Go Take a Hike!

Do you like to take hikes in the great outdoors?  Well, here is a game I am calling, "Take a hike!"   As the child takes a hike through the forest, you can help reinforce the identification of sight words (or even letters, sounds, numbers, etc...)!
Click on the picture below for the file.

To play, you simply write whatever you would like the child to practice in the empty boxes on the game board and also create matching flash cards.  Mix the cards up and have the child read through each until they get to the first word on the board.  Continue this until you get to the finish. 

This game played the same way as Road Race, (which in case you missed it, is a game I posted about here).

I hope you enjoy!!



Road Race-sight words, letters, sounds, etc...

A few years back I attended a wonderful conference where the presenter discussed the fact that an average learner needs about 35 exposures to a word for it to become automatic.  A struggling learner may need more than 50 exposures before a word is recognized, and may take as many as 150 exposures to master it automatically!!! 

Road Race (Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts, 2000) is one of the great resources she provided as a way to increase students' exposure to sight words.  Have you played this before?  The game board was quite bland, so I went ahead and jazzed it up a bit by adding some clip art.

I love this game and so do the kids!  The kids really like driving the little car around the game board.  (You can find little cars in the party favor section at Target.)  I especially love how the child goes through and reads the pile of words over and over again, therefore increasing their exposure to the words.  I also use this game for letter and letter-sound identification.  I haven't done so myself, but I am sure you could even use it for number identification or math facts!
~ Mrs. Mc

Sight Words-Barrel of Monkeys-BANANAS!!

The day after I saw Mrs. Jump’s Barrel of Monkeys math activity, I walked into one of the first grade classrooms I work in and what did I see?  A huge empty pretzel container!  The teacher didn’t have a use in mind for it, but she just “couldn’t throw it away” (I think I have that problem too), so she generously let me have it and I created my own Barrel of Monkeys for a sight word game I will call, “Bananas!” 

I went to our local Parent-Teacher Store and bought pre-cut monkeys and wrote sight words on their bellies.  I added bananas to some of the monkeys without words and then laminated them all. 
I made the small red Barrel of Monkeys for my little one to practice identifying upper and lower case letters.  (I found the red container in my recycling bin that same day, placed there by Mr. Mc!  What was he thinking?!  He doesn’t have the habit of “saving” things like I do!)

This game will be played just like the game, “Bang!” Or “Oops!”  The children will take turns picking a monkey out of the barrel and reading the words.  If they pick a monkey with a banana, they will need to say, “Bananas!” and put their monkeys back in the barrel.  The goal is to have as many monkeys as you can at the end of the game.  Anna over at Crazy for First Grade created her own version called, “Tweet!” and is giving it away for free because she is almost up to 100 followers!   

~  Mrs. Mc

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

Letter-Sounds

I was recently introduced to The Letter Factory by Leap Frog.  Can I tell you how much I love it?  All of the letters are in “training”, learning how to make their correct sounds.  For example, the “A’s” are in a room and Professor Quigley comes in wearing a monster suit shouting, “Booga-booga-booga!”  All of the “A’s” shout, “aaaaaahhhh”.  The “E” is an elderly gentleman who cannot hear well and says, “eeeeeehhhh?”  I like how Leap Frog has introduced the upper case letters in a multisensory manner by allowing the child to attach the visual of the letter with its corresponding sound by a movement/action. It would be nice if the lower case letters were incorporated, but at this stage of development, I think all upper case are appropriate for my little one right now!!

I found these beautiful, printable cards for each letter from The Letter Factory on a great blog called, Running With Scissors.  Jessica handmade these and is very talented.  I thank her because my daughter loves them!!

This video also has classroom applications.  In addition to watching the entire movie, it allows you to watch each letter separately.  So along with the printable cards, I plan to bring the DVD to school to help some of my K students who are struggling to commit the more difficult sounds to memory.

~ Mrs. Mc

Tic-Tac-Toe

Who likes to play Tic-Tac-Toe?  I love to!  And I also love using this game as an instructional tool for students to practice forming their letters and to write the high frequency words!!  It is not only quick and easy, but the children LOVE it!!

I like to laminate the boards I use.  I have each student or team use a different colored Vis-à-Vis marker to write their letters/words.  Three letters/words of the same color in a row is the winner!  When rinsed under water, the Vis-a-Vis marker comes right off, then I can use it again and again!



Click here for a copy of the board I use.