Yesterday, I scoped about some of the things I am doing for my classroom, including my editable name tags and desk plates.  I used the KG Miss Kindergarten font on the example below which is super cute, but fits the space pretty well.  If you have your own school font with arrows, that’s even better!  Click the pic on the left to grab it!

Here is my tip:  If you do not know student names yet, you can make these, cut and laminate, then add names later.  Here’s how:  I type names as seen on the desk plate on clear transparency film using the same size font as the name tag template.  The name strip can be taped onto the plate with clear packing tape! This is handy when you have a student who moves away. Just rip the old name off and reuse the plate for a new student.

Yes, I am an Ellie Kemper fan! Love that bubbly personality. 🙂 And she is from St. Louis, MO…my home state!

Something else I scoped about in the same session was how I use slideshows to help students master sight words.  My school uses Journeys, so one of my teacher friends broke the big list into smaller manageable chunks.  We study 40 words by Winter break, then have 24 on the next two slideshows.

Truth:  Even though we communicate the need for additional help with sight words to parents, the reality is many students do not work on them out of class.  Bravo for those parents who somehow find time to work with their child at home.  To give students a better chance for success, I set the slideshows up in our computer center.  Groups of 2-4 students are rotated through the center daily at the beginning of the day during the week.  By Friday, all students have had extra practice in the center.  I also make it the first 10 minutes of computer center time during regular literacy work station time.  That means students are gaining more exposure to the repetition needed to master sight words.  I also begin each reading lesson with one or two cycles of the slideshow.

 

During this time we work on weekly lists, of which there are fifteen with 5-8 sight words in each.  Students study these at home, then come back to school and try an assessment whenever they are ready.  What do we use? ESGI Software, of course!

The year ESGI started sharing a free download to try their software was the year life changed in my classroom! It returned minutes of instructional time that had been eaten up from paper-pencil assessments… LOTS of MINUTES people! A couple of years after that, my district decided to purchase subscriptions for every classroom K-1.  Seriously, I don’t know how I could ever go back to completely paper-pencil assessments after having used ESGI for a few years.  Several of our standards are already available, so it was just a matter of putting them in, and naming our assessments–easy!

Now, for the other surprise (I gave a bundle away to one of my scope viewers yesterday!). Leave a comment here on my blog, and I will choose a winner tomorrow night!