Learnin' Letters

I have one small group of Kindergarteners that I serve each day after lunch.  They are quite a fun bunch, but WOW, they have a ton of energy!  *Side note: I'd like a little dose of their energy each morning!*

Anyways, with getting them after lunch, we barely have 30 minutes together before I have to take them back to class.  I had these grand ideas of doing all of these activities with them, but the reality is, if it can't be completed in less than 30 minutes, we probably won't do it. 

The main thing I'm working on with my littlest ones is letter recognition.  Each week we work on a different letter: we've just recently finished Q, R, and S, so on Monday we will start with T.  I've found some really good letter resources on the 'net and I'd love to share them with you.  :]  Enjoy, and let me know if you have any great resources you use!  I'm including stuff from when we did R last week.

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Day 1: Watch Starfall video about the letter R and then talk about it using our pocket chart in the classroom.  Then we will go to our seats and do the writing worksheet from the Starfall website.  These are all great worksheets!  Once they finish the front, I have them "read" it to me...all very simple sight words (is, for) and pictures.  I find being able to read a page to me, even if it's mainly pictures, is a great confidence boost for my kiddos. 



Day 2: Start class by remembering the sound the letter R makes.  Watch YouTube video from "Have Fun Teaching."  In all honesty, these videos are super annoying--but since it's so repetitive the kids can sing along and they really start remembering the sound of R and words that begin with that letter.  Then we brainstorm words that start with R and make chart to go with it.  Each kid them picks some of the words to write and illustrate. 

Day 3: I like to start each class with a super short clip, so normally on day 3 I'll start it off with a short Sesame Street song (this week we watched a song about "Sammy the Snake").  Then we finish writing our words and illustrating them.

Day 4: Picture scavenger hunt!  We find a pictures in a magazine that start with the letter R and make a collage.  Very fun, and then we get to see it hanging up in the classroom!

Day 5: On day 5 I like to finish off the week with some games.  We play a version of Mother May I about letter sounds/words.  I call a kid, and they have to say a word that begins with a certain letter.  We can either just do "R" words, or we can go through the alphabet.  If they get it wrong or can't think of one, they go back to the beginning.  They love this game!

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So, those are my Kindergarten plans that I tweak each week.  This particular week we only had four days, so I'm not doing the day 5 lesson.  We're going to finish off the week with our picture collage, instead.  These lessons are very simple, but the letter practice is so beneficial for my little Kinders.  Does anyone else have any favorite ways to teach letters?

Happy weekend!  :]