Letterland Letterland! There is no better land!

My students love Letterland! I have added so many Letterland Supplemental products in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store! Pam-DAlessandro.

This is for the beginning of the year, after FAST TRACK. I use this for my first lesson after assessments. it is on pages 43-50 of the Letterland Kindergarten Manual. Lessons 19-20. I use this the entire week, supplemented with my other Letterland activities. I always call my small independent groups, centers but I know many call them stations or specials.
 

You know you hear a song and it plays over and over in your head? Well, that is how the theme song to Letterland is with me and my students. We hum it all the time!

When we first started with Letterland last year I have to say I had some issues with the program! First, the accents were all British and I had to teach little Ks the letter sounds in English! AND nine of my students were ESLs! 

I started using it and really got into the program and now I love it!  The characters are cute! They call the characters, Letterlanders! They live in another land of letters, sounds complicated if you are new to the program, but as you get into the program you can see it does work! Students learn the sounds and letters!

We had a Letterland Parade on the 31st. Students had a month to get their costumes ready. Red Robot on the left hand side was the cutest little guy! They all had fun and parents walked along with us as we went in every classroom in the school.

Notice the crayons.... yes, I am really particular about crayons. That came from my student teaching days. A long time ago! I only have my Kinders take out the crayons that they need. Then immediately put them back in the box. It is easier for early learners to have a plastic crayon box where they can have them spread out more. But still only one crayon at a time.

I make sure not to rush them. It takes more time to be neat and careful than to just hurry up with something. All things take time for early learners and there is no use rushing them.

I made some up with just Annie Apple and Clever cat.  I'll try and upload them here, but will put them in my  TPT store.

Students cut out the pictures and sort them under the /a/ or /c/ sound.

The clip art all came from DJ Inkers and Whimsey Clips.

I wanted my students to identify the beginning sounds of /a/ and /c/ words. Of course, learning to write the letters correctly helps! The clip art all came from DJ Inkers and Whimsey Clips.

I made double copies of the picture cards that are in Annie Apple's center. My Kinders couldn't draw as well as some of the other classes I have had, so they put the picture of /a/ words under their paper and traced. They are getting a lot better now!

I love interactive emergent readers and this is printed back to front. I hope someone who is teaching using the Letterland program can use some of these supplemental centers. I have more centers, powerpoints and all that I have made up,  so please follow my blog and I will put these up as I go. 

Let me know if these links work. I hope this helps someone. Also, I will be putting some freebies up on my TPT store. If you want to be notified, please go to my store and click Follow. I promise I don't send out a lot of emails, just when I have a new Free Item or New Product.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Pam-DAlessandro

Do you still do centers in your Kindergarten classroom?

I still call them Centers. I guess it is just stuck in my head. I know a lot of teachers call them rotations or stations. Some like them, some don't. I love centers! Centers keep my students moving and they are practicing what they have been taught. Centers free me up to work one on one or with small groups.

Centers also let students choose how they are going to complete their work. This is from a Daily Five, read to self rotation. I like the way he found a spot that he felt comfortable in. 

Sometimes an entire table is working on one center. This may not be their table, but I put the graphing on the RED table. I like the pencil boxes because all the tools students need for each center is in that box. (Please just overlook my messy room!)

This is from my American Symbols Unit on TPT. I have updated and added our new president, President Donald Trump!

This is from my American Symbols unit on TPT. We learn a lot about the USA and important symbols and why they are important.

Finally my Freebie! This is the 'at' family part of my CVC Word Work Collection. This freebie contains all the pages that have to do with the 'at' family. In the complete unit I have 27 Word Families represented and a little over 105 picture cards (I put some new ones up.) 

There are several reasons I like to make units like this... one is that they keep my students engaged and learning what I want them to learn. They are not boring. The main reason is selfish, I will not have to keep on telling my students what to do. I take the time with the first family to explain everything, and I help them fold and go over and over what to do. The next family I might have to go over a tad, but it is familiar to them. After that they are good to go and can do this all by themselves. What teacher doesn't like that!

Here are some videos that explain how to make the products included in this Unit. 

This video shows how to assemble the little 'hotdog' book.

This video shows how to make the Scrambled Letters book.

This video shows how students use the four square activity. My dear co-worker explains things so nicely! Her blog is Sugar~Spice & Everything Nice! Jodie's research projects are great. I use them all the time and I feel my students are learning more than just information about bears and all. They are using their brains to think! Try some of her freebies (you will be glad you did!)

THANKS! Hope these videos help! Pam

Freebie! CVC Word Work for Rotations, Stations, or Centers!

I still call them Centers. I guess it is just stuck in my head. I know a lot of teachers call them rotations or stations. Some like them, some don't. I love centers! Centers keep my students moving and they are practicing what they have been taught. Centers free me up to work one on one or with small groups.

Centers also let students choose how they are going to complete their work. This is from a Daily Five, read to self rotation. I like the way he found a spot that he felt comfortable in. 

Sometimes an entire table is working on one center. This may not be their table, but I put the graphing on the RED table. I like the pencil boxes because all the tools students need for each center is in that box. (Please just overlook my messy room!)

This is from my American Symbols Unit on TPT.

This is one of my Black History centers. We call Black History, Shades of Color in my K room because when students color a picture of themselves they were coloring their faces black. I told them to really look at each other's skin color. We are all shades of some color. I am not white, but actually pinkish. Someone else is a little tan mixed in with a brownish color. It helps them realize that we are all different colors as well as shapes and sizes. We are so fortunate to be living in the USA where a man of color, a black man, an African American man was elected President! I guess when Obama is replaced in 2016, I'll add the new president, but I will leave him in my packet.  Now when a woman of any color is elected, that is when I will jump up and down and Woo Hoo for the USA!

Finally my Freebie! This is the 'at' family part of my CVC Word Work Collection. This freebie contains all the pages that have to do with the 'at' family. In the complete unit I have 27 Word Families represented and a little over 105 picture cards (I put some new ones up.) 

There are several reasons I like to make units like this... one is that they keep my students engaged and learning what I want them to learn. They are not boring. The main reason is selfish, I will not have to keep on telling my students what to do. I take the time with the first family to explain everything, and I help them fold and go over and over what to do. The next family I might have to go over a tad, but it is familiar to them. After that they are good to go and can do this all by themselves. What teacher doesn't like that!

Here are some videos that explain how to make the products included in this Unit. 

This video shows how to assemble the little 'hotdog' book.

This video shows how to make the Scrambled Letters book.

This video shows how students use the four square activity. My dear co-worker explains things so nicely! Her blog is Sugar~Spice & Everything Nice! Jodie's research projects are great. I use them all the time and I feel my students are learning more than just information about bears and all. They are using their brains to think! Try some of her freebies (you will be glad you did!)

I think this is all I needed to add. If you read down to here, THANKS! Hope these videos help! Pam

Centers ~ Love 'em or Hate 'em - What's A Teacher To Do!

I've read quite a few blog posts about centers and how a few teachers dislike them intensely. I can understand what they are saying because I would really dislike working with a small group of children and my other students were playing and making all kinds of noise in another area of my room. I wouldn't like that either. In fact, I couldn't teach with that going on.

I can teach with noise, the kind of noise where you can walk around and hear students talking about their work and what they are learning. I can't teaching with what I call "Noise Pollution." Nope. I will stop my class in a second if I hear talk that isn't related to learning.

There are times when talk is fun and students are just happy murmuring away about whatever strikes their fancy. Those times are usually at recess, the cafeteria or free time during the day. I hear this sometimes when students are reading to a stuffed animal in the room. They are retelling a story and getting sidetracked about their experiences. I usually let this just happily end with the story.  I expect centers and carpet time to be learning time. They can talk, but I tell them it has to be "Academic Talk." Yes, Kinders know what that means if you explain it.

I enjoy centers. I like the whole process. Finding center work that is engaging and meaningful, which means my students are having fun learning, is not easy. Once you have your centers in place, and the students know what to do, it is really not work at all. I don't add everything at once. Especially since I started the Daily 5. Word Work is next for my class and I am looking forward to this.

One of my centers for Word Work is my Sight Word Cut And Paste. I have this for Pre-Primer, Primer, and First Grade Words. I also have the 100 Fry Sight Word Word Work product  that was requested by a teacher. This does not have as many graphics and the students can focus more on the academics. Either way, all the work is done for you. It is easy for students to understand after the first few days of instruction.

           

As usual, thanks for visiting my blog! Leave a comment and the link to your blog so I can pay you a visit!

Making Centers!

Unless you just buy the pre-made centers from Lakeshore (and I do love that .com) you are probably like me and spend a lot of time making centers that are fun and engaging and MEANINGFUL for your students.

I haven't taught Kinders in quite a while so I have a lot to do!

I like to use little clips in fun themes for my students. It seems they try harder to do the work I want them to do if I make it colorful and fun. I bought lots of different themes at AC Moore recently. They were on sale, which helped a lot! Especially since North Carolina has taken away the $250.00 teacher deduction which we always have had..... Anyway, thank goodness for sales! The monkeys were the most expensive, but I had to have them!

I use the smooth jumbo sized paper clips. 

I glue the paper clip as shown in the picture above. I try to cover up the ends, but if you go too low down, the clips will eventually come out.

The little clips look like this after you have put the two sides together.

You could do the clips like the picture above, but they eventually come apart. You will get more for your money, but most will not stay for the year.

I started out with these stars. Boy are they sparkly! They are also pretty thick, which makes the clips a bit larger than I want, but they are pretty.

I ended up with this pile! My students are going to love these.

Here's the monkey clips. Too cute to pass up. I had to do double sided on the monkeys also since I want the clips to stay on.

I made the sports packet also. These are felt and really nice. Again more expensive, but double sided they will last for quite a few years.

This was a large pack of felt flowers. So colorful. You can see in this picture the clips that I did not get perfectly aligned. (I was getting tired!)

This heart packet had a paper backing that I could glue back on. It still wasn't strong enough though after quite a few times of poking and pulling like a student (might) do, it started coming off.

This is how the hearts turned out. I might save these just for February since I made so many of the others.

I also made Wiggly Sticks as my students called them. I had a few left over from way back when, but the painted craft sticks were so nice I had to make something with them. I made about 25 of the goggly eyed sticks for my students to use as they read in Daily Five.

One more thing.... this is my newest product for TPT. This is a huge pack of beginning sound word cards. 278 large, colorful cards. I needed a pack to use in whole group that was interesting and not just the usual words. My students are a little more sophisticated now and I wanted to use words and pictures that would keep them interested.

The center that goes along with this packet is great to use with the clips above!

Just in case you do not have all the little themed clips, I have different fonts you can laminate and glue onto the jumbo paper clips or use clothes pins.

Ohhh.... this was a long post. Hopefully you made it to the end. Don't forget to go download the 2013 TPT Annual Holiday Freebie Book for K-2 (I have a product included and I am so honored!) Happy December! Pam

2013 TPT Happy Holidays eBook - 50 Freebies! I am honored to be included!