Five for Friday which turned into Weekend Update!

One

After checking my bloglovin’ notifications I saw Mrs. Jump's class had a new posting. At first I wrote it off but the title was too interesting, “…Now I know my ABC’s, next time won’t you SING with me!” Such a simple and catchy tune that all kids know and love! Since I teach kindergarten and first grade, I thought “alright another great resource.” After starting to read the blog I realized she had a special guest blogger talking about how the alphabet song doesn’t help readers learn alphabet sounds, GASP! She explains how readers (k-2) need exposure to all spelling patterns and letter sounds. She also talked about the brain and how songs help us remember but the muscle memory incorporated with the better alphabet song engages the memory that helps us remember how to ride a bike or skip. SO this better alphabet song will teach students the sounds AND it will be stored for life! Awesome! After watching some of Katie Garner’s Vlogs I was so impressed that I purchased the vertical alphabet so I could teach my kids the better alphabet song.

Two

I love spring! The flowers, the baby animals, and the weather. This past week we had lots of rain. The rain brought rainbows and puffy clouds. Here are the two pictures I took that describe this past week.

Three

 This week I used Kinder Cakes Easter Bunny Real Words and Nonsense Words Sort. But I didn’t want to just hand them out and sort them.

Materials

1.       Easter basket

2. Easter eggs ($2.00 at Target for 48)

3.   Kinder Cakes Resource

Instructions:

Cut out the real and nonsense words

Fold and place into plastic eggs

Hide eggs around the room and have an egg hunt

After all the eggs are collected go through each word and sort on the board

I feel like the peaches were more engaged and had fun sounding out the nonsense words.

Four

Last weekend a bunch of bloggers had a Hop and Shop where they had a few freebies of some of their products. I got a lot of good resources and will be back to shop later. 

Five

The big excitement this week at our school… a baby jackrabbit!  The bunny was too cute and the peaches were so fascinated with it during recess, they even got me lying on the ground looking for him. We hope he makes it through the weekend, but as of now she/he has taken up residency under our storage shed.