Reading and Writing Sight Words

End of the year assessment time is upon us.  So while I complete my assessments with one student from the small groups of kindergarten students I pull, the other students will be practicing the 50 sight words they need to know by the end of the year,. 

I fell in love with the "Popcorn Word Hunt" I saw a couple months ago on Mrs. Morrow's Kindergarten blog.  So just as she did, I filled a little bottle with popcorn kernels and filled them with the sight words printed on the little pieces of popcorn. 

If you click on the picture to the left, you can access the little pieces of popcorn for the bottle and the pages the students will write on. I will print the first two pages front-to-back.  The students will write the first 12 words they see and then read the words to a friend.  (Each piece of popcorn has two lines because my district uses Handwriting Without Tears.) 

Another activity the students will do is very similar, (but not quite as cute).  I created sight word cards with the HWT lines on each word.  I then printed and laminated them and will have the students select six cards.  They will practice writing each word three times and then choose one word to include in a sentence with an illustration.
You can click on the links below for the files:
Sight Word Cards with HWT Lines
Sight Word Writing

Thanks!

Testing Encouragement-Lucky Pencils

So what do you get when you mix peppermint Mentos, a Hershey Kiss, aluminum foil, a black Sharpie, ribbon, and some paper?  A LUCKY PENCIL of course! 
My 3rd and 4th graders will be taking their NYS ELA assessments for three days beginning on Tuesday.  I wanted to do something fun to show them how much I believe in them.  I also attached a star with encouraging words, saying, "You are ready, feel strong!  Work carefully & you won't go wrong!  Use your noggin, do not stress!  Just do your best on the test!"

I just happened to be going through some of the sites I have bookmarked as favorites here on my laptop yesterday and came across these Valentine Pencils.  I thought they were so cute when I saw them in February, but did not have time to do them as Valentines for my students, so I just bookmarked them until a later date...and I am so glad I found them yesterday! 

I followed her directions and wrote, "LUCKY" on the pencil and created the star tag.  On Monday, I plan on going through an interactive Powerpoint I made for them and giving them their "lucky" pencils!

Here is a copy of the star tag I used.

Letter Sound Assessment

Here is the form I use when assessing my students’ letter and sound knowledge.  I just also added the four basic digraphs to the same form.

I start by having them go through and name the upper case letters and say each sound.  I then move on to the lower case letters.  I try to use a different color each time I assess.  This way I can use the same form and also see their progress over time.

Hope you find this useful!
~Mrs. Mc