![]() ![]() You don’t need a set of rings for each student because all of your students are not going to be working on the same level of words at the same time. I always get asked how many sets of ball words I make. When a student masters one list, they simply walk over to the ball word drawers, pull out the next list and take them home. I like to break them into groups of 20 with 11 total ball word lists to master altogether. So it doesn’t really matter, you choose the words that you want for your students. When I revised Ball Words in my TpT store, I made sure that the activities and list were easily editable so that any teacher could use the list of words they needed. ![]() Some districts have their own list based on their curriculum, some use Fry and other’s may use Dolch. I realize that not everyone uses the same list of sight words. I want to give them some suggested activities that make help them make it fun and engaging for the child and the parent. Some kids have parents who can help and want to help their child. I understand that everyone has a different kind of support system at home. I do NOT expect students to practice these at home. ( You can get a copy the Parent Resource Page for Sight Words to use for your own classroom if you’d like. But once they do, I send them home with a sheet of the first set of 20 words and a letter to their parents explaining ball words along with a ‘How You Can Help Your Child At Home’ suggested activities list. And best of all, they like to work together to see their friends pass their words, too.Įach classroom is different and you certainly do not have to do things like me, but in my class, I tell my students they must master all their letters and sounds and become a ‘Top Banana’ before they can start working on ball words. I literally NEVER have to ask my students to learn their words, they want to do it. Ball words were born and the ball word craze was just the thing to make my students LOVE to master their words. It was the just the hook I needed to motivate them. I would give them a certificate and they got to put their name on a baseball and place it on our baseball champ poster. I told them, if you pass these 20 baseball words then you are a baseball champion. So for instance, the first set of 20 Dolch words I put on baseball cards. So I wondered, what would happen if I wrote the sight words on balls. well just about anything you can imagine. Youth sports just happens to be pretty active in my little community, and I knew that my students were active in T-ball and soccer and hockey and tennis. So I thought a lot about what it might be that I could use to HOOK them into wanting to master their words. I mean, I had some great activities and games and things, but they just weren’t motivated to master them. So, first of all, many years ago, when I first started teaching kindergarten, I had a really had a difficult time motivating my students to learn their sight words. Ok, to start with, let me just briefly tell you a little bit about how I teach sight words in my classroom. Sight Words! And all those unanswered questions including one about making a ‘home-school’ connection. So I want to take the opportunity to speak specifically about one of those topics today. that I might just take for granted because it’s part of my routine. Things that are just second nature to me. One of the reasons I love attending SDE’s National Conference each year is because I always come home with a ton of questions from teachers about things I never think to blog about. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |