kindergarten survival Archives - Page 5 of 8

Sight Words Made FUN In Elementary

June 25, 2021 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Reading, Teaching Tips

Learning to read is one of the biggest goals in the early grades. It sets the foundation for their entire education experience! To do this, we start with the basics, letter recognition, letter sounds, blending sounds, etc. Then we move on to a crucial step- sight words!

These words are words that students practice and become so familiar with that they recognize them instantly and don’t need to sound out. This helps them become more comfortable and fluent readers in less time.

But how do we teach students sight words in a way that they will remember?

We practice every day! The more students practice them, the better readers they will become. This can be done by practicing reading them in class, writing them out, creating sight word chants “T-H-E THE” to get stuck in their head, sending home sight word lists for students to go over as homework, and assigning books with sight words in them for students to read.

These are all great ways to practice them on a daily basis. However, if you are looking for something to really take it up a notch, I have you covered. Get students so engaged in learning their sight words that they won’t even realize they are learning because they are having so much fun with my Sight Word Escape Room!

This Mystery Sight Words Escape Room is perfect for kindergarten and first-grade students.

Use these step-by-step instructions to guarantee student engagement while they learn about sight words to solve a classroom mystery. With little prep, your students will work as a team to break into a box, which breaks them out of the classroom as they beat the clock!

Included in this resource you get one PDF file with step-by-step instructions, a link to incorporate a video to hook your students into the mystery, and 3 pre-made clues for your class to solve. The other file is an editable PowerPoint to make it easy for you to add your own team names to personalize the experience and allow the students to take ownership of the lesson. You can also change the mystery letters to create your own sight words, sentences, and riddles.

This escape room is guaranteed to be a hit with your students!

Looking for more fun ways to practice sight words? Check out my post here!

What are your favorite sight word activities? Let me know in the comments!

Everything You Need To Survive Teaching Kindergarten

June 18, 2021 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

It’s time to start preparing for the next school year! If you are a kindergarten teacher and you are ready to get ahead of the game this year and stop the lesson plan scramble once and for all, I have you covered.

I created a bundle that has everything you could possibly need to survive teaching kindergarten! You’ll get engaging activities to do with your students for every subject.

Here are the subjects included in this kindergarten bundle:

Monthly Writing Themed Journals
Morning Work Journals
Kindergarten Math Centers
Science
Social Studies
Guided Reading

Reading Curriculum

Teach students to read with these activities, lesson plans, and assessments over phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. Your students will be confident in their reading by the end of the year.

Math Centers

Who doesn’t love math centers? In this resource you’ll get tons of math centers that cover counting, numbers, sorting and classifying, addition within 5, measurement and data, word problems, graphs and data, 2D and 3D shapes, teen numbers, comparing numbers, addition to 10, subtraction to 10, telling time, and money. Every kindergarten math topic is included at a center with task cards or worksheets to use with manipulatives.

Science Activities

Teach your students the wonders of science with these fun lesson plans, activities, and assessments! Topics covered include the scientific method, five senses, state of matter, energy, sound, and light, force and motion, push and pull, day and night, animal life science, plants, real vs. make-believe, weather, and sun, moon, and earth.

Social Studies

Teach students about American history, geography, community helpers, civics and government, money, and needs vs. wants with these lesson plans, activities, and assessments.

Kindergarten Writing Prompts

Get your students comfortable with writing with a full year’s worth of writing journals. You’ll get one journal for each month with writing prompts for each day. Never search for a grade-appropriate writing prompt again! As a bonus, you’ll also get my silly story starters!

Kindergarten Morning Work

Create a class routine and simplify your mornings with morning work activities. In this bundle, you will get morning work for each day of the school year. Activities included are letters, numbers, math, sight words, and more!

This bundle truly has everything you need. All that is left for you to do is teach. Your students will love these fun and engaging activities and they will be meeting standards with ease.

Check it out here!

Want more kindergarten tips? Check out my post on how to have a stellar first day of kindergarten here!

Kindergarten Morning Work Activities

May 28, 2021 teachersbrain Back to School, kindergarten survival, Teaching Tips

Kindergarten is a very big deal for young students. For many, it is the first time they are away from home regularly. While it can be scary, there are ways we can help ease the stress of the unknown for them and show them how fun school can be!

One way to do this is to establish a classroom routine early on so they learn what to expect. Setting a daily schedule and routine can be a huge relief because they know exactly what happens and when.

Morning work is a great way to ease students into the daily routine. As soon as students come in the door, have morning work on their desk ready to complete. They can work on their morning work independently while you work on other tasks. This is a great time to respond to parent emails, address student issues, and otherwise prepare for the day.

Here are some benefits of kindergarten morning work

It is great for review. While at the beginning of the year, kindergarten students won’t have much to review yet, as the year goes on, you can focus morning work on the crucial skills they need like sight words, letters, and numbers. Circling back time and time again will help increase retention of this vital knowledge.
It helps with classroom management. As mentioned above, having assignments ready to go when students come in for the day helps free up time for classroom management tasks. Having that time really does improve the flow of the day.
It teaches independence. As we all know, students learn so much more in kindergarten than just letters, numbers, and reading. They learn social skills and independence too. Kindergarten students are very young so they have likely not had much experience with doing tasks independently at home yet. Morning work is a great way to teach this.

Ready to try some morning work? Try my kindergarten morning work packets for August and September!

This no prep morning work resource includes 40 printable pages of meaningful morning work for your kinders! Model it once and then they should be able to work independently each month.

This packet covers handwriting, sight word practice, color recognition, number sense, tally marks, counting, number lines, and writing numbers.

Looking for more tips for kindergarten, check on my tips for the first day of kindergarten here!

Do you assign morning work? Let me know in the comments!

First Day Of Kindergarten Activities Your Students Will Love

May 21, 2021 teachersbrain Back to School, kindergarten survival, Teaching Tips

It’s time to start thinking about the new school year! If you are a kindergarten teacher, it can be especially exciting because you are preparing for a year with brand new students who have never been to school before!

You are probably exhilarated, and your kids are excited too and maybe a little scared but that’s okay! You are more than prepared for a fun learning experience with lesson plans and activities that will keep your little ones busy every step of the day, right?

If you aren’t quite prepared yet, that’s okay! I’m here to help. Being well prepared for the first day of kindergarten (there will likely be tears!), will save you so much time in the long run. Your transition times will be kept to a minimum and it will save your sanity!

Here are some tips for having a stellar first day of kindergarten with your students:

Make it fun! As mentioned above, a lot of kindergarten students have never experienced school before so, understandably, they will probably be pretty nervous about this new experience. Once they start having fun in the classroom, they will realize how great learning can be! Playing some get-to-know-you games is a great first day of school activity.
Read some fun books. Find a great story to read together and do a simple craft to go along with the story. You can encourage your students to share what the story was about with their caregivers at home.
Discuss rules. This one isn’t as fun but it is necessary to make sure expectations are set from the very first day. Make sure to cover classroom rules, recess rules, and lunchroom rules so they know what to expect all day long.
Review going home procedures. This is a very important piece of information to cover. Going over what each student will do at the end of the day will alleviate some of the stress that usually comes along with that part of the first day.

To help your first day go off without a hitch, I created my First Day Of School Kindergarten Activities Resource. It includes a full lesson plan!

Included you’ll get:

33 first day of school printables (includes detailed lesson plans, links, planning checklists, Welcome to Kindergarten coloring sheet, directions for a fun name game, name crafts, photo frames, A Kissing Hand Home Connection activity, name tags, certificates, and more!)
Editable PowerPoint to easily add students names to certificates, crafts and edit your lesson plans
Classroom rules posters
Gingerbread Man hunt to find all the important locations at school
How I Get Home hats

Everything you need for a fun and successful first day!

What are your favorite activities for the first day of school? Let me know in the comments!

Want some more kindergarten teaching tips? Check out these kindergarten homework ideas!