Tutorial Tuesday: Puzzle Sight Words

Puzzle Sight Words 

Happy Tuesday! I am so excited to be joining Cachey Mama's Classroom today. I am Jillian also known as A Mom with a Lesson Plan. One of my favorite lessons to plan is sight words. Making sight word practice fun and easy is one of the ways I keep my kids excited about learning new words.

How to Prepare

Do you have any old puzzles with missing pieces? Don't worry if all your puzzles are full sets, you can find a cheap puzzle at a garage sale, thrift store, or dollar store.

 I used a puzzle with big pieces but any size pieces would work.
  
Put the puzzle pieces together. Make sure you have enough pieces connected to match the letters in the word you are making. Then flip the puzzle over so the back of the puzzle is up.
 Write one letter of the word on each puzzle piece. That's all the prep you need. Easy right?

3 Ways to Play

I love this idea for a couple of reasons. Puzzle sight words is perfect for a quiet classroom activity or for at home practice. I also love that it can be varied to work with kids of different levels. 1. Lay out the sight word card right next to the letters needed to make the word. Mix the letters up a bit and then have your little one put the "puzzle" together to match the card.

2. Lay out the sight word cards. Mix up all the letters and have your little one create the words by finding the letters in the pile.

3. Mix up all of the pieces and ask your little to make words from the pieces available. This is a good one if you've already practiced these words quite a bit.

Besides a love for her kids (and well just kids in general) Jillian has a degree in Early Childhood Education and 10 years experience as a preschool teacher. Right now her “students” call her mom. Jillian believes that life offers an abundance of learning opportunities. She loves figuring out what they are and how they can be expanded on. Join the journey at amomwithalessonplan.com.

Tutorial Tuesday: Teaching Letter Sounds

Hi! My name is Tammy from 123 Teach With Me. 

I'm so glad Lori invited me to be here!! I'm a teacher of 10 years and love sharing and inspiring other teachers. I think it's so important to build a strong connection between school and home. That's the main reason why I started my blog....to share my ideas with teachers AND parents. A child's success is not possible with only the teacher or only the parent. It's takes both to build a successful student.

Today I'm going to share with you a fun way I teach my own kids beginning letter sounds and practice with finding sounds in words. 

I came up with this when my son started to learn his letter sounds and he loved it!! We played this in the car, outside, and while we were shopping in stores. When I knew we were going play the game, I would give my son a magnifying glass and tell him we were going on a "hunt". It might be a good idea to keep a hand lens in your purse or bag so if they ask to go "hunting" you will be ready. He always loved to have his own lens to carry along while he was "hunting" because he thought it was funny the way things looked.

The song with this game goes to the tune of "A Hunting We Will Go" Here it is....

A hunting we will go

A hunting we will go

"B" is the sound we're listening for

A hunting we will go

**When they find something that begins with that sound sing...

Bat begins with "B" (make the sound)

Bat begins with "B"

Bat begins with "B B" (make the sound twice)

A hunting we will go.

When we returned home or finished the game, I would get this sheet out (pic below) where we would talk about what we saw that day and I would write down the words. Again, a sheet protector is great so you can easily erase the letter with a tissue and start with a new letter the next day.

This is a quick activity that your children or students will love!! You can also alter this for whatever sounds you are finding in words; ending sounds, blends, digraphs, long vowels, short vowels or just simply finding the actual letter....any specific phonetic skill will work! All children love a little song and I know they will really enjoy this!

Thanks for reading! 

 

Calling All Guest Bloggers!

Good Morning everyone! It's another Tuesday here at Cachey Mama's Classroom and I have some news! The winning idea for my new feature based on the poll results is Tutorial Tuesday. Now, I need lots of volunteers to be guest bloggers. I am totally okay with previous posts you have written that include a tutorial about how to do something kid-related or classroom-related. I am open to many ideas, so try me! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE e-mail me (cacheymama@gmail.com) with your ideas and pass this on to anyone else you know who may be interested. Thanks!!!

Vote for my new feature!

As you may have noticed, I have concluded my Wishlist Wednesday feature. But, I miss guest bloggers, so I am working on coming up with something new for Tuesdays. You can help me decide. The 3 ideas I came up with are Tutorial Tuesday, Top Ten Tuesday, and Teaching Tip Tuesday. Please take a moment to vote in the poll at the top of my right sidebar.Your input will be very useful to me. Also, if you are interested in guest blogging when I get this all up and running, please e-mail me: cacheymama@gmail.com  Thanks for your participation!

Wishlist Wednesday: H is for Homeschooling

This week's wishlist is provided by Sierra from H is for Homeschooling. I am so excited to finally have her guest post. I have gotten to know her blog pretty well, mostly through linky parties! Please drop by and leave her a comment on her amazing site! I know you will find some great treasures there, I always do!

Hi Cachey Mama's Classroom, Readers! I'm Sierra from H is for Homeschooling, and I am so glad to be a guest blogger for Lori today! This series is a fun way to look ahead and hope for the best, both things I enjoy doing. My Hubby-Man and I have two amazing little boys- "Boogie", who is almost 2.5 and "Bam Bam" who is 9 months old. I started "tot school" with Boogie at the end of the summer, which is also when I started blogging. I wanted to remember our homeschooling journey from the beginning, and blogging is a great way to make memories and join a community. The way we do tot school has developed and changed over the past 7 months, and we are currently in a period of child-led play more so than structured play. This is what works for Boogie right now, so I am making it work for me too, even though I have a background as an English teacher and really like structure. Someday, when the train table is put away, I will cry for these slow, unstructured days and miss them. Even knowing that, I do daydream about our future classroom. In the wee small hours of the morning, when I am feeding my littler one, I catch up on my Google Reader feed and often see posts featuring homeschool classrooms. Since we mostly do tot school in the kitchen on the floor, and because my supplies are in diaper boxes in the laundry room, or spread throughout the kitchen in various boxes and cabinets, my wishlist item is a homeschool classroom. I don't ask for much, do I?!

Here are the top 3 spaces I love, and why.

Source: 1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com via Sierra on Pinterest

I love this classroom from 1+1+1=1 because of all the wide open space, the storage space (closets and bookcases), and the fact that each child and their mom has their own work area. The only downside is that there are no windows.

Source: homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com via Sierra on Pinterest

I love this classroom from Homeschool Creations because it is so bright and sunny!! I also love the ceiling, the window seat and reading area, the color on the walls, as well as the wide open space, and the separate learning spaces for each child (there is also a table they use for working together) and their mom.

Source: confessionsofahomeschooler.com via Sierra on Pinterest

I love this classroom from Confessions of a Homeschooler because of the windows, the giant shared table, and the incredible organization. There are also a lot of great things hanging on the walls, like the map and alphabet banner you can see in this picture, but there is also a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree and a huge whiteboard.

So, if anyone wants to buy me a house with a spare room that is huge and has lots of windows and a couple closets, my family would be much obliged :P

Thanks, Lori, so much for letting me come over here and share my wish!

Wishlist Wednesday: Teachy Marie

This week's guest blogger, Katie, is very new to blogging, but has wonderful ideas! Please support her by becoming a follower on her blog and leaving some comments! You can check out Teachy Marie by clicking below:

Hello there!! I am the proud author of the new teaching blog Teachy Marie!  I’m just getting started with my blogging and was so surprised and excited to be asked to write a guest post for Cachey Mama’s Classroom!  I feel so very honored to help Lori out!  I love her ideas and she is such a great “sharer” with all her lessons!

I am new this year to PreKinders, so I have a very extensive wish list for my seemingly bare classroom!  Our school has Smart Boards on rollers that we can check out from the Library, however we don’t have enough projectors or laptops to hook up to them.  So most of our Smart Boards are collecting dust in the storage room.  Even when we can check one out, we have at least four cords that are up to 30 feet long, 25 kids ducked down on the floor so the projector that’s sitting on a desk can project over their heads to the smart board.  Heaven forbid someone accidentally knock the desk or Smart Board and require reformatting!

So now that you know where I’m coming from, I can tell you what my number one item is on my classroom wish list!

You guessed it… the new iPad 2.  I would love to be able to show my kiddos interactive stories and videos, on a screen big enough for everyone to see, while still able to hold it in my hand during our circle time!  My kids love watching/listening to songs/nursery rhymes on my computer, however my computer is about 10 years out of date, and usually cannot run very long without shutting itself down.  I think the iPad would help improve all aspects of my lessons as well as allowing me to teach in the 21^st century!  The possibilities are truly endless!

Huge thanks to Lori for asking me to be her guest for today!  I’m always looking for new followers, so please stop by for some center ideas at Teachy Marie!