Hi friends, How are you today? When I taught kindergarten, I provided a word rich environment for my students. I put word labels on objects throughout the classroom, so that the students could relate the words to the objects. Of course, most students didn’t get the connection right away, but it was more and more helpful over time. When students first come into kindergarten, most do not know letters or label words for common environmental objects. Yet, after seeing these labels every day, they pick up things. For example, after learning the letter “p”, students may realize that the label on the pencil box starts with the letter “p”. After a while, they may even be able to spell the word pencils. Even if they may not learn to spell the word pencils in their kindergarten year, they may use to go to the pencil box and look at the label to get the correct spelling for the word pencils. It may get tedious to label every single thing. I mean, if a room has thousands of objects in it, you may not want to label everything. Also, make sure that it is obvious what the label is for. It may be confusing to use the label to use the word “box” on a container that you use for pencils, even if it is a pencil box, especially if you have a better representation of a box that isn’t as confusing. For example, if that is where the pencils are stored, the label “pencils” is a better fit. If you have an empty box hanging around, that is a better fit for the word “box”. It is a good idea to introduce the label words early in the year. You can either have them labeled already or use the labeling as an activity and have the students help you with the labeling. Another great tip is to use the label words as often as possible as part of your lessons. For example, if you are introducing the letter “p”, you may show the students a letter “p” and ask if anyone knows the letter. You may also ask, if anyone has noticed that letter in any of the label words. If nobody can remember seeing it, you may even want the students to take a minute or two to look around the room and then come back to share their findings. If someone says, that they saw it on the pencil box, you can say something like, “Yes. The word on the pencil box is ‘pencils’. You can see that the word pencils starts with the letter ‘p’. The letter ‘p’ makes a /p/ sound and you can hear that /p/ sound at the beginning of the word, when you say the word pencils.” Sample words to use as label words may be: folders, pencils, desk, table, chair, crayons, door, wall, books, and paper. They are ordinary objects that are often seen in a classroom. I have included this sample list of label words with this post. Feel free to use them. 
Now, it is your turn.
What other words would you like to see? How do you provide a word rich environment? What other products or topics would you like to see? Also, If you are finding value with my posts, please share them with friends and family. If you haven't signed up to get the Education Blog in your inbox yet, please consider doing so. Thank you.
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Hi friends,
How are you today? Do you have planned work to give the students who finish early or to give the class to do when you are not in the class? There will always be times when you will not be there to guide the students or will be busy with other students. So, it is good to have enrichment or review materials for students to do in every topic or skill you teach. Sometimes, it takes time to gather enrichment and review materials for every topic and skill you teach. However, it is easier when you have someone who will create these materials for you. DUO Inspirations is such a resource. If you need an enrichment activity or review materials in any particular topic or skill, please contact me. In the meantime, please, let me tell you about one of the activities that I enjoy. It is something that almost any grade can do. The activity is taking a word with quite a few letters in it or a short phrase and asking the students to make smaller words they can make out of the letters in that word or phrase. It is better if you can use a vocabulary word or topic phrase that goes with the subject you teach. Creating words out of letters of a larger word or small phrase is an important skill. It helps students to notice the letters in a word. This helps in spelling as well as reading. Here is an example I did out of the letters in the word education. There are other words. However, I thought one hundred was a nice round number. 
If you notice, most of the words are smaller words. That reinforces the fact that it can be done with success with most grade levels. Also, as you can see many of the words have prefixes or suffixes. So, this is makes a wonderful activity to review root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
I usually tell students that they cannot use slang, bad words, or proper nouns. However, you can use whatever guidelines you wish. I hope you and your students enjoy this activity. Another good idea for doing an activity like this is asking students their strategy to finding words. One of my strategies is to choose endings and look for any other words that have the same ending, such as ten and den or can and tan. Now, it is your turn. Have you ever done this activity? What are your guidelines? Do you and your students enjoy it? Also, if you find value in my posts, please feel free to share with your friends and also sign up to receive the Education Blog by DUO Inspirations in your inbox. Thank you. |
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