Hello!
So we have officially started our second trimester at school. Grades are in; conferences are done. I can breathe a sigh of relief! Now that we have started our second trimester I have officially started teaching sight words! This concept isn't "graded" on our report card until third trimester (so end of the year) but I start teaching it now because many of my kiddos like having the extra time to really master this concept.
Since I am in TK I don't have specific words that I need to teach per my report card. I chose 30 words from the Fry's High Frequency lists that they need to know for kindergarten. TK is all about preparing them for kindergarten so I figured using the same words would be beneficial.
I arranged my words into a set of "rainbow" lists which are put up in my room in color coded pocket charts. (THANK YOU WALMART!)
White list: I, a, in, it, at, or.
Purple: like, see, to, my
Blue: is, he, and, go
Green: the. are, for, play
Yellow: said, of, she, have
Orange: on, with, that, you
Red: was, were, me, can
I introduce the words in a variety of ways. I start with printing out 30 pictures of a bus and writing the words in the middle of each bus. Then we sing the song "The word on the bus..." We cover one word a week. I also write the word on index cards and create necklaces for each word that I wear and the kiddos must name before they leave the room to go to the bathroom or recess or going home. Once I have covered the word I tape the bus to the floor on the tile (these are great for line-up activities) and I tape the necklace to the door. (These are great for the "Slap it!"activity we play once we cover the whole list.)
The kiddos also each get a sight word sticker book that has the words organized on color paper by each list.
As they master a word/list they get stickers next to that word. When they master the whole list they get different parts of our rainbow on our "Rainbow Sight Word" wall. The white list they get to write their name on a cloud, and for each colored list they get a sticker on their cloud until they have the whole rainbow.
After the kids get their stickers and rainbow pieces they get a certificate, their picture taken and a class cheer. They also get their kindergarten sticker book too (I made the first 100 Fry words into a sticker book too. The kiddos get really excited about getting their blue kindergarten sticker book!)
I'm hoping that by starting earlier the kids get more exposure to the words and are able to master more of them.
I love this time of year and all the fun things we get to learn and experience! Always remember, every moment can be a learning moment!
Sincerely from TK,
