Here it is. Finally. My classroom. This was the first time in awhile that I've stayed put. Same grade, same room, same color scheme. Thanks to being able to build upon the past I've quite happy with my room this year! The same can't be said for the quality of these iPhone photos. But you can see my classroom, which is the goal!

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!

I don't know about you, but when I first saw Reagan Tunstall's sight word stick centers, I was immediately smitten. I knew this was something I wanted to add to my word work center. I love low maintenance activities that really help students master their sight words.

First go ahead and gather those sticks. My curriculum at this point of the year introduces 6 sight words a week. I write this week's sight words on one end of the sticks and the lesson (27) on the other.

Okay teachers. I have discovered something. Or rather, uncovered it. I'm not sure where this inspiration came from, but it has completely changed how I feel at the end of the school day. It has to do with the dreaded teacher issue of tattling.

When my children tattle, it makes me crazy. I can't stand it. It irritates me and frustrates me. It's my least favorite thing about teaching. I know and recognize that it is a natural part of childhood, and that because my students trust me and know that I support them, they want to naturally bring their problems to me so I can help them. But I strongly believe that it is more important to teach them how to get along WITHOUT teacher intervention or at least as little intervention as possible.

Which is where my discovery comes in. When students come to me tattling I reply with a simple response: "Why are you telling me? I didn't do that." This makes them think and realize that *I* cannot/should not solve their problem. When I tried this the first time, they tilted their little heads and looked at me with confusion. Then they thought about what I had said. This is when I encouraged them to go and talk it out with the person who was bothering them, and not me. After all, I didn't cause the problem. Their friend did. And to solve it they needed to talk with their friend, not me.

This is where it is important to get out of the way. Most often, they can simply talk it out together and figure out what to do together, which I sometimes think is the most important of kindergarten skills to learn. I often suggest my students step into the hallway to discuss and come back when a solution is found. If they can't come to conclusion, I help, but at little as possible. Often I sit between them and ask them to tell me their issue, and simply repeat what they said back to them. We go back and forth until things are smoothed out. A typical conversation goes like this:

Lucy: "Mrs. Broughton! Suzy put her ponytail in my face!"
Me: "Why are you telling me? I didn't put my ponytail in your face."
Lucy: **Looks quizzically at me**
Me: "Why don't you talk to Suzy about it?"
Lucy: **Goes to Suzy** "Suzy I don't like that you put your ponytail in my face"

Usually, this conversation continues on to solution on it's own. But in the case that it doesn't, here is how I would participate:

Me:  "Suzy, Lucy doesn't like how you put your ponytail in her face."
Suzy: "I didn't mean to, I was just standing in line and scooted back and did it on accident."
Me: "Lucy, Suzy says it was an accident. How do you feel about that?"
Lucy: "I didn't like it."
Me: "Suzy, Lucy still wants you to know she didn't like it."
Suzy: "I really didn't mean to. I'm sorry, will you please forgive me?"
Lucy: "I guess it's okay. I forgive you."

Now obviously this is the ideal way this would go. But I hope that you'd be surprised that it goes this way more often than not. Especially if you really hammer home a clear and distinct way to apologize, which I do as often as possible. I only try to involve myself if the kids are really getting upset and can't quite get their emotions in check. They need practice discussing issues and brainstorming solutions. Obviously my little narrative above isn't one of those situations, but you get the idea of the technique I use. If it appears that a solution is not going to come, I will sometimes suggest a break until the emotions level out and then bring them together again to try to sort it out. But this rarely is the case. Usually they can and will sort it out themselves!

Try this. I dare you. You might find that they stop coming to you because they know what you are going to say, and skip that step altogether and start a conversation on their own. I found some kids doing it the first day! Good Luck!

Did you try this? Did it work for you? I'd love to hear your experience!

You know that checklist you have rolling around in your head of all the things you want to get done this summer? Now that school has started, here is the update to mine. You can see which things made it to the DONE side and which fell through... the best laid plans right?

Last year, I am ashamed to say I did a terrible job implementing technology. In my defense, I was late to the game getting a job, and had a completely full classroom from a retiring teacher to sort out before I could move in. I didn't have any student computers and my listening center was tape players. (Just trying to keep it old-school you know...)

This year will be different! Here are some of the top ways I want to work to move back into THIS decade!

1. Yammer
My school recently joined up using this to share informal info amongst the staff. I hope to post something helpful to my colleagues once a week.

2. Class twitter
I hope to start a class twitter account and keep it updated regularly by my students. If you know of a great blog post from another teacher on how to do this effectively in the primary classroom, I'm all ears! This one will take some thought and time.

3. THIS blog!
I'm new to blogging. I'd love to churn our at least 1 post a week. I'm pretty chatty so I hope this is obtainable.

4. TPT
I want to create and post at least 10 items to my new TPT store in the fall.

5. QR Code listening center
These are awesome. I hope to raise money or get some iPods donated so that this can be a possibility. My principal already makes fun of my tape players :/ I told him he owes me two ipods before I relinquish my walkmans.

6. QR Code Tour
I will dedicate a whole blog post to this in the future. I hope to create a student led tour of my classroom to upload to youtube. I will then make a QR Code to post outside our classroom door for visitors to scan. Eventually I'd love to spearhead this being a possibility for every classroom and place of interest in our school. The end goal would be that visitors to our school could go on a self-guided tour using their mobile device or one they pick up at the front desk. Imagine the possibilities if you had your students help you design it! I hope to make this a beginning of the year activity.

7. MY Twitter
I hope to better use Social Media and Twitter to reach out to other educators.

8. Classhubz.com
I have set this up for next school year and hope to get my collegues to sign up too. I look forward to seeing how it works for me. I love that you can have signups for events and parties or for volunteers within your calendar. Great Resource. One more thing to blog about in the future. (Are you tired of me saying that yet?)

9. Classdojo.com
I plan to have my behavior management go completely paperless. Parents can sign up for emails from classdojo to track their student's behavior. Save the Trees!

10. Digital Newsletters
More paperless! No more printing! I will be attaching these to emails next year instead. Yay for the internets!


Are you planning on doing any of these things? Did one of these give you an idea? What are your tech goals for 2014-2015 school year?