Short Vowels and Much More

As a parent, I think you begin thinking about your child starting kindergarten pretty much as soon as he/she is born.  Not in terms of “Can’t wait to get there,” but just as some distant point WAY off in the future.

Somehow it still sneaks up on you.

My little man started kindergarten this week.  I feel so blessed to have him at my new school with me.  He has a beautiful classroom and a wonderful teacher.

Happy Boy= Happy Mommy

In addition to Nash starting school, I taught my first three days with my new second graders!  I am in LOVE!  They are absolutely darling and already so independent! 

About halfway through my first day of teaching, these gorgeous flowers arrived for me…

….they were from my old teammates in Kentucky!!! It means so much to me that they still think of me and wish me well!

The first two days were FULL of superhero activities. 

We learned a lot about each other and established our expectations for the classroom. I also used some of the activities to give me a benchmark of what skills my students felt comfortable with and which skills needed more practice.

We also spent some time reviewing short vowel sounds.  I created this chart to look like one my Reading Recovery teacher gave me at my old school.

After I introduce this chart to my students, we use our pointer finger and middle finger to help use practice isolating the initial vowel sound- “a-pple, a-pple, a,a,a” “e-ddie, e-ddie, e,e,e” and so on.  Clear as mud?  I promise it works! You can snag this free chart on my FB fanpage

After lots of practice, we begin the Vowel Drill!!

I created these cards four years ago and they are still in perfect condition.  It is important that when you are making these cards that all the a’s are the same color, e’s the same color… you get the point!   You will use the color as quick way to scan the room and see how your students are doing. These are simply index cards folded right down the middle. <Just a side note, I collect these as a group of five –not all the a’s, all the e’s etc., because it makes passing them out super simple!>

In order to practice, I would yell out a vowel sound and the students hold up the vowel they heard!

They LOVE it!  After we hold up our card, we say our vowel chant so we can implant the sound even more in our brains (a-pple, a-pple, a,a,a…A says a).  By the end I was selecting students to be the expert and say the sound.

On Friday my students worked on the vowels in isolation.  Since they did such a fantastic job {great job first grade teachers} we will move on to Vowel-Consonants on Monday, and Consonant-Vowel-Consonant later in the week!

Now, since we survived the first three days of school, Emmie and I are treating ourselves to a pedicure! Have a wonderful weekend!