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September 27, 2013

Sight Words and Free on Friday

It's Friday (almost Saturday!!), and I am long overdue on posting a Free on Friday freebie!  I haven't been on much, I have had a long and emotional couple of weeks.  On my last post, I explained how my mom was sick for a while from her hernia and possibly her gall bladder as well.  Well she was admitted to the hospital, and they ran some tests.  To make a long story short, they found out that she has stage 4 lung cancer.  It had metastasized to her brain, where she had a few tiny cancerous tumors.  The tumors on her brain were what was making her sick.  My family and I had a really tough time handling this unexpected news.  We still are, but we are trying to keep positive.  My mom just finished up her second week of radiation on her brain.  She is doing very well, and they think she will not need anymore.  She hasn't been nauseous, so it seems as if the brain tumors are shrunken down enough to not cause symptoms and the cancer on her brain should be gone.  She will get more tests and information Monday.  Since my mom has non-small cell cancer, she might be able to take a chemo pill instead of regular chemo or along with a low dose of chemo.  If they give her the pill, she will have little side effects, unlike regular chemo.  The pill will target the cancer cells and possibly shrink and kill them.  So far, all the tests that were done show that the cancer has not spread anywhere else, so that is a good sign.  We are all praying that they will be able to slow down the cancer and shrink it down a lot, so that my mom will be ok and around for much longer.  Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers.  Also, if you have any advice or anything that I should know, please comment!


 Although it has been a very tough couple of weeks, my kiddos always keep me going at work!  This week I took some pictures of a couple of my sweet kinders learning their letters and letter sounds.  They just finished learning all of the letters and their sounds.  In the program we use, at this point they begin on blending sounds to read words.  My kiddos needed a little more of a review to master their letters, so this is what we did!


 We used magnetic letters and play-doh.  I called out a letter name and a letter sound and they would find the letter and push it into the play-doh (like a cookie cutter).  


  Then we traced each letter in the play-doh.  I gave them a paint brush to use upside down, but you can also use play-doh knives.  After they finished each letter, they would practice it on their dry erase board.  


They really enjoyed this review activity.  They have their sounds down pretty good, so I think we are ready to move on to blending two sounds together!

As well as teaching letters and sounds this week, I have also been focusing on some sight words.  I have been working on a practice pack that includes all sight words preprimer-3rd grade.  I will have that finished and on my store at TPT by next week!  I am excited about it, and want to share some of it with you!

I created a freebie pack of 10 of the preprimer sight words from my preprimer sight word book.  It comes with ideas and some "sight word stepping stone" templates to use.

Here is what one of the pages look like:

In the freebie, there are 5 pages of this (total of 10 sight words).  In my pack that I will post next week, I have all of them included for each of the sight word lists.  

This is how I have been using them in my room!


We used bingo dotters (purchased at the dollar store) to fill in each letter.  You can also have students paint, color, or glue things to decorate them.  

I also had students trace each letter with marker.


There are a lot of possibilities with these!  I also included a sight word stepping stone template in my freebie. 


I also included a black and white copy.

I use these stepping stones in my classroom to practice sight words, spelling words, and new vocabulary words.  I print, cut, and laminate the stones.  Then with dry erase marker I write the current words that we are focusing on.   Then I place them on the floor in the classroom.  As they enter the classroom, the walk on the "stepping stones".  As they step on each one, they have to read the word.  


My students love doing this.  It is a great review and can be used with sight words, spelling words, and vocabulary.  When using it for vocabulary, students can say the definition when they step on the word.


While you are there, make sure you become a follower so you can stay updated on my latest freebies!

Ciao! 

 







4 comments:

  1. I love your blog Ashley! I am in my first year of teaching in a resource room setting for grades k-3. I am trying your play-dough letter making activity tomorrow morning with my kindergarteners and am so excited!

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  2. Thank you Danielle! It is tough the first year! I hope your kiddos enjoyed it as much as mine! Let me know how it worked out. :)

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  3. They loved it! It was particularly great for one of my students who struggles with gripping his pencil correctly. I will continue to use this activity throughout the year and will stop by your blog regularly. :)

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    1. Awesome - so happy they loved it! I used this for my two kinder boys and they also struggle with that too. Thank you Danielle!

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