Teacher's Pay Teachers Archives - Page 31 of 61

Fun Ways To Practice Sight Words In Kindergarten

January 1, 2021 teachersbrain education, kindergarten survival, Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers

Students learn so many valuable things in elementary school. We set the foundation for their education for the rest of their lives. Among all of the important things they learn in school, it all starts in their kindergarten classroom when we teach them the building blocks of reading, writing, and math.

Aside from letters, and numbers, a huge focus is on learning sight words. Sight words are generally words that students will see the most often while reading. Little learners should have them memorized to help them continue to learn to read and write. They help them produce meaning and skip difficult decoding skills as beginning readers.

When deciding on what activities to do to practice sight words in kindergarten, the sky’s the limit! They are young and excited to learn new things. There are a number of fun and engaging activities you can do to practice sight words with them.

Here are some of my favorite sight words activities for my students

Have a sight word hunt while reading. Choose your sight word for the day and have your students hunt for the word in their book.
Get some yummy treats involved. Make a big bowl of pudding. Students can dip their fingers in the pudding and write their sight word on a pan with the pudding. If they get the word right, they get to lick their fingers! This one is guaranteed to be a hit.
Do some task cards. Task cards are a fun alternative to worksheets. Task cards feel more like a game than work!
Use magnetic letters. Get some cheap cookie sheets and some magnetic letters and have your students spell out the words.
Make sight word necklaces. This resource includes 88 sight words that your students can use to make fun sight word necklaces. Everytime your student looks at their necklace, they will be reminded of their sight word. It is also great for getting parents involved in your students learning!

Use shaving cream. Spray shaving cream on the students desks and let them use their fingers to write out their sight words in the shaving cream. Fun and messy!
If you are distance learning, try out these Sight Words Google Slides activities. These reading comprehension passages and questions are a fun and engaging way to improve comprehension and fluency while practicing sight words.

Learning can be so fun when you are working with kindergarten aged students. Everything is new and exciting so just have fun with it!

What are your favorite ways to work on reading with your students? Let me know in the comments!

For more kindergarten ideas, check out these free winter activity ideas!

Free Winter Activities for Kindergarten and Up

December 29, 2020 teachersbrain Free Teaching Resources, Teacher's Pay Teachers

Now is the busiest time of the year for teachers! Trying to keep up with holidays, family responsibilities and planning for the new year can be a lot! This is why I teamed up with some great Teachers Pay Teachers authors to give you FREE TEACHING WINTER resources at you fingertips! Click the photo of what you want to download from TpT! Don’t forget to let the author know how much you appreciate their hard work in your feedback or blog comments so we are encouraged to keep the freebies flowing! Have a healthy and hassle-free winter season!

FREE Winter Printables

These resources are for different grade levels, mostly Pre-K -5th, except the Spanish Verbs. Please click the image of the resource you want to download for free.

Check out Christmas Freebies HERE or some NEW YEARS EVE GLASSES HERE.

5 Creative Ways To Make Worksheets More Fun

December 26, 2020 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Worksheets are an essential part of the classroom. There are so many activities and crafts we can do with our students but sometimes there is just no way to get around good old fashioned worksheets. They are the best way for students to get practice and build fluency in whatever you are working on in the classroom. Worksheets are also just the best way to assess where your students stand in with the skills you are working on aside from taking a test.

Unfortunately, they aren’t always the most fun or engaging for the students. Despite any cute or fun designs they might have, they are still a sheet full of work for the student to complete, and that just isn’t the most thrilling thing to do.

I am all about keeping my students engaged in the classroom, and the best way to do that is to make learning fun. Sometimes shaking things up a little can make a big impact on the kids’ willingness to really dive into what we are working on.

make worksheets more fun

With worksheets, it can be beneficial for your students if you think outside the box. Believe it or not, there are ways to get creative with worksheets so that your students actually enjoy it, I promise!

Here are some ways to make worksheets more fun

Have students complete half. Let your students pick what half of the worksheet they want to complete. Letting them make the decision to do only the half that they want to do can take the pressure off to do the whole thing and shake things up just enough to take away the monotony of another worksheet.
Use rainbow writing. Get out fun colored pencils or colorful markers and have them use different colors to complete the work. This will create a fun rainbow effect on the worksheet. It’s like educational artwork!
Make them dry erase. Laminate the worksheets and get out some dry erase markers for the students to use while they complete it. There is just something about using a dry erase marker for kids. They love the feel of markers and their ability to easily erase and start over if they mess up. They will legitimately enjoy the activity, trust me.
Work with partners. Everything’s better when you’re working with a classmate. You can also pair the students up and let them play against each other in a game of “Beat My Partner”. They can race to see who can complete the work first with a little friendly competition.
Have a snowball fight! Have your students complete their work as fast as they can. Once they are done, check their work (to make sure they did their best), and then have some fun. Have everyone ball their paper up and have a “snowball” fight with them. This is guaranteed to be a hit!

make worksheets more fun

Shaking things up in the classroom not only helps the students, it helps you keep things fun and exciting for yourself! Not to mention it will make you one of the most memorable teachers your students will have!

For more ways to make learning fun, check out my tips for using games in the classroom here!

For more learning resources, check out my shop here.

Do you have any ways you like to shake things up in the classroom to have more fun? Let me know in the comments!

make worksheets more fun

Winter Activity Ideas For Your Classroom

December 18, 2020 teachersbrain education, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Winter

Are your lesson plans ready for wintertime? After the excitement of the holidays, it can be difficult to plan for activities that get your students excited and engaged. Luckily, the cold weather provides plenty of opportunities for learning that is fun! There’s building a snowman together, drinking hot chocolate, and winter creative writing activities, just to name a few.

Here are some of my favorite winter activity ideas, and I hope they’ll inspire you to get creative in your lesson planning!

One of my favorite topics for wintertime lessons is ICE!

The frozen water kids see on the ground, hanging from eaves, or on the local pond is a perfect springboard for science lessons.

Ask your students about their observations outside if you have ice around your school. Then, lead them into a discussion of different forms of matter. Even younger students can begin to understand the relationship between water and ice, preparing them for more in depth learning about the water cycle in future years.

winter activity

You can also grab some ice from outside (or from the freezer), and observe what happens as time passes at room temperature. This is a perfect opportunity for students to record observations and make hypotheses about why ice melts. Students will be engaged, and you’ll be covering important science and writing skills!

Another of my favorite winter activity ideas is creating beautiful snowscapes with puffy paint.

You will need to mix equal parts shaving cream and white glue to create the paint, and provide students dark blue or black construction paper for their canvas.

This activity is hands-on and a little messy, but so much fun! Students can create a scene using their puffy paint, or a snowman picture. They can then write a narrative to match their picture. You can have students share their narrative with the class or with a partner. Art, tactile learning, and writing skills are all involved in this one lesson!

winter activity

A true student favorite for winter is my Stop Motion Animation resource.

Using a snowman animation from a real Disney animator, this activity gets kids super excited about creative writing. They will also get to create their own stop motion animation. This is an exciting and unique activity that they may never have experienced before.

Included in this resource, you’ll find over three weeks of writing lessons and engaging activities. Your students will be thrilled to get creative with animation and writing!

Another favorite is having students (especially if you are teaching virtual), build a digital snowman and write about it! Google slides make it simple for students to copy and paste items to design the snowman. Then, let their creative juices flow with writing about their snowman!

I hope these ideas get you excited about winter learning, and ready to enjoy the season with your students!

Check out these digital holiday centers for more winter activity ideas!