Weekly Round-Up: April 7

Hello friends! Back to back posts? Who am I? lol Here’s a little round-up with links of things I’ve been sharing over on my Instagram this past week!
1. READING STRATEGY BOOKMARKS
I originally taught these reading strategies back in October and November and I finally printed out the bookmarks to add to the kid’s book boxes (independent reading boxes) and to our LLI bin.  I noticed that one of my intervention students had a really hard time remembering to use reading strategies so I wanted to put a bookmark right beside her book when we were reading during LLI and many of my kids are reading longer books and chapter books now (I have a good chunk of kids who are in the BAS G-M range) and so I thought the bookmark would be a good tool for them to use during independent reading to mark their spot when they need to put their boxes away.
Anyways, they have been a hit and they love using their bookmarks!  You can find the bookmarks in my “Kindergarten Reading Strategies: Lessons + Posters for Emergent Readers” pack on TPT by clicking here.
2. RAINDROP CVC SEARCH

Since we were wrapping up our sky inquiry this week, I decided to put out this raindrop CVC puzzle activity at the sensory bin! I put some cotton balls in the bin, the puzzle pieces, spring smencils and the recording sheets.  Students were invited to grab a word, sound it out and find the matching picture.  Then they were invited to record the words beside the corresponding picture on the recording sheet.  If you are interested in this activity, it is in my “Kindergarten Spring Activities” pack on TPT.  Click here if you are interested in taking a look!
3. SPRING SIMPLE SENTENCES

I put these dry erase printing sheets out this week for the students to practice reading and writing simple spring sentences!  These are a staple in our dry erase centre.  I love them because it works on a variety of skills at once (reading, spelling, printing) and some of my kids have even started to write a second sentence or a response to the sentence on the lines below instead of copying the sentence like I had intended!  Love their creativity and independence at this time of the year😍
These are also in my “Kindergarten Spring Activities” pack on TPT!
4. SPRING Q-TIP PAINTING

My kids loved these q-tip painting/spelling pages when I had them out during the winter so I brought them back for spring! They are invited to dot paint the picture and the letters with q-tip and paint.
These are also in my “Kindergarten Spring Activities” pack.  You can click here or on the image below to read about everything that is included in the pack on TPT!
5. APRIL GUIDED WRITING

I always do our monthly guided writing that goes up on our writing wall at the beginning of the month.  This month we read the book “Tops & Bottoms” by Janet Stevens and answered the question “Hare grows many vegetables.  If you could grow any vegetable, what would you grow? Why?”
First we brainstormed and wrote some of their ideas on the anchor chart to warm up their brains and so that they could use the chart as a resource when they came to write with me in their guided writing  group…

Then I showed them my example as an exemplar.  My kids are good writers, but their pictures tend to lack detail and their colouring can be a little sloppy so I wanted to show them a really good sample before they started this time.  I also wanted to show my higher kids how to add more detail to their writing and ideas for adding a second sentence.

Then I sat with groups of 2-4 (more kids if they are independent, less kids if they need more 1:1 support) and had them work on their writing!  I give their descriptive feedback AS they are writing (both positive and next steps) and I jot it down on my conferencing sheet.  I add their best writing skill and biggest area of need to the descriptive feedback column AFTER they have handed their paper in.  This way the feedback is instant and I don’t forget the feedback I gave them while we were working together!
Here are some of the student’s work from this month:

I have written in detail (5 text heavy pages) about how I teach my guided writing lessons in my “Step by Step 3: Guided Writing & Assessments” pack on TPT if you are interested in reading more about it!  The writing paper you see here is also included in that pack as well.
If you are looking for the writing checklist, you can find that in my “Step by Step: Kindergarten Writing Plans” unit by clicking here.
6. SPRING PATTERN BRACELET

My kids love making pattern bracelets.  They’ve been obsessed ever since we did them with hearts on Valentine’s Day! We did eggs for Easter and this week, I put out these tulip ones for spring!  I also added the sentence at the bottom so that they could practice identifying the core and naming patterns as well.
These are also in my “Spring Kindergarten Activities” pack as well!
That’s it for me for this week! Have a great weekend!
– Yukari

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