As the TK teacher, I work hard on presenting the material in a different way, with a twist, if you will.  My goal is to NOT have these little ones go through TWO years of the same program taught the same way.  I have found that if I turn the sight word lesson into a bit of an art project, the stress is eliminated some what.  Today we reviewed "I" and "can."  Just getting the letters glued down in the correct order and not upside down was an ordeal for this group.  I had to keep walking away because they continuously asked me to do it for them.  Gaining independence is going to be a big struggle this year, I can already see that.

After we got the letters glued, I gave them markers to decorate them.  We usually get a little more fancy with sequence and glitter paint but this group is not ready for that.  We kept it simple today.  By the way, this activity was done at the teacher center during workshop. 

We use little reader books for homework and in class.  Some come from our reading program and others are created by the students.  The point is that A LOT of books are accumulated throughout the school year.  These little books are a perfect way to do all of the reading practice that is required of the emergent reader. Instead of recycling these books, the the Shoebox Library gives parents a designated place to keep these useful resources.  Below you will find the project sheet we sent home last week (right after we explained it at Back-To-School Night).    

So first I created this cute label which you can download by clicking on the link above.  I used letter stickers from the dollar bin at Target to decorate the covers.  I then laminated the front and back covers.

The sequence of pages above shows the first few pages of the journal.  Each journal has 30 pages.  On the first day of letter practice (which usually happens on the first day of school) we all practice printing lines.  We do this for two days (2 pages) for about 5 minutes each day.  Then we move into circles, lines, and X's.  The homework during these first days of school is also on printing lines, circles, and X's. All we are focusing on up until this point is following directions: finding pencils, finding the ABC journal, turning to the correct page, holding the pencil, etc.  I stress to the students that they are not to go ahead of me.  We take our time.  I walk around and monitor their progress.  I stamp their page if they are doing a good job of following directions (no drawing yet).  Finally, a few days later, we move onto our first letter: Mm (this is the first letter that our Treasures Reading curriculum teaches).  Step by step, the children finish each row of letters. I teach letter formation using my SmartBoard to project the paper image, and we work on one letter at a time.

Now that the letter printing is complete, we move into direct drawing instruction.  After completing the printing of M's, I will help the students draw a picture that begins with that letter.  We will complete one page in our ABC journal per week.  I used to help them draw the pictures from our Treasures Reading alphabet cards, c for camel for example, but I'm changing things up this year.  You see, I teach Transitional Kindergarten (TK) and their program is "exposure" to the kindergarten curriculum without the stress of mastery (at least not yet).  I am changing the pictures mostly because I don't want to give them a repeat of the program and because using different drawings will allow for additional vocabulary development.  I purchased Alphabet Letter Directed Drawings from First and Kinder Blues Skies during the bts sale this summer and I'm very excited abut trying those! 

Be sure to check back.  I will be blogging about the progress.....