Growing up in Michigan meant we spent a lot of time playing games indoors during the winter. Two of my most memorable games were Authors and Park and Shop. Authors was a a regular set of 52 cards with the 4 suits: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades but the graphics on the cards were classical authors like Twain, Alcott, Dickens, Shakespeare and a few others. 4 of each author’s most famous works were listed below their pictures so you couldn’t help but learn those titles for each author. The other kind of weird game for kids was Park and Shop. This board game was covered with shops like the Butcher, Tailor, Hay Grain & Feed store, and the one I remember the most, the HABERDASHERY! Really…..what 7 year old knows that word and its meaning! Throwing the dice got you moving around the board completing your shopping list. We played this one a LOT! Guess it might have been like a version of Monopoly! Playing games is a great way to learn a new skill such as math facts, vocabulary or High Frequency words. We LOVE to engage our students with a variety of learning games. Below are 6 of our most popular formats.

Game 1 – SWIPE

Swipe uses cards with any type of phonic or word skill that needs practicing. Our game below features Vowel Digraphs. A player turns over the top card and reads the word below the Snowman graphic. Play passes to the next player who turns and reads the next card. Play continues until a SWIPE card is turned over. That player can take a card from any other player! Play continues until the “SUN” card is turned and the game ends…because the sun would melt all the snowmen! The player with the most cards wins! We offer this game in a lot of different themes- bats, insects, sports, trolls etc. All come with EDITABLE cards so ANY words can be added. Check out SNOWMAN SWIPE!

Game 2 – TRICKY

Tricky is one of our students FAVORITE games! Again, we offer it in a variety of themes. Tricky involves taking a bit of a risk. Players turn over cards one at a time and read them. Hidden in the deck are several TRICKY cards. Players must decide whether to risk the cards just read and continue to draw and read words. If a TRICKY card shows up they lose the cards drawn on that turn. It’s fun to see which of your students are the risktakers and which ones are more cautious! Play continues until all cards have been played. Again the player with the most cards wins! EDITABLE cards are available with these games too. You will LOVE this Tricky game too! TRICKY SNOWBIRDIES

Game 3 – Path Games

Path games can be a lot of fun. Play is determined by the roll of a die so everyone has an equal chance to win! Cards with high frequency words are turned over and read after player has rolled and moved that many spaces. If a child can’t read the word an adult or more capable student helps them. The goal of a learning game is to learn and no one is penalized for not knowing something yet! It’s not an enjoyable experience to play something too hard…so we provide a bit of support. EDITABLE cards again are provided so you can customize the cards to suit the level of your students. Just run the cards on different colors of card stock or paper and differentiate the levels that way. SNOWBALL FUN

Game 4 – BUMPER

We modeled this game after the popular math game BUMP. Using word cards or a word spinner, players place unifix cubes on the words they draw. If another player turns over a word with an opponent’s cube on it they can BUMP them off! This is done is a joyful manner so no feelings are hurt. Children love to BUMP each other’s cubes off time and time again. Of course they must read the words each time so lots of exposure to those high frequency words takes place! EDITABLE Mats, cards and Spinners are included. Storage labels are used to organize each of the games with their “parts”. READY, SET, SNOW BUMPER

Game 5 – Roll and Cover

This is an easy prep game. 6 words are printed on both colored or Black & white mats. Dice are shown above each column. A die is rolled and players move their cubes or other “cover-ups” up to the top of the column of the number rolled and read the word. Keep going until a player reaches the top of a column. Clear the board and play again or switch to another of the 6 mats with 6 new words! EDITABLE mats are provided. WINTER ROLL & COVER

Game 6 – CVC Roll & Read

Build some CVC words and determine if they made a REAL or not! Players roll a die 3 times recording a consonant from the first, then a vowel from the second, and finally the last consonant from the third column. They use the recording sheet and then read the word. Now it’s time to determine if it formed a real word! Circle YES or NO. This is fun because our littles don’t always know what words are real! This game fits perfectly with the Science of reading CVC words. There are NO EDITABLE mats with this as we strategically placed all the consonants and vowels on the cards so that no “naughty” words would ever be formed! There are 4 different mats with each game and we have this format in LOTS and LOTS of different themes! SNOWBALLS ROLL & READ

Need a FREE game to get you started?

Just like the game above here is a free one to get you started! SNOWBALL FUN FREEBIE

Hope you are enjoying a white winter wonderland or a warm weather winter depending on your location! Happy January!

The post Winter Fun Learning Games appeared first on JK Curriculum Connection.

Learning the Alphabet Letters and Sounds

Learning all the letter names and the sounds they make is a primary skill usually taught early in the school year in Kindergarten (although sometimes introduced in a Pre-K or Transitional Kindergarten class). With only 26 letters to learn this should be a pretty easy task. Thankfully about half of the letter are fairly easy to memorize because their “sound” is closely related to their letter name. Examples are T (tuh), M (mmm), and P(puh)! Then there are those outrageous ones like H (huh) and W (wuh) and of course the C which says (kuh) and the G…not (Juh) but (GUH)….well, mostly in the CVC words that Kinders typically learn to decode first. Kind of confusing for a few of our kiddos!!

How do we go about teaching these 26 letters so they are memorized quickly without taking 26 weeks (think Letter of the Week) and the process of actually using the letters and sounds can begin? 26 weeks is almost the whole school year where there are about 30 weeks of school in most districts! Here is one product we created to help speed up this learning. Many different components reinforce the letter names and their sounds. Consistent ANCHOR pictures goes with each letter. These same pictures are used throughout all the activities so there is little confusion! 5 different types of interactive printables are included to provide lots of practice with the letters. Large teaching cards and anchor charts are also provided. This is a valuable resource that can supplement a district adopted reading curriculum easily. Find it HERE at our TPT store.

Need another ALPHABET song besides the traditional ABC song?

Are you tired of the oh so familiar ABC song? Well we were also….. sooooo we created this new song. It both introduces the letter name AND associates it with an anchor picture that clearly starts with that sound. The tune is Mary Had a Little Lamb and is so easy to learn. There are colorful pictures to go with every letter and interactive printables in 2 layouts. Students can personlize their papers with the letter starting their name or the letter of a favorite family member, toy, food, etc. Find I LIke Letters here.

Popular Center Activities for you to try

Our best selling products are a hit with many students. Included are interactive mats and cards to use in a learning center, Interactive handwriting and matching worksheets and a path game. ABC Race Cars will have your students will racing the lower case letter cars to the finish line that has the matching CAPITAL letter. Kids LOVE this one!

Comments from some teachers about these products!

“Such a cute way to help them learn the skill so that they are having fun at the same time.”

“Another fabulous unit!!! These will be perfect to use in my Kindergarten! This one is so cool to motivate learning the alphabet! Thank you!!!”

ABC Outer Space has students flying space monsters to match their spaceships. Again interactive printables and a path game are included.

Fly your lower case letter airplane to the matching UPPER case runway in this engaging center. Like the two other products above there are loads of supportive activities and path game. Click ABC Flyers.

Want to save some $ money? Get ALL 3 of these sets for the price of 2! Click BUNDLE to find it!

FREEBIE Time!

Check out this sampler of the pages included in the ABC Center product shown at the top of this blog. Click ABC Sampler FREEBIE to download this one.

Hope you enjoy the remaining days of summer break and have a great start to a new school year!!!!

The post Alphabet Letters and Sounds Activities for Beginning Readers appeared first on JK Curriculum Connection.

History of Gingerbread and the Christmas Connection

I have always wondered how gingerbread became so synonymous with Christmas so I looked it up and found some interesting information. Ginger was one of the major spices that were carried along the Spice Trade routes from India and China to Europe. (Think Marco Polo!) It is said that Queen Elizabeth I was fond of having her bakers shape the dough into caricatures of her favorite court guests. It might have been a bit unnerving to bite your own head off! Knights would receive a piece of gingerbread to bring them luck in jousting tournaments. Years later In Germany, gingerbread cookies were shaped like hearts and decorated with romantic messages. Nuremberg became known as the “gingerbread capital of the world” in the 1600s and bakers began creating elaborate masterpieces with these edible building blocks.

Gingerbread houses probably were inspired by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, when they wrote “Hansel and Gretel.” Children were intrigued with the witch’s cottage decorated with candy! Newcomers brought gingerbread to the United States and gingerbread houses became popular as Christmas decorations among German immigrants in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They used gingerbread pieces to decorate evergreen branches they brought into their winter homes to add a touch of greenery. When Christmas trees made an appearance, gingerbread cookies were used as the first ornaments. Whatever its history I sure am glad this aromatic spice has become a part of our Christmas celebrations!

A Song about the Gingerbread Man – A Complete Retelling…and a Phonics Game

The story of the Gingerbread Man is a popular story for children to read in the month of December. That tricky fox outwits the hapless gingerbread man and ends up with a delicious treat! We created a song that retells the whole story….it really does! It is easily sung to the tune “Skip to My Lou”. Included are a big book with a mini-movie that turns the pages as we sing the lyrics. A fun Phonics game, The Cookie Jar Game, is included with CVC short vowel words and EDITABLE cards. Easy to play! Students will have so much fun they won’t realize they’re practicing reading words! Find this best selling product by clicking The Gingerbread Man Song!

GINGERBREAD SWIPE

One of our popular game formats is SWIPE. This fun game is easy to learn and will become a favorite one! Gingerbread SWIPE has Short I words on the cards but there are also EDITABLE cards included. Players turn over a card and read the word. Then they take turns reading cards until someone turns over a SWIPE card. Now they get to SWIPE a word card from any other player! It is all done with a joyful spirit, of course. Once someone turns over a Game Over card the game ends and the player with the most cards wins. Find the Gingerbread Man SWIPE Game here.

CVC Picture Sorts and More!

Phonics is one of the necessary tools for learning to read and this Gingerbread Fun Center activities packet is a great way to learn to read and write CVC words. There are mats with trees and pictures on ornaments to sort onto the correct Short Vowel sound mats. Interactive printables offer many opportunities to practice reading and spelling CVC words. Use the 36 cards with missing vowels to place around the room for a “Read the Room” activity or use the cards at a center where students turn the cards over and record their answers. (The cards are color coded so you can easily provide the correct recording sheet.) Need another phonics game? A path game has the vowels on the spaces. Students turn over one of the 40 picture cards and then move to the vowel that matches the vowel sound. The game comes in both Color and B/W versions. Find this 57-page packet HERE.

Here’s a FREE Phonics Game for you to try!

Here’s a fun way to practice High Frequency words…..a TicTacToe game! Players turn over a word card, read the word, then place their cover-up on the space on the gameboard that has that word. 3 in a row and you win! Students don’t need to know how to actually play TicTacToe with any strategy because the turn of the cards determines where they place their cover-up. The words on the cards have both CVC AND CVCe words but there are also EDITABLE mats and cards so ANY words can be added! Click GINGERBREAD SWEETS Tic Tac Toe to download this free game at our TPT store.

December can be a crazzzzzzzy month for teaching but by introducing some fun Phonic Learning games your students might actually learn a little bit in spite of themselves! Be sure to find some time sit down and sip some hot cocoa or tea and eat sweet gingerbread treats…and breathe!

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