Hello! Today I'm going to share with you how we do work on words in my class. Now I have tried A LOT of things. I've been doing Daily 5 since my second year of teacher, which means I've been doing it for 5 years. I've tried letter tiles, play dough, wikki sticks, work sheets, stamps, white boards, word building dice... and all have had some degree of success. My kids have always learned their words, and work on words is almost ALWAYS their favorite of the Daily 5.

Now after moving to kindergarten, I've had to change my focus a bit. First, instead of working with spelling words, we work with sight words. I still tried to use most of the same activities, but I found that I was the one getting bored of them and wanting something new. So I still kept my eyes open for fun things.

Now I do a combination of things and try to change it up when needed to keep engagement and the fun factor!

Right now here is what we do:


Reagan Tunstalls Sight Word Stick Centers

Annie Moffat's Time for Sight Words Watches

My kids LOVE doing watches. If I let them, they would have watches all up and down each arm.

But their primary practice is the sight word sticks. I started out with these adorable cups full of sticks and a tub full of papers. This quickly turned into a disaster. The tub looked like a trashcan and all the papers were rumpled. So how to keep this center organized and clean?

Enter the Target dollar spot! I snagged these cute accordion file folders for a dollar each ages ago. I've used these for graded papers, organizing permission slips, papers for meetings and everything in between. But I think using them in word work has brought me the most joy (and/or sanity!)

Each folder has plastic divider tabs inside. I simply make a ton of copies at the beginning of the week and divide them into the pockets. This folder fits nicely under my tub on my Daily 5 shelf.

My students can pick out what they want and find it quickly. This was an issue before because my kids ALWAYS want to go for a watch first but they could never find it in the "trashcan"! This led to them pulling each and every paper out to find what they wanted which took FOREVER. Repeat this 4 times for all the students at the center. Most of their work time was getting eaten up looking for materials. No more!

Now everyone is happy. I don't have to look at a trashcan full of clutter, my kids get their work done, and can find what they need quickly. Happy Teacher=Happy Students!

How else do you use these file folders in your room? I am always tempted to pick up a few and wonder how other teachers use them! Plus target always offers the cutest ones!