Segmenting and blending sounds can be tricky when students are first learning to read. Reinforcing these skills, particularly with hands-on manipulation of letters, can be a great help for reading development.
Segmenting (separating sounds like /d/ /o/ /g/) and blending (combining sounds ...
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New Year’s Resolutions Writing
Have you ever noticed that, after New Year's celebrations, when students come back to school after winter break, they act like they've never been in a classroom before? Sometimes it seems like they've forgotten everything you've taught them in the past months!
Of course they haven't ...
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Directed Drawing Videos
Check out the free directed drawing calendars at the end of this page!
Why Directed Drawing Videos?
There are lots of reasons to try directed drawing with your students!
Here are a few skills and benefits:
improved skills in following directions and attention to detailpractice ...
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Instagram Archive
Looking for a clickable link for something spotted on my Instagram account?
Click on the links and images below!
See All SOCIAL SKILLS: Click HERE
See All DIRECTED DRAWING VIDEOS: Click HERE
See All SOUND WALL: Click HERE
See All PHONICS CENTERS: Click HERE
See ...
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Teaching Social Skills with Social Stories
WHAT ARE SOCIAL STORIES?
Do you use social stories in your classroom?
Social stories are simple stories that describe common situations which occur frequently in the classroom.
Social stories:
state a situation clearly
possible feelings that may occur
self-talk strategies that can be ...
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Social Emotional Learning
Years ago, I got some disapproving looks when I mentioned how much time I dedicate to social-emotional learning. However, I always got through my curriculum, so I knew it was worth the time. Now, there is a significant focus on social-emotional learning. Kids experience many different things ...
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Christmas Kindness
Christmas is such an exciting time in the classroom! Students are excited about the special day and cannot wait for a break. However, they must remember that Christmas is not just about presents. It is about family, showing appreciation, and caring for others. So, incorporating activities ...
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Guided Spelling Ideas
It can be tricky to support your emergent writers who are tackling spelling. Early writers may have a delicate confidence when it comes to spelling, and they often don't realize that guessing and making mistakes is an important part of learning.
It's our job as teachers to explain that ...
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Top 20 Tips for Classroom Organization
While teachers enter an empty, calm classroom, it only stays like that for a short time! As students enter, the classroom has tons of love, energy, and excitement! However, this also brings on a bit of a mess. Between supplies on the floor and papers sitting all around, maintaining ...
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Phonics Strategies and Ideas
Phonics: Classroom Practice
Much of our phonics instruction comes from our daily practice. Most of the activities are embedded into PLAY. Apart from some direct full class and small group lessons (including guided reading lessons), most of our phonics practice takes place through game boards, ...
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Phonics Posters – 5 Ways To Use Them
I recently updated my classroom phonics posters to match my classroom decor. There was nothing wrong with them - I just wanted an update to match my new themes.
That got me thinking about ways I could use them to teach about phonics.
Here are some ideas I came up with in my ...
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Writing In Primary – 12 Simple Book Projects
As teachers and parents of beginning writers we want to encourage our students to see themselves as authors. This can be so challenging when working with emergent writers. Students can be overwhelmed by a blank page. The idea of "sounding out" all those hard words can prevent them from ...
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Math Doodles
Let’s face it- students love to doodle! So, they will doodle even when they should be paying attention, working on assignments, or collaborating with classmates. However, doodling also helps some students pay attention. This means teachers work to find the perfect blend of incorporating ...
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Social Skills Poetry
I'm always looking for new ways to integrate social skills into my teaching.
Poetry is a fun new way to teach social skills!
This year, we decided to integrate social skills in our teaching with our Poem of the Week! Each week we focus on a different social skill and use it to read, write, ...
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Teaching Social Skills: Daily Group Lessons
Using Morning Meetings for Teaching Social Skills
Even though social skills are so important, it's often difficult to fit the lessons in each day. When they do happen, it's often in reaction to a conflict that has occurred, and there's usually not much time to really discuss the topic ...
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Teaching Reading with Phonics Centers
Phonics centers are the core of my teaching when it comes to emergent readers. As an early literacy teacher for over 25 years, I've learned a thing or two about how children successfully acquire and practice reading skills. In Kindergarten, our focus is letter sounds. That is the ...
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Animated Stories for Social Skills
Using stories to teach social skills is an engaging and effective strategy. This post outlines some quick and easy ways to incorporate social skills stories into your daily lessons!
Howard Wigglebottom Stories
My favorite find in the last year is the site dedicated to the Howard Wigglebottom ...
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Tips for Teaching Letter Sounds
How do you teach letter sounds?
Teaching letter sounds can be tricky, and takes a LOT of daily practice. I try to use as many different approaches as possible so that I am addressing the many different learning styles in my classroom. I use songs, videos, books, small group intervention, and ...
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Reading Lessons and Intervention Made Easy
This post is all about teaching reading, and it also contains a FREE alphabet printing activity for you to download!
You may have seen my recent post about my HUGE teaching dilemma last year: a new teaching partner who had no experience with teaching primary math! How could I make ...
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Tips for Teaching Responsibility
Welcome to the Social Skills Ideas Bank!
The Social Skills Idea Bank is a series of related posts, each dedicated to sharing strategies for teaching a particular social skill.
As teachers, our strength lies in sharing our ideas, experiences and strategies!
This is a growing list, and you ...
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Social Emotional Learning Tips
Social Emotional Learning, or S.E.L., has always been a critical element of a successful classroom. However, it is being taught more explicitly in recent years. As primary teachers, we have probably already been doing many things to foster and encourage SEL in our classroom. ...
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Teaching Social Skills: Calm Down Strategies
Welcome to the Social Skills Ideas Bank!
The Social Skills Idea Bank is a series of related posts, each dedicated to sharing strategies for teaching a particular social skill.
As teachers, our strength lies in sharing our ideas, experiences and strategies!
This is a growing list, ...
Read More
Math Videos for Primary Classrooms
I start my math lessons with math videos almost every day.
They are a great way to warm up and start thinking about numbers. They're a great review of the concepts we're working on.
Most of all, they are so fun and interactive that my students LOVE math time!
Here are some of our primary ...
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Kindness in the Classroom
Welcome to the Social Skills Ideas Bank!
The Social Skills Idea Bank is a series of related posts, each dedicated to sharing strategies for teaching a particular social skill.
As teachers, our strength lies in sharing our ideas, experiences and strategies!
This is a growing list, and you are ...
Read More