Home-School Connection Blog Discontinued

     Please note, if you have bookmarked this blog, it is no longer being maintained.  I will be using our classroom's news blog to post any home-school connection related materials with a tab that will keep all home-school connection tabs in one place.  It will help make things easier for me to maintain everything in one blog.  So, check out our classroom's news blog for home-school connection related posts (and any other important news from our classroom!)

Mr. Mott's App Reviews / Recommendations

     
      I often get requests from parents asked what apps are good for their child and on what device.  Click here for an ongoing list of apps I find useful for students in Kindergarten.  I list what devices they can be used on and how much they may cost.  Please feel free to share with me other apps you already use that you think is great!

Little Writer App

App Name: Little Writer

Devices: iPhone, iPad

Cost: $0.99

Description:  This has students practice writing letters, numbers, shapes, and words. I like how its customizable, so you can add your own pictures and words. 

Skills: Letter Writing (upper and lower), Letter ID / Sound ID, and Word Building. Also used for Number Writing, Number Recognition, and Shapes.

Subjects: Language Arts, Math

Stars (x/5): 5

"Ask?" Reading Strategy

These strategies we learn to help us decode words.  Eventually, we want each student to do this without prompting, but to start out they need some guidance :).

• Does it look right?

• If a student reads this sentence: Over the flowers.  As “Over the grass.”  I would ask them - “Does that look right?  You said ‘grass,’ but that word starts with the letter f or the /f/ sound.”

• Does it sound right?

• If a student reads this sentence: Who wants to play with me?.  As “Who want to play with me?”.”  I would ask them - “Does that sound right?  You said “want,” but it sounded funny or weird.  Do we talk like that?”

• Does it make sense?
• If a student reads this sentence: No, the elephant cannot go in.  As “No, the elephant can go in.”  I would ask them - “Does that make sense?  You said ‘no, but then you said the elephant can go in the pool?’”

ck vs. k vs. c in Spelling!

      Last week, we talked about how the /k/ sound can be made by c, k, or ck.  We had learned previously that ck happens at the end of words or syllables.

• We learned that ck is only used at the end after a short vowel (like in duck, back, sick).  
• We learned that k is not used after a short vowel.
• We learned that c does not usually end words.

Ideas for Reviewing Sight Words

Click here for ideas on how to review sight words at home...

Click here for the Kindergarten sight words list...

Long Vowels

       In the second half of the year, we start to run in to long vowel words.  There is the strategy 'flip the vowel,' where you try the opposite vowel sound in the word.  For example - if a student read bake as "back," you might say 'flip the vowel.'  They would say the long a sound and say "bake."  This might work with some words (like kite, bike, pipe, open), but what happens when you run into a word like seat.  Some students may try to sound out all the letters and come up with s-e-a-t (blend the short vowels together and you get a weird word).
       After mentioning the 'flip the vowel' strategy, I teach two tips: look for "Super E!" (a.k.a. VCe words) or "Talkers and Walkers? " (a.k.a. vowel teams).

• Super E - we learn that if there's a vowel - consonant - e, the e jumps over the consonant and bumps the vowel to say its name like in like, bike, rake, pipe.  We talk about the e having to be at the end of the word or the end of the syllable, but I don't expect the kids to be able to identify where the syllable break is.  Click here for a video I show the students.
• Talkers and Walkers - we learn that if there are two vowels next to each other, the first one does the talking(says it's long name) and the second one does the walking (or listens - its silent).  Some examples would be beat, beet, neat, plain, rain, day.  Click here for a video I show the students.
• We talk about how most of the time these rules work, BUT there's always rule breakers like in sight words come, are, some, have, said or in other words like in students' names or in words like boy or open.  
• As fluent readers, we know this, but someone learning how to read, they need to be taught it, then it will become automatic and the kids won't even think about it (like we don't think about it as adults).  I saw this from "I Love Lucy."  It's not related to long vowels, but helps us adults remember that our language can have some funny twists to it :).