Looking for preschool and kindergarten fairy tale activities? This blog post has ideas that will make your students fall in love with fairy tales! Fairy tales are a staple in early childhood education. They are so fun to read aloud. And kids love to tell these stories over and over again. Many famous fairy tales have multiple versions (like The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man, and even princess tales like Cinderella.) These can be fun to read and compare. […]
Continue ReadingTen Frame Activities Your Students Will Love
My kindergartners had been diligently doing our math book pages for several days. But I could tell they were getting tired of the same routine: count – write – repeat. So one day I dug out the Ten Frame War game, explained the directions, and sent them off to play. As I wandered around the room, I heard one little voice announce to a partner: “I’m so glad we’re done with math. This is WAY more fun!” I had to […]
Continue ReadingThe Best Activities for Teaching Graphing in 1st Grade
Teaching graphing in 1st grade… It’s enough to make you pull your hair out. Sure, they get the idea of how to line things up to create a graph. And they can pick out the “winner” easily. But, how do you help first graders really understand graphing? The best way to help graphing make sense to young learners is make it engaging and interactive. If the graphs are connected to something the students are interested in, they want to make […]
Continue ReadingEarly Finisher Activities: 9 Simple Math Ideas Kids Love
Looking for early finisher activities for your K-2 students? Check out these 9 easy-to-implement activities for math class. “Teacher, what can I do now?” We hear it all day long from those early finishers looking for their next activity. But finding good early finisher activities isn’t easy. They need to be challenging, yet able to be completed independently. Plus they should be engaging, but not too fun (or everyone else will rush through their work.) And most importantly, they need […]
Continue Reading7 Subitising Activities that Make You Look Like a Pro
Subitising activities are as foundational to math as letter activities are to reading. This blog post will share more information about subitising, and share several subitizing activities your students will love. What is Subitising? Subitising (aka subitizing) is the ability to rapidly recognize the number of items in a small group without counting. Obviously subitising is helpful because it saves time counting. You automatically know how many dots are on a die without stopping to count. But, subitising is also […]
Continue ReadingTeaching the Alphabetic Principle – Avoid These 5 Big Mistakes
Are you confident about teaching alphabetic principle? It’s the foundation to learning how to read and write. Students must understand the alphabetic principle in order to decode and solve words. Read this blog post to set your students up for success! What does teaching the alphabetic principle include? The alphabetic principle is the understanding that the sounds in our spoken language are represented by specific letters. In other words, the letters we use in our written language connect to the […]
Continue ReadingMake Decoding Practice Fun with 5 Simple Activities
Make decoding practice fun with the 5 easy activities in this post. We’ve all heard the phrase “drill and kill” – and most of us have sat through lessons with so much repeated practice that we were bored to tears. And we’ve probably taught a few phonics lessons that have felt like “drill and kill.” We also know that just because you teach something once it doesn’t mean the students learned it. It’s hard to find the fine balance between […]
Continue ReadingHow to Teach Sounding Out CVC Words: 3 Key Steps
As a reading specialist, I’m often asked how to teach sounding out CVC words in kindergarten. Many students pick up this skill seemingly effortlessly. It’s truly a wonder to behold! One day they are learning letters, then all of a sudden they are reading simple texts, using what they’ve learned about letters to solve words. But some kids need more intentional support in sounding out words. I’ll share some of my favorite techniques in this post. But first, let’s address […]
Continue Reading11 Simple, Joyful Ways to Boost Phonemic Awareness in Kindergarten
I remember when I first learned about phonemic awareness in kindergarten. It was early in my career and I had read an article in The Reading Teacher about the importance of phonemic awareness skills for early readers. I couldn’t wait to try some of the activities in the arcticle. Many of the tasks were set up like games or playful activities, which got my students hooked! I quickly learned that teaching phonemic awareness skills can be quick, simple and fun […]
Continue ReadingFree Readers Theater Scripts for Kids: Build Fluency One Script at a Time
Readers’ Theater is fun for students, while also secretly building reading fluency. Try it today with a free readers’ theater script. Readers’ Theater scripts are one of my favorite reading texts in first grade! The kids have so much fun reading and feel so successful. They ask to read the texts again and again – even in their free time. It makes my teacher heart happy! As a bonus, Readers’ Theater is a great way to practice reading fluency. But […]
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