Sight Word Videos?!

Have you heard of Have Fun Teaching? They have some FABULOUS videos on youtube that my students LOVE. They asked me to share the following message and I had to agree - their letter songs and coutings songs are great, who wouldn't want them to make sight word songs?! Just check out their message:

Have Fun Teaching needs your help! They have just launched a BIG IDEA on KickStarter that will help kids all over the world learn how to read! Join The Movement - Click Here.

Join The Movement - Click Here

If this project is funded during the month of MAY, Have Fun Teaching will be creating 220 Sight Word Music Videos that will give teachers and parents a fun and effective way to help children become better readers!

Here is a sample video for the Sight Word, "IS":

Every little bit helps and you can even receive awesome Rewards for backing this project!

I'm heading over to help out now, I hope you join me!

Bright Idea for Sight Words

I teach the 220 Dolch Sight Words to my firsties. Each student works at their own pace, studying 20 words at a time. I was struggling with organization to put it lightly. I was taking up valuable time trying to hand out the right flashcards to each student, or wasting time digging through a stack of papers, trying to find the correct word list for a particular student. Plus, students would forget their word list and I'd have to go find my master list to tell them which list they were on.  This year though, I got smart!

 Each list of 20 sight words is displayed on a cupboard door in my classroom. Our theme this year was Western, but the only die cut in our workroom that even sort of matched were tractors lol. Each kiddo got a tractor, put their name on the back and decorated the front as they wanted. Their tractor goes above the word list they are studying, so they can remember which list they're on, but no one else knows.

Next I purchased Command hooks and hung the flashcards for each word list right next to it! The cards are labeled in the corner with the number for the word list just in case someone finds them out of place in the classroom, so we can put them back in their place easily. Now when students have free time they can grab a set of cards and get cracking on sight words without me having to find the correct set of  cards!

I also added a library pocket to hold a mini-list for each set of words. Although I send home a sheet all the word lists to be kept on the refrigerator so that students can practice at home, I found that they liked to have a list they could keep in their pockets as well. Now when I test them on a word list I can quickly highlight any they missed on the mini-list and they can take it back to their seats to practice. It also shows their parents that they were tested that day, but still need more practice.

There you have it - display each sight word list in the classroom with easily accessible flash cards and mini-lists! For more Bright Ideas, check out the links below in this month's Bright Ideas Blog Hop!

An InLinkz Link-up

Butterfly Life Cycle in Pictures

In our classroom, my firsties and I had a great time witnessing the metamorphosis of our Brassica caterpillars. I am delighted with the way this unit turned out. I used to order the Painted Lady larva, but it was hard for my kiddos to truly understand that caterpillars eat leaves because they came with that brown sludge in the cup instead, plus we never saw the egg part of the life cycle at all. This year I decided to cross my fingers and buy butterfly eggs from Carolina Biological instead. It was actually the same price ($14.99) to buy the eggs as it would be to buy caterpillar larva from another site. In addition, we had over 9 caterpillars hatch, and as of Friday afternoon, we had 9 butterflies compared to the 5 or 6 caterpillars I'd gotten in the past from other sites. I'm definitely doing this again next year!

Here's our Life Cycle in pictures:

When the caterpillars first hatched, they were so small we couldn't see them! We found evidence that they were around though! It wasn't until they were about 3 weeks old that we were able to pick them out with the naked eye:

Although not as colorful as the Painted Lady butterflies, the Brassica butterflies do have striking markings. My firsties loved their eye spots and quickly realized that they would make predators think twice about sneaking up on them!

We released the butterflies at the end of our Life Cycle unit! If you'd like to see the observation journals, labeling sheets and emergent readers that we used in our Butterfly Life Cycle unit, please check them out here.