Color Words with LOTS of Freebies!

I've made it through my first month of school, and I finally feel like more of a teacher and less of a cat-herder! Happy dance time! One of my first learning goals for my kinder-kiddos is COLOR WORDS. We start by reading Pete the Cat and Brown Bear, Brown Bear.

By the way, this little joke just makes me smile!

Anyway, after reading the books, we color pictures that have color words. Students have to read the words and use the correct color. This is also a great time to practice neatness and fine motor skills. For extra help,  I give each student a color chart. They keep these in their crayon boxes so they are always handy.

Click {HERE} the get your own set...for FREE!

At stations, students...

1. Stamp color words in play dough and with ink stampers

Get this stamping freebie {HERE}.
Warning...it takes FOREVER for kids to finish. Plan accordingly  =)

2. Put together color word puzzles.

You can get these puzzles from my TPT pack...only $1.50!
What a steal!  =)

Higher students unscramble these color word sentences.

What's that? You want another freebie? Ok! {HERE} it is!

3. Play computer games with color words. 

PSA: Spelling City is a great site for this. Sign up for a free account and add a list of color words (or any other sight word). Students can play all sorts of fun games like unscrambling the letters, finding the missing letter, and a hangman-like cat and mouse game.

What are your favorite COLOR WORDS ideas??

First week exploration

Tomorrow is the end of the first week of school! Other than being TOTALLY exhausted, it's been a great week. I have a smart, sweet group who are quickly learning the ropes of kindergarten. Even though I'm very excited to work with this new batch of kiddos, I always forget how totally nonexistent their attention span is at the beginning of the year!!

To battle this, we do a lot of "room exploration" the first week of school. My students think it's play time, but really:
     1. They are learning how to use all of the materials in the classroom
     2. I am assessing what they can and can't do
     3. I'm getting a look at how they interact with others

Isn't that sneaky of me to add such productive things to playtime??

Anyway, I start exploring time by putting a different tub of math manipulatives on each table. Students had about 7 minutes to play with explore each tub. Then I rotate the tubs to the next table (The first week of kindergarten, I definitely believe in rotating the stuff, not the students). We continued until everyone has a turn.

I also did rotations with color word activities. We read books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes and talked about the color words. Then we had 3 stations:



Group 1

Group 1 had a choice: Write their color words on the white board or use cards to spell color words. I was amazed at how well the majority of my students could form their letters!



 

Group 2

Group 2 used playdoh letters to spell color words. The cards are from KinderKids'fantastic Brown Bear, Brown Bear Unit on TPT.



 

Group 3

Group 3 used magnet letters to spell their color words. This really gave me insight into who could recognize letters and realize that letters are used to make words. I also meant to get the wikki sticks out for them to use, but I forgot. Oops! That will be an adventure for another day.

All and all, the room exploring was a big hit! Now it's time to walk my poor dog who must be wondering why she's all alone during the day now. Poor baby!



These are a few of my favorite pins!

This week I've gone crazy for color words! I've taught first grade for the last few years and most of my kids knew their color words. Now that I'm going back to K, I forgot how important it is to teach color words. Therefore, I've been doing my homework this week (I love having a job where we do homework by looking on pinterest!).  Here are a few pins I've found to practice color words:

These are some AWESOME color word activities as well as other reading and

math stations using the classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Only $1! 

 

Here's another fun color word activity to use with another fun book.

Who doesn't LOVE Pete the Cat?! This printable book will

help kids read their color words in a Pete-inspired theme. 

And lastly this is my own creation. Here are a few color word station activities.

This is free for a while...until I remember to change it in my TPT store  =)

In other pinning news, my hubby and I have recently become OBSESSED with Doctor Who!!!!!!

I have to admit I have a slight Doctor crush on David Tennant. Ahhh  =) 

Anyway, I also love a good knock-knock joke, so this pin is PERFECT!

 

And for all of the ADD darlings out there...

 

This is true for my students and true for me at workshops, too!