Listen and Learn Activities

Could you use another teacher in your classroom?  I know I could!  What if I told you I could guide your students through engaging activities that involve letters and sounds while you work with other groups?  It’s true!  Download this FREE Letter Bb activity and try it in your room today!

These Listen and Learn Activities are saving my life this year!

It’s like I have cloned myself and I can work with a student or a group of students in one corner of the room while I’m working with another group of students at my teacher table.  For real.  REALLY.

I started with Listen and Learn Activities for Short Vowels  in centers this year.  Well . . . I have a couple of friends who still need to work on their letters and sounds.  So I created Listen and Learn Activities for Letters and Sounds!

Just like the short vowels pack, this pack includes a printable for each letter with a coordinating QR code.  Students scan the code with a smart phone, iPod, iPad, or other type of tablet (Chrome Books work, too!) and get to work!  It’s a 15-16 minute activity where I am guiding your students through the whole thing!  In the Letters and Sounds activity, we work on one letter and one sound only.  We color objects that begin with the specific letter and I say things such as, “B . . . boat . . . /b/!  Now you try it!”  And so on.  I point out objects in the picture that do NOT belong with the sound we are working on and we determine if we should color it or not.  By the way, in the picture above, the girl in the boat is named Bella and I have students color her boat hat.  😉

During the bottom portion, we practice writing the letter in both uppercase and lowercase, as well as search for the letters and circle pictures that begin with the specific sound we are working on.  I say the name of the picture so students can really hear whether or not the picture begins with that sound and, BONUS, students don’t have to wonder what the picture is!

As always, I’m a big ole nerd during the recording — singing and making silly voices — so that students stay engaged while they’re learning!

So far, I have Letters A – M.  I’m working on finishing Letters N – Z and hope to have them in my store by mid-October.  And, following that, I’ll have a Mixed Practice Review pack.  You can buy the “mini” growing bundle now and it’s like buying two packs and getting the third for free.  🙂

The QR codes are hosted by the website Audio Boom, which may be blocked by your district.  My district blocks EVERYTHING.  So I get it.  So each activity is also offered as an MP3 file, which means you can download the activities DIRECTLY onto your devices (or even a computer) and students don’t even need the QR code.  They would just click on the activity you want them to do and no Wi/Fi is necessary.

Lastly, just a word of advice . . . I started the Short Vowels in my class in a center.  And the very first day, my little group of four students finished the activity and turned it into me.  AND . . . all four papers were different.

I was like whaaaat in the wooooorld??

And they told me it was CONFUSING.

And I was like whaaaat????  Because, obviously, I know what I’m saying on the recording and, besides being a big ole nerd, I make complete and total sense (if I do say so myself).  And, not to mention, I made ANSWER KEYS so you can check your students’s work.

So the next day, I had our entire class complete one of the activities TOGETHER.  And guess what?

Three kids didn’t listen at all and just did their own thing.  For real.

Three kids had already filled out the writing portion at the bottom WHEN WE WERE STILL COLORING AT THE TOP.  When I hadn’t said anything about writing, nor said to pick up a pencil, nor said write this word.  NOR.  NOR!

So I paused the recording and asked them very politely to erase all of the words at the bottom.

And I said people, this is called Listen and Learn.  You have to LISTEN!

And they said, all wide-eyed and sheepish, and nodding their heads, Ohhhhhhhh!

I mean.

Come on!

Ha!

The other 27 kids in my class were following along really nicely, by the way.

It was just these three knuckleheads.  😉

So besides learning important skills, I think this might help our LISTENING SKILLS!

Woohoo!

The bottom line is this:  I have a couple of friends who need to work on Letters and Sounds. And yes, I provide intervention for them and pull them, and do this and that, but sometimes, I need to work with other students.  Because they’re important, too.  And I’m supposed to.  And it’s my job to meet all of my kids’ needs.

So now I can grab the Listen and Learn Activities for Letters and Sounds, print the letter they need to work on, and let them get to work.  With me.  But not with me.  Because I’ll be working with someone else.  But they’ll still be working with me.  Do you see what I am saying?

It’s like FUTURISTIC or something.

🙂