Letter Journals

This school year we have been working on a weekly project for our letter of the week.  It is basically a letter book and we glue various die-cuts to the pages to correspond with the sound that we are learning.  I originally got this idea from one of my colleagues during summer school, and put my little spin on it (thanks Becky :)).

I’m planning on sending this book home at the end of the year so students can share it with their parents.  Here are some pictures of the book below:

This is the cover, and I decorated it with colorful letter die-cuts and laminated it for durability.

Here is an example of the inside pages

Even if you don’t have access to die-cuts, there are many different ways that you could use this letter book.  Students could cut out pictures of items from magazines or the newspaper and glue them to the corresponding letter pages.  Also, they could simply cut out or stamp various letters on the pages as well.  Lakeshore learning also sells some great materials that would be really great to use with these letter books (what can I say, I love Lakeshore’s products :)).

I can’t find a picture to post, but these letter sound rubber stamps would be great too:  Lakeshore Learning Letter Sound Rubber Stamps.

For more great journal ideas check out this wonderful book:

This book retails as an e-book for $15.99

Happy journaling to you!

~Barb

Phonic Instruction…is there a certain way to teach letter sounds?

Someone recently posted a question on the KinderKorner email group regarding what order to systematically teach letters and letter sounds.  This is an interesting question, considering that many basal reading series do have a specific letter order in mind when teaching these concepts.  This really got me thinking and questioning the sequence of how I teach and introduce letters within the classroom.

Here is a great article on the sequence of teaching letters on Reading Rocket’s Blog:  Article, “What Sounds to Teach When?”

Here is some more information from the Standard’s Site:  Phonics and Early Reading

So what do you think?  I found this to be very interesting.  Also, I have been working lately on some new alphabet sound recognition worksheets.  I will also post these on the ABC page later.  I haven’t completed all of the letters yet, this is sort of a work in progress.

Update (9/4/2010): I have since removed the Letter Recognition practice pages.  They are now available for purchase from Teachers Pay Teacher

Discovery Bottles…

When I first started teaching (about five years ago) I remember reading an article about making Discovery Bottles out of old water or soda bottles. It sounded like such a good idea! Well over the years, I have seen some great examples of Discovery bottles on other teachers websites. I finally got around to making some of my own creations this summer. This is still a work in progress, but I thought that I would show you some of the bottles that I made so far.

Here are some pictures of the bottles that I made so far.

The number bottle contains miniature number magnets that I purchased at Dollar Tree a few years ago. I used rice as the filler.

The ABC Letter Bottle contains letter beads purchased from Wal-Mart for about $3.00 (for a pack of over 100 letters). I just placed one of each letter in this bottle. I used rice and sequins as fillers in this bottle.

The Star Word bottle is my sight word bottle. I purchased already painted wooden stars from Michael’s for about $1.50 for a package of 5. I used a Sharpie to write the words on the stars. However, not all of the stars would fit in the bottle. This was a bummer, but then I thought that maybe I could make another Star Word bottle with bottle that had a larger opening. I also used sequins and rice as a filler for this bottle as well.

The Patriotic Bottle is just a little hodge-podge of some things that I had. I purchased some flag erasers at JoAnn’s Fabric Store in their dollar spot last year and I never used them, so I thought this would be cute inside. I added red food coloring and gold glitter to the water. I also added red and blue metallic stars that I picked out of some confetti that I had lying around from a graduation party!

All of the bottles are wrapped with electrical tape and I used ribbon I purchased from Target’s Dollar spot. If you would like to print the labels here they are: discovery-bottle-labels

Here is a pdf version of the above document that has all of the cute fonts I used: discovery-bottle-labels

Oops, I almost forgot to tell you–I used Avery Clear Labels template number 8663 to make the labels that are on the bottles.

Here are some links on the web for ideas to make your own Discovery Bottles:

1. Lots of pictures and great ideas! This website is no longer available, but if you use the web archive link you can still access it: Mrs. Pohlymeyers Discovery Bottles

2. Dr. Jean has a great idea for making Family Bottles at this link:

Family Bottle Ideas

3. Dr. Jean’s Discovery Bottle Ideas. Make sure to click on the ‘Bottles to Make’ button on the left to see more ideas! Here is the link:

Dr. Jean’s Discovery Bottle Ideas

4. Check out Kinder Friend’s ideas! These are super cute! Here is the link:

Kinder Friends Discovery Bottle Ideas

5. Here is another Dr. Jean list of bottles that you can make:

More Dr. Jean Discovery Bottle Ideas