Easter is coming early this year, so I thought I'd get organised with a couple of  printable board games - one to use with Sight Words cards and one to focus on the ‘short u’ sound.  

Both games are 'colour-in' sheets, which can be copied cheaply onto paper or light card to give to children so they can decorate their own game boards (a good Easter Holiday activity to get children to keep practising their Sight Words). 

Click on the pictures below to open a printable .PDF document.

            

Players will also need tokens or movers (counters/buttons/small shells etc.) and a spinner or die/dice.

These games can be downloaded for free during the rest of March- April, for private/educational, non-commercial use.

Easter games for Reading

Easter is coming early this year, so I thought I'd get organised with a couple of  printable board games - one to use with Sight Words cards and one to focus on the ‘short u’ sound.  

Both games are 'colour-in' sheets, which can be copied cheaply onto paper or light card to give to children so they can decorate their own game boards (a good Easter Holiday activity to get children to keep practising their Sight Words). 

Click on the pictures below to open a printable .PDF document.

            

Players will also need tokens or movers (counters/buttons/small shells etc.) and a spinner or die/dice.

These games can be downloaded for free during the rest of March- April, for private/educational, non-commercial use.

Shamrock Memory Game (and -at words cards)

It's almost St Patrick's Day, and I've posted a Shamrock-themed Memory game on my free-fun-n-games website, so I thought I should mention it here.

I was having problems with my file sharing site, but it's all sorted now and the printable cards will be available for free download the rest of this month at http://free-fun-n-games.webs.com/readinggamestoprint.htm. You will also find other reading games that you can print.

The 'Shamrock' card backs can be used with any words written on the blank side (use pencil so the writing doesn't show through), or you can print the '_at' words on the back.

Just remember to make two sets of cards, and start with maybe 5 or 6 pairs to play the game.

Me or my?

This week I have finally started Reading Intervention programs with my new students, as I had been filling in for classroom teachers over the past month so they could do testing of their students.

One problem I notice that keeps cropping up with the Grade 1 children is the difficulty with words me/my, be/by etc.

Here is a strategy I use to help them differentiate between these 2 vowel sounds:

When you say a long 'e' sound, as in 'me', your mouth is wide and smiley, a bit like a letter 'e':

When when you say a long 'y' sound, as in 'my', your mouth hangs down, like a letter 'y':

I draw a diagram like those above, then write a list of words, with an exaggerated wide letter 'e' or extra long letter 'y'. e.g.

me    my
be     by
we    why
she   shy

We then practise reading the words with exaggerated mouth actions, and I encourage the children to use the exaggerated actions when they read those words, or similar words (he, cry, fly, etc.).

After a while, the children will no longer need to actually make the exaggerated mouth action as they read (though they may need reminders at times).

If you like, you can download the pictures above and print them for use with your child or students.

Reading Games to Print

As my working hours and duties have increased this year, I will not be posting each week. However I will try to manage one or two posts each month.

I missed out on posting the January Reading Game here (Internet problems), so I'll post links for January and February games , and leave them available until the end of Feb.

These games are designed to be printed onto light A4-size card, and laminated for use in small groups. You will need some tokens or "movers", a die (dice) or spinner, and if you are using them as reading games, you will also need Sight Words vocabulary cards.

The First Games below are scans of games I made to help children to develop the idea of playing board games, including taking turns and following instructions, and to practise ‘one-to-one correspondence’ with counting, i.e. moving their token one space for each number counted (this can be difficult for young children who are still unsure of number skills). If using a die, children also practice counting the dots on the die.

If you want to use the games for reading practice with word cards, you can write ‘WORD CARD’ in the first of each pair of blank spaces (before you laminate the board). Then when a player lands on the WORD CARD space, they can read a word card and move on an extra space if correct.

I'm also re-posting a Hearts- themed game as it's almost Valentine's Day. This game needs Word Cards as it's for practising Sight Words.

These games are available for free download through to the end of February, for educational, non-commercial use. Click on the images to open the .PDF document for printing.

Planning for the new school year

Our school year for 2016 is just starting, so I'm getting organised with planner formats.

I like to have a yearly planner on my pinboard above my desk, and I use an A4 copy also in my Planner/Diary.
Here is the planner I have made for 2016; it can be printed on A4 or A3 paper or light card (I've printed one out and shaded in our school and public holidays, then photocopied it for other staff members as well).

2016 Year Planner

March 2nd- please note- the files to download are stored in a Dropbox folder, but have been unavailable for the past week due to 'excess traffic' on the files in the account.... Dropbox are not responding to my queries, so I have replaced the link to the year planner; I'm hoping other links will be available again as soon as Dropbox allows the account to be open again.

For day-to-day planning, I have formatted pages to print and photocopy back-to-back, then punch holes and put in a loose-leaf folder.

We have 6 sessions in our school day, so these sheets have 6 sessions, but I have left the sheets as Word documents so if you want to use them, you can alter them before printing. Print both pages and copy back-to-back, enough for each week of the year. You will need to fill in the dates on each page.

 Here are the links to the documents:

DailyPlanner page format left side blank _6 sessions 

DailyPlanner page format right side_blank _6 sessions

DailyPlanner cover sheet 2016     

For fortnightly planning, you may also like a blank 2-week page that you can print, copy and add dates to:

Diary lined page - 2 weeks     

  

Christmas Word Games and Activities

For my last post of 2015, I'm offering a couple of printable board games with a Christmas theme, for children to play and practice Sight Words - they can be used with any words that need to be practised or revised over the holidays.

The first is a black-and-white version of "Santa Words", which can be cheaply printed/photocopied onto thick paper for children to take home over the holidays and colour in.

Santa Words B&W printable game

"Santa's Helpers" is another fun game for Sight Words practice:



Santa's Helpers col. Printable Reading Game 

These games are best printed onto A4 size light card; they can be laminated before use. 
They will also need "Sight Words' cards (these can be words written on small pieces of card) a die/dice or spinner, and small tokens or 'movers' (buttons, small pieces of coloured card etc). 
The games will be available for free download (for educational, non-commercial use) during the rest of December and the beginning of January.

As it's getting near the end of December, I thought I should also add links to some of my free Christmas activities on my other websites…

Christmas computer Jigsaws, clipart - http://www.epuzzled.net/holidayfun.htm

Christmas songs (also links to clipart, eCards) - http://www.cathyschords.com/christmassongs.htm

                            These song sheets have lyrics and chords for guitar; 
                            there are also some song sheets on the site for ukulele and banjo.

Christmas games –  Santa Snatch, Santa Swap http://www.free-fun-n-games.com/funstuff.htm

                               These games are lots of fun for a Christmas gathering – they don’t need expensive gifts, and are suitable for all age groups. 

I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season... I will be back next year with more ideas and resources for teaching reading.