MEET A KINDERGARTEN LOVE STORY . . . A BRAND NEW BLOGGER

Well, hello . . . on a Wednesday nonetheless!  Not my normal bloggin' pattern these days, but I am trying to stick with my New Year's goal of blogging more often.  Let's be honest.  I kinda fell off of the wagon for a bit in 2014 (whoops). Well, I'm a climbin' back on I tell ya!  

On that note, I wanted to introduce you to a wonderful teacher who just started blogging and selling on TPT.  She's a fellow NorCal gal who is finding her Blogger stride. I have known Brittany Jones for years as her dad was my high school class advisor . . . small world, huh??  Well, I can't tell you enough nice things about Miss Brittany.  She has an infectious personality, an upbeat attitude that lights up any room, and an amazing passion for teaching that absolutely oozes out of her.  Britt is definitely one to keep an eye on.  

  

With out further ado, I bring you an introductory post from Brittany at A Kindergarten Love Story!

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Hello out there!! My name is Brittany and I am so excited to be a guest blogger on my sweet friend Kelley’s blog. I want to share with you a little “get to know me” information before I dive right in and share with y’all my three absolute favorite ways to reinforce sight words.

I have been teaching kindergarten for the past three years and I absolutely love it! Seeing the change and progress from the first day of kindergarten to the last day is probably one of my favorite things about my job.

Now on to the good stuff! Sight words can be tricky to teach. I have found that repetition, constant use, and manipulation of the words is the best way to ensure that they really stick. Here are three fun and different ways that I teach sight words.

HIDDEN SIGHT WORD PAGE

This is probably my kiddos favorite activity to do. Using magnifying glasses, the kids search on their worksheet for sight words that are hidden all over the page. The words are extremely tiny and they can only be seen with a magnifying glass. When they find a sight word, I let them use a highlighter to circle it. Then I have them record all the words they find on their sheet (a kindergarten common core standard). This is a quick, fun, and easy to prep station that will be sure and delight your kiddos.

SECRET SIGHT WORD

I made these fun little worksheets as a quick and easy station to use during my language arts rotations. I copy the worksheet onto cardstock and use a white color crayon I write a sight word in the middle. The kiddos then have to use their watercolors and paint over the blank space to reveal a hidden sight word. After they are done, they write a sentence using that sight word. They love it because they don’t know which word they are going to get, and they get to use watercolors, which is always a big hit in our classroom.

SIGHT WORD SALSA

This one is an absolute blast to do! It requires little to no prep and gets the kiddos up and moving and grooving. All I do is take pieces of scratch paper and put one piece on every desk. Then I give each of my little guys a marker. The rules are simple.  When the salsa music is on, they dance and shimmy across the classroom. When the music stops, they freeze, read the sight word aloud that I am holding up for them to see and then quickly go to a desk where there is a piece of paper and write down that sight word as many times as they can until the music starts playing again. It is absolutely hilarious to watch because a lot of them get really into the dancing part and sometimes don’t even realize the music has stopped. We keep playing and dancing until I have gone through all of our sight words.

Both sight word worksheets are available and the best part is they are freebies!! Click HERE to add these files to your collection.  

I hope you like what you have read today and that I have given you some fun and new ideas on how to teach and reinforce sight words in your classroom.  If you want more tips, pop on over to Kindergarten Love Story for a visit.

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Well, there you have it my friends.  I hope you enjoyed Brittany's post as much as I did . . . I am SO trying out that Salsa thing next week :)  If you like what you saw today, be sure to pop on over, follow, and maybe even say hello if you have time.  Thanks gang . . . I'll see you soon.