routine used to consist of a 30-minute phonics lesson followed by an independent activity. I quickly found that this was too long for my students and not very effective. Soon, I switched to a quick and simple 15-minute step-by-step phonics lesson plan, which now includes additional independent practice
Are you at a school where you need to create your own daily schedule? After my first 3 years teaching, I was at a new school that did not give me a minute by minute schedule for the day. I was used to having exact times for not only lunch
