Teaching CVC Words: What to Do When They Are STILL NOT GETTING IT

I had a wonderful time last week presenting at SDE's Kindergarten Conference for Texas Teachers and SDE's Kindergarten Conference for Mississippi Teachers!  I met lots of wonderful people, and had a chance to see another part of the world.  I am so blessed and thankful to be able to travel and have these experiences!  And it is wonderful to have the opportunity to share my ideas with others, too.  Here is one picture from the Dallas conference below!  There was another one that I had on my camera, but it didn't come out, unfortunately.
And guess what???? I'm a featured presenter at the I Teach K! Conference next summer in Las Vegas!!!! Check it out!!!!  It's July 9-12, 2012.  Download the brochure here.

Want free stuff?  Enter our video or photo contest!
All you have to do is send us a photo or a video of your students using some HeidiSongs products, and YOU can win free HeidiSongs stuff!  First prize is a $100 worth of products of your choice from our website, HeidiSongs.com.  There will be several more Honorable Mentions that will win gift certificates for $20 worth of HeidiSongs products of their choice.  The contest ends at the end of this month.  So grab your camera's and start filming!  We can't wait to see your best footage and photos!

Heidi and Lori Riley at the TX Conference for Kindergarten Teachers

And now down to business!  The question below came up on my HeidiSongs Facebook page this week shortly after I posted my blog last week.  After I answered the question, I decided that it might make a good blog entry for those of us that might have missed it!  I also added some more ideas to it at the bottom of the question.  I hope this is helpful information for those of you with students that are still struggling with this difficult to master, yet vital skill.

Question: 

I really enjoy using your songs and activity ideas in my kindergarten classroom each day. I wanted to seek your advice for a couple of my readers. They have phonemic awareness skills in place and can segment a CVC word independently, but they are unable to blend it into the word independently. If I segment the word for them, they can blend it just fine. I use the Elkonin boxes, manipulatives, etc. to help, but still they are not really making progress and they are the only ones who are unable to demonstrate this skill in my class. I would love to hear any suggestions you have. Thanks!
Michelle S. 

Answer:

Well, I assume that you have read my blog last week, right? It is all about sounding out CVC words. There are several activities for that.

 I have found, in years past, that a few kids that couldn't seem to hold the sounds in short term memory long enough to blend them together. By the time they got to the third sound, they couldn't remember the first one. That's a learning disability in my humble opinion, but please keep in mind that I am not a school psychologist.  However, in these cases, it was confirmed by our school psychologist at the time. Those children had short term memory deficits. 

Short Term Memory Issues?
To give yourself a clue as to whether a child may have short term memory issues, try this little "test."  We used to have The Three Step Direction Test that we had to give at my school.  Kids that couldn't concentrate very well had trouble with it (like ADHD), but kids with memory issues NEVER got it, even in a quiet room with no distractions. 
Give them three directions in a row, and see if they can do them.  You'll have to make sure that you have their attention when you give the directions, and get them looking you right in the eye.  Tell them that you are going to give them three directions in a row, and they will need to do them in the exact order that they are given.  You can even make up an example question and do it together first, just to clarify that they understand first. 
If I am recalling the test questions correctly, they went something like this:
1.  Stand up, turn around, and pick up a red crayon.  (You have to have several colors of crayons on a table close at hand.)
2.  Jump up and down, clap two times, and touch the floor.
3.  Pick up a yellow crayon, touch your nose with it, and put in next to the box.

I used to narrow it down to a two step direction test for some kids to see if they could do two directions in a row if they never got three steps.  Some of the kids that later wound receiving special ed services at my school were able to do some of the two step directions if they really concentrated, especially if they involved crayons, but not necessarily the other ones.  I think that this was because they were used to being given directions such as, "Sit down and pick up a red crayon."

Click here to learn more about Memory Train.

There is one iPad app that I know of that works on stretching the short term visual memory, though not auditory memory. It is called Memory Train, and my kids really love it.  If anyone knows of an iPad app that works on stretching auditory memory, please let me know!


Addressing Letter Sound Fluency
The other thing that might be happening to your kids is that having to identify the letter sounds themselves is stressing them out and making the whole process harder.  This really could be it, since you say that if you segment the word for them, they can blend it, right?  So how quickly can these children say the letter sounds when shown a letter?  Does it take a while for the child to retrieve that sound, or is it quick and automatic?  If the sound doesn't pop out of the child's mouth very quickly and fluently, that's probably your breakdown right there, and you'll need to work on that.  So get those letter cards back out and start drilling them on those letter sounds again, and try to get them to say all 26 of the letter sounds in 30 seconds or less.  The goal should be 1 second per letter.  If they cannot do that, then reading will be too slow, and fluency in sounding out the words will not come, in my experience.  If anyone knows of an iPad app that develops letter sound fluency, please let me know!  I know of lots of apps that work on letter sounds, but none that encourage the children to say them quickly.
If a child can't say anything fast-even things he or she knows very well, such as the names of common objects or colors, etc.- then I think that this is a matter of visual processing.  It is also sometimes referred to as "Rapid Naming Deficits."  Children should be able to tell you the names of things that they use daily very quickly, like in about one second.  So if you have flashcards or real objects that you know the child knows that names of, like toys, clothing, furniture, etc., then ask the child to name them for you and see how quickly the child can name them.  The child should be able to say them all fairly quickly.  If there is a lot of hesitation you may want to seek professional advice.  Children that cannot do this, often wind up having trouble naming the letters, sounds, and sight words quickly as well, no matter how well they know them.  That makes sense, doesn't it?  This impedes their ability to read fluently, so the child my need some extra help getting past that issue.

These CVC cards and pictures are from my CVC book.

Here are some other things to try!

 1.  Daily Whole Group Practice, Using Movements
I have been having my entire class practice sounding out words from a pocket chart, using Zoo-Phonics motions for the letter sounds, or the RISE motions that I made up for the blog lesson that I posted on in November.  (There is a video on my Facebook page of the movements; click here to see it.)   Nobody gets away with not doing the motions, because I start by saying, "Everybody, hands UP!"  If I notice anyone ignoring that command, I make an issue of it.  Now I know that some of the children can easily sound out the words without using their hands, but lots of them cannot.  So I insist that ALL of them do the motions.  This forces all of the ones that might prefer to "opt out" of this activity and just sort of daydream while we do it to focus and think.  No hands in the pockets, no hands in the laps.  No picking at the fingers, clothing, shoes, or jewelry.  Eyes up, hands up, here we go.  Got it?

In addition to the daily practice, which has obvious benefits, my thought is that the children that know how to do it are modeling this process for the ones that don't understand.  And often times, a child modeling a skill for another child is better than an adult modeling a skill for a child.  I have heard this lots of times from teachers in the past.  If a teacher cannot explain a skill to a child, then sometimes another child might be able to do it and get the point across.  

*  I have decided that when we do this that some of my higher kids are giving away too many answers too fast.  In fact, the other children are basically letting them do practically all of the work, and the children that need more processing time to come up with the answers really aren't getting enough time to even think.  So I have sent them to go read books while we do this for five minutes.  I explained to them, and to the rest of the class, that they already know it, and I want the rest of the class to have a chance to think.  Guess what?  Suddenly the rest of the kids are all enthusiastically shouting out the answers!  I think that some of the other kids want to be included in that "elite" group.  Hmmm.....  :)

Daily whole group practice can make a difference.  Add movements to insure all children stay focused.

*  My class is getting really, REALLY good at sounding out words when we do them in word families, going DOWN the chart, like this:  pot, dot, hot, got.  Then pot, pop, fox, dot, hop, box, etc.  So we are reading down the chart first, and then going across the chart, to mix up the word families.  It is SO much harder when you mix up with word endings (and vowels)!

2.  Dumb Things That (Sometimes) Work
My kids love to pop bubble wrap bubbles, so when I get something in the mail that is wrapped in bubble wrap, I save it.  Then, in small groups, each time one of them sounds out a word, I let them pop one of the bubbles.  The added bonus is that it develops fine motor skills by working those finger muscles as well.  :)

3.  Tell Them Your Fingers SING!
Try running your fingers under the words while they sound out the words.  This is the routine that we were given from the SIPPS program, and it is a good one:  the teacher says, "Sound," and starts running the finger under each letter.  The child says each letter sound as you run your finger under it.  Then you do it again, but a little faster.  Hopefully, the child will start to blend them together.  If not, I tell them, "My fingers make the letters sing.   Help me make the letters sing."  Then do it again, and see if the children start singing the letter sounds.  This often makes them blend the letter sounds together as they are singing the sounds.

This is the free download paper that we used from last week's blog entry.

The other thing that helps is that when we practice the alphabet sounds, we do the same thing:  Just say, "Sound," and run your finger under the letter from left to right while the kids say it.  The only difference is that there is only one letter on the card.  If you want them to give the letter name instead, say, "Letter."

I keep all of my CVC flashcards in a binder like this.

4.  Once a Child Sounds Out a Word, Have Them Do It AGAIN IMMEDIATELY
I started doing this last year with a child who was really struggling, poor thing!  He finally got one word sounded out, and I thought to myself, "Maybe I'll give him success by having him do the same word in a row."  Much to my surprise, he could not do it a second time in a row!  I was stunned.  He said, "No, I can't," and groaned and moaned, even though he had JUST told me the answer!  So now, with the ones that are struggling so terribly, I will sometimes have them go back to the very same word that I just gave them, and do it again.  (And again, and again, and again!)   I tell them, "Show me how you do that one more time," just to solidify it in their minds.  "Or, let's practice doing that again.  Show me how you sound that word out."
Another way to approach it is to put that very word into the "Sound It Out" song on Little Songs for Language Arts CD.  Just change the words so that you have the child singing the word that you want him to sound out, rather than the words that are on my CD.  That should really help a lot; even my students that are struggling the most can sound out the words that we sound out on that song!

CVC flash cards are stored by word family in baseball card sleeves!

5.  Try a Different Movement
Have your kids touch their shoulder for the first sound, then their middle arm (or elbow) for the second sound, and their hand for the last sound.  Then blend the sounds together by sliding their hand all the way from their shoulder to their hand.  This variation of movements helps some kids get it.

We practice sounding some sight words out daily, with movements whole group.

6.  Try a New Game
Sometimes adding in some novelty helps a child practice something that they have already practiced a hundred times before.  My kids love velcro!  I think that they love it because of that funny sound it makes when you pull it apart.  We now have CVC Spelling Puzzles, and my kids really LOVE them!  Yes, they are very similar to the the CVC Pockets, but in this case, there is the visual clue of the puzzle piece that helps the child know where to put the piece down, and that always helps.  They are just a tad easier than the CVC Pockets.  Click here to try a few!

These are our CVC Puzzles.  They attach with velcro.

Our new CVC Pockets are a hit with my kids!

7.  Read My Lips
This activity is done to practice blending the sounds together without necessarily looking at the written letters. 
Have kids watch your lips make all three sounds in succession while you say the sounds.  Make sure you get their attention focused right on your mouth before you begin.  I usually tap my mouth with my finger or the end of my pencil, and say, "Watch my mouth."  Then I look them straight in the eye and make the sounds.  Then I tell the child, "Now say that back to me."  After they do, then ask them to speed it up and say it faster. 
The idea here is that you have got the child to use a little bit of lip reading as a visual clue to help them identify the sounds that they are hearing.  Once the child has identified the sounds that he has heard, (and you'll know this because he or she has repeated them back to you,) then he can start to blend them together for you.  Hopefully, then, you won't get children telling you things like /sssssss/ /iiiiii/ /t/ is the word "pig."  When children are taught to focus on the speaker's lips when that person is talking, then it teaches them a new way to pay attention and listen.  And if a child has auditory processing problems, this can be a real life saver.

8.  Try a New Teaching Routine
Here is another routine that I was taught to use as part of our SIPPS program.  It is sometimes helpful to the low kids, especially- although the high kids do get impatient with it, I have found!
1.  When teaching, first model the new skill twice.
Example:  "My turn.  /fffff/ /iiiii/ /sssshhhhh/."
 "My turn again.  /fffff/ /iiiii/ /sssshhhhh/."
 2.  Then have the kids do it with you twice.
Example:  "Together:  /fffff/ /iiiii/ /sssshhhhh/."
"Together again:  /fffff/ /iiiii/ /sssshhhhh/."
3.  Then have the kids try it alone- twice, of course!
Example:  "Your turn.  /fffff/ /iiiii/ /sssshhhhh/."
"Your turn again.  /fffff/ /iiiii/ /sssshhhhh/."

If they don't get it, you are supposed to start over with this routine.  I don't know if I buy into that whole "Start over and try it again from the beginning, no matter what, forever and ever" theory, though.  For me, if something doesn't work with a child fifteen times in a row, trying it a sixteenth time seems like the definition of insanity to me. But I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

More Tricks for Sounding Out CVC Words

We practice sounding out words every day as whole group
on this pocket chart from ReallyGoodStuff.com

In November, I posted a blog entry on teaching children to sound out CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words.  And like most Kindergarten classes, we are still working on mastering that skill.  While most of my kids are doing fairly well with this, there are still a few little ones that are struggling to figure out how to blend sounds together.  These are mostly the younger ones with the fall birthdays, so it is really not their fault at all, poor babies!  But, the California State Standards were written for everybody- no matter when their birthdays fall- and so I am responsible for teaching all of them to sound out CVC words.  It doesn’t matter if English is not their first language, or if they only just barely turned five years old at the end of November.  It doesn't matter if on top of that they were born prematurely, or may have a learning disability, or have any number of other problems you can imagine.  It makes no difference if their parents are uninvolved in their schooling or if their attendance is poor.  (Thankfully, this describes very few of my students!)  None of those things matter, except that I am responsible to make sure that everyone meets all of the state standards, to the best of their ability and my ability to teach them.   So here are some of the things that we have been doing in our little after school tutoring group to help build up their phonemic awareness and therefore get them closer and closer to being able to sound out CVC words.

Phonemic awareness forms the foundation for language arts in general, but especially for sounding out words.  So when I have trouble getting kids to sound out words, I always remind myself to back up and see where they have fallen short on their journey to become readers.  All of the bricks (skills) in the foundation must be in place if they are going to be able to sound out words.  If they are having trouble, then there must be something missing.  So what is it?  I try to identify the gaps and see if I can fill them in.

Phonemic Awareness Skills Progression:
1.  Blending parts of compound words
(play + ground = playground)
2.  Blending initial sound to rest of word in longer words
(/m/ + arshmallow = marshmallow)
3.  Blending initial sound to rimes in shorter words
(/m/ + at = mat)
4.  Blending 3 phonemes/sounds in context
("I like to /r/ + /u/ + /n/" =
"I like to run.")
5.  Blending 3 phonemes
(out of context)
(/b/ + /a/ + /t/ = bat)

The natural progression after this step is that if a child knows the letter sounds, he would then be able to say the letter sounds him or herself and then sound out the words.  The activities below are based on this progression of phonemic awareness skills, and the idea that once they master each of the preliminary skills, they should then be able to sound out words- with a little practice, anyway! The only difference between these activities and any other phonemic awareness activities is that I am doing them with the very same sounds and words that I am trying to teach them to read, rather than any random sounds or words that I might pull out of the air.  This is VERY important!  For example, since I might be ultimately trying to teach them to read the word "fat," I would work on blending just the /f/ and the /a/ sound in the first activity below.  Then, if I am also working on the word "sat," then I would have them blend the sounds /s/ and /a/ in the first activity below, etc.

1.  Guess My Silly Sound
For this activity, I simply took any two sounds, such as /fffff/ and /aaaaa/ and said them out loud.  Then I called on a child to blend them together to make a funny sound, which in this case would be “fa.”  For some reason, my students this year find it easier to blend the words together if the vowel comes first and the consonant comes last. 

2.  Guess My Secret Word

This is my CVC book.
You can also get it on a disk, which gets you
the printable CVC bingo games with it, too!

For this activity, I just took the CVC flash cards from the unit in my CVC book that we are working on at the moment and just read each child the sounds from each card.  I simply told each child the sounds of each word without showing them the letters, and asked them to blend the sounds together to make a word.  If they didn’t get it, I started giving them contextual clues.  For example, if the word was “dig,” then I might say, “This is something a naughty dog does in the garden.”   If the word was “pig,” I might say, “This is a farm animal that loves the mud.” I've attached a sample of the "at" word family flashcards from this set for you to try.



3.  Stretch Out the Word
The goal of this activity is to get the children to be aware of every sound in the word; (hence the term “phonemic awareness.”)  For this activity, I have the children put their hands up in front of them and show me how they are going to stretch out their words.  Then we pretend to stretch out some rubber, stretchy snakes as we pull the sounds of the words apart.  I say, “Say ‘fat.”  Sound ‘fat.”  Then the children begin to pull on their imaginary rubber snakes until we have isolated all of the sounds in the word.  After we have done this for a few words, then I pass out some REAL stretchy snakes, and let them try it with some real ones!  The kids LOVE this, and when we have stretched out our CVC words, I let them play with the rubbery snakes a little bit. 

4.  Build the Word with "CVC Pockets"

For this activity, I have the children take one of our new CVC pockets and pull the letters out of the envelope.  Then they have to try to put them in the correct order that they go in.  So for the word “lip,” we would not want to see the p coming first, etc.  They have to think about each sound and where it should go when putting it back together.  Then they have to try to read the word to me!


5.  Write the Word and Sound It Out By Pushing Up Chips
I learned this gem of a trick from my new friend, Janice Lawson, who is a retired Kindergarten teacher that has come to volunteer in my room one day a week!  I asked her if she would work with a couple of my students that were struggling with sounding out words, and she pulled out this activity from her bag of tricks that she used when she taught Kindergarten in Baldwin Park, CA.

This is Janice's board for sounding out CVC words!

She said that she felt that it was important for the children to write the words that they were going to practice reading themselves, to help them better focus on the letters.  Then she asked me for some blocks or chips to use as markers, and had the children push them up as they said the sounds, one block at a time.  Then they pushed the blocks together and tried to blend the sounds together as they did it.  For my two lowest little ones, this really unlocked the secret of sounding out words!  She said that they needed the kinesthetic element to help them remember and focus on the sounds.  She also mentioned that the chips had to be something very boring, or the children (especially the boys!) would just play with them.  She usually used poker chips.

This is my paper and the blocks that I used to sound out words with the kids.

I was so excited to see that something was actually working for these two little students, because I had been trying absolutely everything I could think of, and getting practically no where!  So during after school tutoring, we tried it again!  I handed out white boards to the group and had them all write a word.  Then we put the blocks on the boards and pushed one block up on each letter for each sound as we said it.  Then we pushed the blocks together to sound out the word.  All of the children responded very well to this!  The only problem was that it resulted in an erased word on the white board!  So we put away the white boards and switched to paper and pencil and started over.  We did one word together, and then did a second word.  After our first word, we went back and read the first one again, using the blocks as before.  Then we did a third word, and went back and reread the first two words again with the blocks, etc.  We did several words, but each time we finished a word, we went back and reviewed the previous words.

This is what one of my student's paper's looked like.  You can see how difficult it was for them to get the words spaced out correctly and the letters written legibly.

At the end of the session, I asked the children to read the words to me individually, without the blocks.  All of them could do it, except for my two lowest children that I had my friend Janice work with.  So I got out the blocks and let them try it again with the blocks.  Guess what?  THEY DID IT!  I was THRILLED!  They have sounded out a few words for me before, but they have been mostly words that they have memorized- not truly sounded out.  So this is wonderful news!  Hats off to Janice and her great ideas!  I can’t wait to learn more from her!

I decided that to make this a little easier next time, I’m going to make up a printable with some blank boxes for the children to write their letters in.  I’m also going to number them, so that when I ask the children to read the first or second word, we all know which one to read!  The children were writing their words all over their papers and it was hard to keep them all on the same word at the same time.  Some of them also were making their letters too small and too close together for the blocks, and I think that putting one letter in each box will solve a lot of these problems.  If you would like a copy of this printable, click here.

Of course, the idea of pushing chips into boxes for each sound is not a new one; these boxes are known as Elkonin boxes.  But I have never thought of using them with letters inside of them; I have only thought of using them as blank place holders to represent a sound in a word.  In this case, the letters are written down, and the child moves the chip on top of the letter while saying the sound, so it is slightly different than the original idea of Elkonin boxes as I understand them.

6.  Read the Word and Match It to the Picture
Finally, I have the children try to read me the CVC word by sounding it out.  No guessing allowed-they MUST sound it out!  Then they come up to the pocket chart and find the picture that matches their word. 

The pocket chart with flash cards from my CVC book.

7.  Reading CVC Nonsense Words
When the children get more proficient at this, I am definitely going to introduce them to the concept of reading nonsense words!  I know that, at the moment, they are trying to make sense of what they are reading, and that is good.  But I do think that in order to develop some good, solid phonics skills, they will need to be able to decode nonsense words.  This is because when a child attempts to decode a longer, multisyllabic word, each syllable inside of it is essentially a nonsense word- and that’s why nonsense words are important.  I use the Word Blending Pocket Chart pictured below from ReallyGoodStuff.com.

A Draw and Tell Story

I had an absolutely wonderful time last weekend at the California Kindergarten Association!  I got to meet so many wonderful people, including Dr. Jean, Fran Kramer from the Kindergarten Crayons, and Cindy Vance from For the Love of Kindergarten, Camille from An Open Door,   Kat from Kindergarten Cowgirl.  Also in our group were Stacy and Jennifer, who both teach Kindergarten, but do not blog- yet, LOL!  We all went to dinner together and chatted up a storm like old friends.  It was great fun for us, though probably not so much fun for the rest of the people in the restaurant, I'll bet!  (I'm sure we were WAY too loud!)  
In any case, the entire weekend was very special and fun for me, since I got to meet so many people that are dedicated "HeidiSongs Fans" and so many stopped by to tell me how much they like my work and appreciate what we have done to help children.  It really made me feel great, and it was just what I needed!  So by the time we made it home late Sunday night, I was very tired but happy.  :)


Don't forget about our video and picture contest!  
Hey, everybody!  YOU can win free stuff from HeidiSongs just by sending in some videos or photos of your students OR your own kids using HeidiSongs products!  I would especially love to see a video of some special needs students singing some HeidiSongs, if anyone has any! More details are HERE!

Prizes Include:
–– 1 Grand Prize:
* $100 credit toward your choice of any HeidiSongs product*
–– 5 Honorary Mention Prizes:
* Any CD, DVD or resource from the HeidiSongs catalog, up to $20 credit toward any product*


 A Draw and Tell Story:  The Curious Little Mouse
I have been wanting to write a “Draw and Tell” story for quite a while and share it on my blog, but the thing that has been holding me back is the need to break the artwork for the story down into tiny steps and save each one as a separate step.  That takes a while!  I also wanted this story to be seasonally appropriate, but not holiday oriented so that everyone might be able to use it.  I keep hearing from teachers that are unable to use any lesson plans that have a connection to a holiday, etc.  My school doesn’t have any such restrictions (at least not so far!)  Nobody really seems to care or object if the children make a Santa project or a candy cane.  BUT, I do feel bad for those of you that teach in places where that is a no-no.  So, with that in mind, I created a story about a mouse and a snowman.  Hopefully, nobody has found a reason to object to a mouse or a snowman, other than the fact that they may be a little too cute or a little too much fun.  If your administration objects to things that appear to be even a little remotely cute or fun, then when you get to the face on your snowman, draw a straight line instead of a smile, and maybe that will appease the powers that be, ha ha!  Then ask a lot of higher level thinking questions at the end of the story.  That’s always a good idea anyway, right?  If you would like to download this story, click here.  


To tell this Draw and Tell story, this is what you need:

1.  A large piece of white paper, or a white board easel.
2.  A marker.
3.  The downloadable story.
4.  Some kids to listen.  That’s it!

I always start by telling them that my story is going to create a picture, and if they guess what my picture is before the end of the story, they will need to keep it a secret and don’t tell their friends, because they might spoil the surprise for somebody else.  We don’t tell everyone what is inside a Christmas present, right?  It’s better when it’s a big surprise!  Then, each time you tell part of the story, you draw a part of the picture.  All you have to do with my story is copy the part of the picture that is printed in red.  My story forms a snowman in the end, which is supposed to be a big surprise.
Of course, two minutes into it, one little boy interrupted my story and yelled out, it looks like a snowman!  I don’t know how he could have gotten that from two little squares on a white board, but he did!  (It's possible he saw my paper on the clipboard.)  Luckily, I just shushed him, the class ignored him, and the children of course enjoyed the story anyway, despite the spoiler.



It’s best to practice telling the story once on your own without the kids, just to make sure you know what to do.  You’ll also tell it more fluently and draw the pictures a little bit better if you have done it before.  But the children won’t care if it looks rather childish.  They will LOVE it!  I find that children are usually MESMERIZED when I tell a Draw and Tell story!

I have told lots of them in the past; just never one that I have written myself.  In fact, there are whole books full of them.  One of my favorites is a Book by Richard Thompson, called Draw-And-Tell: Reading - Writing - Listening - Speaking - Viewing - Shaping.  You can find used copies on Amazon.  You just have to figure out ahead of time how each picture and story goes, because they are a bit more complicated than mine.  Happy teaching!

A Brand New HeidiSongs Book!

It's my brand new full color picture book!

Well, I’m now at the California Kindergarten Association Conference, and I am so excited to present this afternoon!  I flew in from Dallas last night, arriving just in time to catch a glimpse of their wonderful art children's art display.  I sent in two art projects that I saved from my class last year, and here they are:



I had a wonderful day meeting with the teachers at the Lamb of God Preschool on Friday, who are just about the nicest group of teachers I have ever worked with!  If any of you got a better picture than the one I got below, please send it to me!  Mine didn't focus very well.
Then I had a quick flight out of town into the San Fransisco International Airport.  Whew!  Busy, busy, busy!  But not too busy to tell you about some things that are happening this week!

The Lamb of God Preschool Staff and Heidi (Front and Center)

First of all, our new website has my first full color story book on it, called Alphabet Action!  I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally have this accomplished!  Some of you may remember seeing me post a little about this process on my HeidiSongs Facebook page.  Having never published a story book before, it was an interesting process for me to go through.  Luckily for me, my husband used to work in the publishing business, (though he was creating catalogs and other products, not little books), so he is knowledgeable about how to go about this sort of thing.

My book is now in our school library!

As you might guess from the title, my book is based on the song, Alphabet Action, that can be found on the Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds CD and DVD, and also as a “Bonus Track” on my Musical Math CD and DVD.  My husband found a wonderful illustrator to work with named Amanda Sorensen, came up with a contract, and together we generated ideas of what each page might look like.  These ideas were emailed to Amanda, who then sketched out a couple of ideas for each page and emailed them to us for approval and to make a choice between one or another before proceeding.  When we had a concept for each page that we all were happy with, she then completed the page and sent it back again for approval.



Last fall, I posted some pictures on my Facebook page of the proofs that the printer ran for us (larger than posters!) These showed multiple pages on a couple of very large sheets of paper, and were given to us by the printer for our approval, of course.  After we were (very) sure that there were no mistakes in the book at all, we gave the thumbs up for printing!  When the books were finally printed and we received the first box full, it was SO exciting to see a full color book with my picture on the back of it, and my name on the front as the author!  It feels just GREAT!

So I took the book to school last fall, and read it to my kids.  They were just thrilled to see my picture on the back, and they loved to read the story!  It makes a really wonderful listening center to use with the CD!  We also sang it and read it along as a class while we danced along with the CD, too.  It’s now in our classroom book center, but I’m planning on getting it out again this spring when the children do a little bit more with publishing their own little books.  I was thinking of printing out some extra little pictures of the children, sitting at tables and getting ready to write with a pencil, etc.  Then we could glue their own “author pictures” on their books, too!  I think that it would be extra meaningful for them, considering that they have all seen my picture on the back of the Alphabet Action book now, too!  And now here is another story that I have written for you to try out in your classroom, if you like!

An Experiment with Candles, and Lessons About Fire, Plus a new Video Contest!

Ah, vacation is lovely!  This extra week of being on vacation is as nice as that extra week of being in school right before Christmas was hard- if that makes any sense at all!  I am soaking it all in, because January is absolutely filled to the brim with lots of great teaching activities in the classroom, plus conferences to go to as well!  Next week on Friday, I will be doing an on-site training at a preschool in the Dallas area.  So here's a shout out to the Lamb of God Early Childhood Ministry in Flower Mound, Texas!  I can't wait to meet you all!  Then I am flying (lickity split!) from Dallas to San Francisco that evening so that I can present at the California Kindergarten Conference in Santa Clara, CA!  My husband will pick me up at the airport, and I will be doing two presentations there on Saturday afternoon.  If any of you would like to attend, I will be presenting "Developmentally Appropriate Ways to Get Kids Writing," and also on teaching kids the alphabet with my Singable Songs for Letters and Sounds CD/DVD.  
At the end of this month, I will be presenting in Addison, TX, at SDE's Conference for Texas Kindergarten and Pre-K Teachers, and then at SDE's Conference for Mississippi Kindergarten Teachers!  For a full list of all of the conferences that I will be presenting at this year, please click here.  There are a bunch!  And did you know that I do staff development presentations for individual districts, as well as at educational conferences?  I would love to come to YOUR district and meet YOU!

So now I am going to tell you about some experiments that we did with candles during that last week in school before Christmas vacation.

I always like to read a fiction book to launch a discussion in science whenever possible, just as a means to pique their interest.  And this time, I used the book, The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie de Paola.  I usually use this book to introduce the poinsettia and then do a poinsettia craft, but this time I used it to launch a discussion of candles and fire, since there are lots of images of candles in this book.

I got the idea for the first experiment from Pinterest!  There are SO many great ideas to be found there!  So I recreated this experiment to show children what fire needs in order to burn.  The idea is that children should learn that fire needs heat, air, and fuel, and without any one of these elements, it will go out.

All you need are some birthday candles, something to hold them up, such as modeling clay or "Floam," and a lighter.  You'll also need a pair of scissors to cut one of the candles down to the end, otherwise you'll have to let your class sit and watch for a good long time while that last candle burns completely out!  I cut mine down to about half an inch, and even that took a good four minutes to burn completely out, so if your class' attention span is short, then cut it the shorter the better!  Then get a glass jar and remove the label so that everyone can see what is happening inside of it, and a glass of water.  Also, be sure to keep a fire extinguisher and a bowl of water handy, just to be on the safe side!

Start by making sure that your students know that this is not a game and that they must NEVER play with matches or fire.  This is about how to put OUT a fire, and why "Stop, Drop, and Roll" works.  Light all three candles.  And then...

Place the glass jar over the top of the first candle and watch the flame go out.  Ask the children why it went out.  Hopefully they will guess that it ran out of air!

Then pour a cup of water on the second candle and watch it go out.  Ask the children why it went out, and hopefully they will guess that it had no heat!  (You could also argue that we took away the air for a moment, but I guess that's debatable!)

Then let that last candle burn down to nothing.  It should be pretty obvious to the children why it went out; there was nothing left to burn!  The only thing my class lacked was the word "fuel" and a way to describe what had happened.  "Fire needs fuel in order to burn.  If you take away the fuel, it cannot burn."  

All of this will be leading to a discussion that we will be having in January about why "Stop, Drop, and Roll" works:  if your clothes catch on fire, when you roll yourself around and around, you are taking away the fire's air, and it needs air in order to burn.  Makes sense, doesn't it?  I think that once kids understand this principle, they will be far more likely to remember to do, and should be safer, at least in theory!

Here's a quick video of our experiment.  I cannot show you the one we did in our classroom, due to district rules, but I can tell you that the children were entirely fascinated and absolutely LOVED it!  Some of them loved the experiment so much that they wanted to repeat it over and over again during their playtime, which we did, with my supervision, of course!

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HeidiSongs Sing-Along Video & Photo Contest

Submit a video or photo of your students singing one of their  favorite HeidiSongs songs or working with one of their favorite HeidiSongs activities... and win some cool stuff  for the whole class to enjoy!

Well we're doing it again.... this time were adding photos so everyone can participate! It's so easy, and there is plenty of good stuff to win, I hope everyone will get in on the fun!

Here's how to enter:
1: Check with your parents and principal to see if there are any issues with shooting and posting the students' likenesses to an educational blog. My parents get a kick out of seeing their kids on our website, but sometimes you'll get a parent who is "undecided" about media issues like this, and it's best to involve them in another activity during this time.

2: Have your class choose their favorite Heidisongs song or activity, then pull out your digital camera, digital video camera or even a cell phone, any device that lets you post or email easily. If you're shooting video, be sure to use a tripod or brace yourself well, since many of these devices don't handle motion very well, and we want to see your classroom at it's best!

3: Send us the file with the following information: Your name, your school, and the state your in, plus an email address that we can contact you with. If the file size is larger than about 1-2 mb, we use a service called MailBigFile (http://free.mailbigfile.com/) to easily send larger files up to 200mb, then send them to contest@heidisongs.com. If you have any questions, just drop us a line at the same address and we'll help in any way possible.

That's all we'll need. We'll announce the winners in early March. The Winners may even get a spot in one of Heidi's presentations this year or a featured location on the website, showing off just how great your class is!

Prizes Include:
–– 1 Grand Prize:
* $100 credit toward your choice of any HeidiSongs product*
–– at least 5 Honorary Mention Prizes:
* Any CD, DVD or resource from the HeidiSongs catalog, up to $20 credit toward any product*

Eligibility
Contest open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, 18 years or older.

Contest Runs From January 1st, 2012 to February 29, 2012, so get those cameras running!

Officials Rules are available here.

Special thanks to Julie Durocher's Kindergarten class at Memorial Elementary School (Yellow Song), and Mary Gregory Family Child Care (Go Song).

Another Science Center: Marvelous Magnets!

If you have been following my blog this year since September, you may have remembered me mentioning that I have been trying to keep an independent science center going all year long!  This is mostly because I am preparing for a new presentation on Science Centers that I will be giving at the I Teach K! Conference next summer in Las Vegas, Nevada.  My goal is to collect and present ideas that take little or no prep time, with materials that most of us probably have in the classroom already!  So I have been trying out ideas and trying to work the kinks out of each of them.  Well, in December, we spent a little time on magnets in our science center.  In addition to painting with magnetic marbles, here’s what we did:

My Magnet Collection

Week One- Explorations with Magnets
The first week, I let them simply explore my collection of magnets.  Now for my students, this is a real treat, because I usually only let them play with my special magnets as rewards, and this is the first time I set them out for the whole week!  I have some neat Hematite Magnets that are so strong that you can wrap them around your wrist like a bracelet, some “Rattlesnake Egg” magnets, (also known as “Singing Magnets,”) that make a buzzing sound when they touch, and some “Floating Rings,” that are actually flat magnetic disks with a hole in the middle.  When you put them in the correct order on a small post that they are sold with, they repel each other and therefore float in midair!  Plus, there are a bunch of miscellaneous magnets that are just plain fun to experiment with, so week one of pure exploration was wonderful! And they would have been very happy with two full weeks of nothing but this!

The pipe cleaners must be short:  1/2 inch long!

I also had seen a neat idea on Pinterest in which somebody had cut up a bunch of pipe cleaners into small pieces and put them into an empty soda bottle.  The idea is that when you hold a magnet up the side of it, all of those colorful pieces follow the magnet!  So I decided to try to make one of these as well.  I’m not sure if my empty soda bottle happened to be made of a little bit thicker plastic than usual, but my strongest, best magnets had a little bit of trouble pulling up the pipe cleaners in big bunches the way the picture on Pinterest showed!  It could also have been a case of my pipe cleaners not having enough iron inside them to be firmly attracted to the magnet, too!  But I guess figuring that out is an experiment for another day.  I actually had to try to dump out all of the pieces of pipe cleaner that were cut perhaps a bit too large (not so easy!), and then cut them in half to make them lighter.  Luckily, I received the help of a high school girl who happened by after school, thank goodness!  Once the pieces were cut into approximately half inch strips, they were much easier manipulate via the magnet through the plastic.

My Magnetic Vs. Non-Magnetic Sorting Collection

Week Two- Sorting by Magnetic and Non-Magnetic
The next week of centers, I had them experiment with trying to figure out what common items will attract a magnet and what will not.  I instructed the children to first predict what they thought would happen with each item, and then sort it into the correct basket.  I had a red basket labeled with a sign that said, “Does not attract a magnet,” and a green basket labeled, “Attracts a magnet.”  If you would like a copy of these signs, you may download them here!

I had a little bit of trouble at first, trying to figure out what to put in the collection of things for them to experiment with.  The things that did NOT attract a magnet were easy to find.  The others were not as easy!  So then I had a brainstorm:  I took my strongest magnet and ran it through the top drawer of my incredibly cluttered desk, and it picked up TONS of items that attract a magnet!  And many of these turned out to be non-toxic and safe items for children to handle, LOL!  Once I established this methodology, it became much easier to find things in my classroom that attracted a magnet.  I just kept a magnet in my hand and ran it over everything I could see!  (Duh!)  Here is a list of a few of them:

Attracts A Magnet:
tongs (two different kinds)
nuts and bolts
a shelf holder (the kind you shove into a hole in a bookshelf to hold a shelf where you want it)
paper clips of all sizes
pipe cleaners
O-rings
Tweezers
Clothespins (the metal hinge is sometimes made of iron)
Some Ink pens have metal cases
Some metal buttons
A belt buckle

Does NOT Attract a Magnet:
(These are the things that I included that I thought would be interesting for the children to experiment with)
Glitter in a baby food jar
Keys (I never found one made of iron)
Metallic looking beads
Plastic buttons
A penny, nickel, and dime
Tongue depressors
Rubber bands
An egg timer
Pine cone, acorns
Crayons, markers, pencils
Marbles
Fake gems and polished river rocks


A few people have asked me if I ever plan on writing any science songs to add to the collection on our website!  The answer is yes- I do hope to write some, and I have a short list of ideas so far.  And I already have a few that I am already using:  there are Season Songs on the Little Songs for Language Arts CD/DVD, and the Wide Mouthed Frog Play's overture is actually a song about the life cycle of the frog!  The Number Eight Spelling Song on Sing and Spell Vol. Five keeps telling the kids over and over that there are eight legs on a spider, so I sing that one when we study spiders.
If you have a topic for this CD that you would like included, please let me know!  I don't know when I will be starting it, but I hope to get to it sometime in 2012!

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Twas the Week Before Christmas And....

...We were still in school.  In all of my teaching career, I have never tried to teach school right up through December 23rd!  I decided to try to consider it a personal challenge to see how much I could actually get done, despite the fact that all anyone seemed to be able to think about was the impending holidays and celebrations.  Each day, we updated our calendar and counted the remaining days.  I was ever more astounded as we got closer and closer to the Big Day, and found myself and the children STILL there, staring each other in the eyes.  (I don’t know why, I just was!)  I really expected attendance to be quite poor as the holiday approached, but in fact it was not!  I am inclined to think that parents were probably grateful to have their children taken care of while they did all of their holiday preparations, LOL!  Not one child was taken away for an extended trip out of the country or for any type of vacation.  Amazing!  Kudos to my class and their amazing parents! 

Decorations for the Gingerbread Man Play

My class performed my Gingerbread Man play on Wednesday last week, and they were absolutely AWESOME!!!!  They were so cute that I have no words to describe it!  And I was SO looking forward to sharing some photos of my beautiful children with you here today, but alas, I have been informed by my district office that I can no longer do this here nor on my HeidiSongs Facebook page. Despite the fact that the parents have all given permission, it violates a district rule that I was unaware of.  So instead, I will make the best of it and share with you some of the wonderful and sometimes funny things that happened this week!  Also, I would like to show you what a beautiful job our parent volunteers did decorating our stage for the play, as you can see in the photo above!  Our FIVE kindergarten classes all performed the play, and most of these decorations were made by some wonderfully creative parents from another Kindergarten class!  I understand that they spent about twelve hours painting them and putting them together.  Wow!  This is just one small example of the amazing culture of volunteerism that exists at my school.  Also, since I can no longer show you video clips from my own class, we have inserted clips from other schools that have uploaded their productions to youtube from all over the nation.  We found many!  If you would like to send us pictures or video clips of your class using HeidiSongs products, we would love to feature them in our blog sometime!  So send them on over!



Our Gingerbread Man Play
*  I was having trouble getting my students to face the audience while they were sitting on the steps of the stage, waiting for their turn to go up on the stage, sing, and chase the Gingerbread Man.  They always want to turn around and watch their friends sing and chase, etc.  Some of them even literally stand up on the steps and climb up to stand on the stage to watch!  So I finally told them, “Your parents came to see the CUTE side of you, not the NOT CUTE side of you!  This is the cute side of you:  (I pointed to my smile.)  This is the NOT CUTE side of you.  (I turned around and showed them my back side, and the class roared with laughter.)  Then I said, “Okay, show me your cute side.  (They pointed to their smiles.)  Show me your not cute side.”  (They all turned around on their knees and showed me their tushies, of course!)


 Guess what?  It worked!  In all of the years I have been doing this play and the others, such as the Mitten, the Wide Mouthed Frog, I have had this problem and not been able to solve it very well.  And this one finally worked!  Hooray!



*  My little guy that played the Gingerbread Man this year had a little sister that just turned three who somehow managed to learn all of the motions and words to the play.  (I think that they may have a DVD of the play at home, since his older brothers and sisters were all in my class as well!)  Anyway, on the day of our play, his mother brought her along, and I suggested that she dress his little sister up in an extra elf costume that I had, just for fun.

Our Itty Bitty Preschool Elf

I hadn’t thought about her getting up on the stage and actually DOING the play with us; I just thought that we could take some pictures!  But in any case, she sat herself down on the steps with the rest of the class and proceeded to be in the play!  She is very well behaved and I already knew that she knew all of the words and motions, because she follows the family tradition of “super smart kids!”  Amazingly, this little three year old did the entire play!  She sang all of the songs on the steps of the stage.  She went up on the stage with the other elves, Santa, and Mrs. Claus.  And when her brother, the Gingerbread Man ran by for the last time, he tapped her on the shoulder to tell her it was time to chase him!  (You know, he had to take care of his little sister!)  She chased him around with the others.  She stopped exactly when and where she should have stopped, even though she only SAW one rehearsal when her mother came by once to watch.  She sat back down when she was supposed to.  She stood up at the end and sang the Finale when she was supposed to.  She was quiet when she was supposed to.  She took a bow when I asked the children to.  AMAZING!  Did I hear anyone say that this play is preschool appropriate????  Anyone???? Anyone????  :)



*  On the morning of our play, we counted the days left until Christmas.  (Luckily, all of the families in my class celebrate Christmas this year, so counting the days is not a problem.)  Anyway, we decided that there were only four days until Christmas.  I was feeling a little exasperated that we were still in school with only four days to go until the holiday, and I said, “FOUR days until Christmas.  And WHAT are we doing here?????”  My sentiments, of course, were completely lost on the kids.  They all shouted, “THE GINGERBREAD MAN!!!!!”    LOL LOL LOL LOL!

*  When the play was over, my students were changing out of their costumes.  One of the parents from the class next door informed me that a boy in the bathroom was running around stark naked!  So I walked over to the boys’ bathroom and heard quite a commotion going on inside.  I reluctantly peeked in to check it out and found quite a sight!  She was right, of course!  And the little one in question ran right up to the door in his birthday suit to find out what I wanted, without a thought to cover up what God gave him, unfortunately.  I put a stop to this behavior as quickly as I possibly could, of course!
Oh, the antics of five year old boys!  You could really fill an entire book with incidents like these!  I once was called to the bathroom to check out some similar behavior.  In this case, a little boy was “taking a bath” in the sink.  He was also buck naked, and washing himself!  For the record, I NEVER go inside that bathroom- EVER!  I just demand that they dress themselves and come out.  THEN I deal with it.  Ugh!

*  On Friday morning, one of my students raised his hand and said, “I don’t think Santa is going to bring me anything tomorrow.”  I said, “Why not?”  He answered, “Because I’m on his naughty list.”  (Unfortunately, I could see why his mom might have told him that!)  I tried to suppress a giggle, and also heard my many wonderful volunteers that came on Friday doing the same thing.  I suggested that perhaps if he were really, really good for the rest of the day, he might wind up on Santa’s nice list instead!

*  Another time during the week, one little boy noticed that some of the children were starting to bring me presents.  He asked, "Why are people bringing you presents?"  I replied, "Well, it's Christmas."  Then he said, "How come nobody is bringing ME presents????"  I really had no idea what to say to that, so I just mumbled that I really didn't know and let it go at that.  :)

*  Friday was a Minimum Day, so dismissal was earlier than usual (thank goodness!)  This always makes it hard on parents because the routine is disrupted, and a unfortunately, few may forget to come pick up their children, despite the reminders that go home.  It seems to happen to everyone now and then.  But in any case, one of my students did not get picked up, so I walked him over to the office to wait for his mother.  I explained to him that his mother would be coming, and the nice lady in the office would take call his mother and take care of him until then.  So I dropped him off and heaved a sigh of relief as I walked back to my room, happy that I was done for two weeks- hooray!  I was nearly back to my classroom when I realized that I was being followed:  the little guy just left the office and followed me like a baby duckling following his mother back to the nest!  So I turned around and brought him back to the office and again explained that he had to STAY there and wait for his mother in the office, not in the classroom.

I hope that you had a wonderful holiday, and are enjoying a restful vacation!