Pocket Chart Stories Using Children's Names

Another way to use pocket charts to enhance language development.

Add to the interest by adding the children’s names to the pocket chart stories.  Children enjoy hearing and seeing their names in print.  All children get the biggest kick and laugh out of hear their name and their friend’s names being used in story form.

Retelling Stories using Children’s Names and a Pocket Charts

On sentence strips write the base words (story) and a line that the children can fill in.  Next have sentence strips with the children’s names and words with pictures to make the pocket chart story.  Have the children place the names and words in the pocket chart where the lines are.  Then have the children retell the story by reading the pocket chart aloud as a group reading experience. 

Packet Includes

• I went Camping

• Down on the Farm
• Race Car Drivers
• When I Grow Up
• I Can Ride In…
• I Went Swimming

 

You can purchase it on Teachers Pay Teachers  for $2.50

Sample Pages

Building Literacy with Interactive Stories

Pocket chart stories are a wonderful way to get your students actively involved in the story telling process.  When using pocket chart stories it helps to bring the stories alive and capture the attention of the students.  Students are able to participate in a hands-on way as children are able to move the text around to create different versions of the same story.

Pocket charts help to build:

·         Literacy skills

·         Grammar skills

·         A print-rich learning environment

·         Understanding that print carries meaning

·         Motivation to learn about reading

·         Math skills

You can download this 25 page packet on Pocket Chart for $2.50 at  Teachers Pay Teachers

Making Father’s Day Cards

Take a sheet of construction paper and fold it in half.  On the end that opens draw two line from each side about 3 inches long.

Cut each line and fold down word at an angle to make the neck of a shirt.

Once you have both sides folded it will look like the collar of a shirt.  You can also round the top corner to give it a more finished look.

Let the children pick their favorite color shirt.

Set out markers, construction paper crayons, colored pencils, and buttons.  Let the children embellish their shirts for their father’s day cards.  Have them write a message inside.

Assessment Tools

Here are some free resources to make assesses the children in your classroom a lot easier.  These tools will help to free up so of your valuable time and give you more time for what the children need and that is your time.

This resource gives you lots of checklist form to make assessing class groups a snap.

This resource is designed for what all the kindergarten teachers want to know when they get our students from us.  This is a collection of school readiness skills that will lead to like long learning.

Down load them for free on Teachers Pay Teachers

Bitter Sweet

Yesterday was a day of celebration for our students moving on to kindergarten, but sorrow for many of our teachers.  These last few months have been stressful as we watch on T.V. and read in news papers that the child development division for our state will be taking devastating cuts to the education of young children.  So as the year comes to end we celebrate our success of touching the lives of our students and giving them the joy of life long learning.  At the same time we will be closing many of our classrooms doors to never open them again.

To all of you it has been a joy and a pleasure to teach by your sides.  None of you will ever be forgotten.  You will be missed, but remember that we are all still here to support one another no matter where we are.

Print Rich Preschool Classroom Environment

It is important to create and provide meaningful print for preschool children.  Children learn as they explore, interact and have meaningful discussion about the written word.

In order for children to explore and interact with the written word (print) we must set up our preschool classrooms to have a print rich environment through out the whole classroom. 

If your classroom is full of print then it provides the children with countless opportunities to learn about letters, letter sounds and the concept of print.  Children will be able to build on their knowledge that printed words hold meaning.

A print-rich environment includes:

·         Child-made books (individual and group-process made)

With dictation of what each child said for their page of the book

·         Teacher-made books

·         Word Cards for the writing area

·         Word Walls

·         Print in all areas of the classroom even the bathroom

·         Surveys

·         Story Charts 

·         Printed Word Labels 

·         Maps for the block area 

·         Cozy Book Areas 

·         Story Telling On tapes  

·         Shard Writing Experiences 

Always Remember

·         Books, Books and More Books

·         Print, Print and More Print