Kindergarten Phonics with Dot and Mrs. Bee

Teach your class or child to read!

With distance learning or in person learning while wearing masks- teaching phonics has become so much more difficult in Kindergarten. I found that teaching an isolated sound when the children can not really see my mouth is almost impossible. We are trying so hard at our school to adhere to every health and safety protocol, so not wearing an approved mask is off the table. So in addition to the rest of our literacy programming, we are adding in a video segment to our day. It really is the regular phonics teaching I would do face to face with my students, but I am recording it at home so I can play it in my classroom, or if we end up distance learning, I can embed the links into Brightspace or Google classroom. The first two weeks of school we focus almost solely on routines, kindness, and recognizing our names in print. Then we begin our phonics program.

Letter A – Week 1

Introducing the letter A

We start with the letter A for a few reasons. Because it is the first letter of the alphabet, it prevents parents from getting stressed thinking that I somehow missed a bunch of letters. When I send home my calendar I tell them that we start with A and then we move around the alphabet so we can make words quickly so we move from isolated letters and sounds directly into reading and communicating with words. It is very very exciting that in just a few weeks they have words they can build, read and manipulate sounds, even in Junior Kindergarten! Each week I will add a video introducing our next letter and we will begin building our skills together.

Activities for A week

Kindergarten Letter A Craft: Ants on Apples in the shape of a letter A. — Students get or roll blobs of Red, Yellow and Green paint onto big pieces of construction paper. We often use a really large sheet of paper because they LOVE rolling on the paint, and we can get two apples from a sheet. When they dry we cut out an apple shape. With chalk we draw on an A and they glue dollar store ants onto the apple. One we can hang on our bulletin board, and one to send home to demonstrate their learning.

Class-made applesauce. — We make applesauce- (Although this year due to Covid-19 we will have to skip this 🙁)

Apple taste test data management Kindergarten project. — We do some data management and an apple taste test. (This too, might not be allowed this year 😢) Even kids who do not usually like fruit are all over this!

Rocks used as choice markers in Kindergarten. — We learn to self-select our science inquiries.

We make patterns by stamping a sliced apple in tempera paint on construction paper.

Letter T- Week 2

Activities for T week

A Thanksgiving craft that celebrated all that we are thankful for while highlighting the letter T.

Out Thankfulness Trees were a terrific success. We traced our hands onto watercolour paper and emphasized making the /t/ sound as we traced around our hand with a pencil . We then traced the pencil line with an oil pastel still making the /t/ sound. Then we painted the tree trunk, sky, and grass with watercolours. I interviewed each student over the week and they told me things they were thankful for and we added them to the finger branches. The last part was using the tip of a Q-tip to tap the leaves onto the tree tops with Tempera Paint.

Loose part tiger habitats were part of our outdoor play this week. — Loose parts play outside- Tiger habitats!

Terry Fox video that is appropriate for Kindergarten and up!

We spent most of our week talking about Terry Fox and how he wasn’t afraid to try. We are working hard at building resilience within our students, and Terry was an excellent example for all of us. We also brought in toonies for Terry, and ran the Terry Fox run in just our cohort on Friday. It was a totally terrific week!

Next week we will be working on the letter S!

Letter S- Week 3

Activities for S week

Wooden leaf cut outs sorted by size in one of our loose parts math centres this week. — Sorting is one of the first steps in being able to pattern- here we are sorting by size.

Clear plastic leaf shapes sorted by type and colour by students in one of our loose parts math centres this week on the light table. — Sorting at the light table.

Sea shells sorted by type in one of our loose parts math centres this week. — Sorting our sea shells.

We did a super easy craft this week as we were helping 8 new students join our class after they folded a kindergarten class into mine and added returning students from virtual school. It was also a screening activity to have them identify colours and see who could already make a pattern as we start our patterning unit.

We also studied shadows in our science centre, observed some snails, and built some snake habitats with our loose parts. I would say it was a super week with the letter S. Join us next week as we learn about the letter Ii !

Letter I- Week 4

Activities for I week

We investigated insects this week. Our science centre was a very popular destination.

We practiced investigating on these plastic replica insects before we were trusted with the real ones!

My literacy set up for the week. We have started sight words as well!

Our letter I craft of the week. We made inedible ice-cream! It's shaving cream foam mixed with white glue (2:1 ratio) with a drop of ink to tint it. We also added pom-poms as sprinkles or a cherry on top. Do this craft early in the week to give it a few days to dry. They looked so puffy and perfect as they went out the door on Friday. — Our letter I craft of the week. We made inedible ice-cream! It’s shaving cream foam mixed with white glue (2:1 ratio) with a drop of ink to tint it. We also added pom-poms as sprinkles or a cherry on top. Do this craft early in the week to give it a few days to dry. They looked so puffy and perfect as they went out the door on Friday.

Our math centres were also dominated by insects as we worked on number recognition and subitizing. The insects made everything more fun.

Our outdoor exploration centres included a painting centre where we painted insects.

An insect inn was constructed with some of our natural materials outside, and we were so excited when a real beetle came to check it out. He was very camera shy though.

Letter P

Activities for P Week

chalkboard pumpkin and kraft paper pumpkin — First we practiced drawing a pumpkin on a chalkboard. Once we were drawing a pumpkin we were happy with, we used the chalk to sketch it onto Kraft paper.

Chalkboard and chalk pumpkin with black glue outline. — A ratio of 2:1 school glue and black tempera paint was mixed in squeeze bottles for us to trace our chalk pumpkin lines.

Art Pastel pumpkin — After it dried overnight, we used soft chalk pastels to fill in the background. We blended with our fingers and it was very messy which the students loved!

Panda habitat small world — Panda habitats in our small world area.

Penguin light table activity — Our light table became a penguin habitat.

patterns made with leaves and acorn caps — We made patterns with pressed fallen leaves from our nature walk. I think these are the prettiest nature inspired patterns we have ever done in our class. I love them!

kindergarten patterning activity- fall themed — More patterns- but this time with wooden shapes from Dollarama!

kindergarten pumpkin science and math activity — We had a pumpkin investigation centre open all week.

math and fine motor kindergarten pumpkin activity — The goal here was to pick up the pumpkin pom-poms with the clothespins and then transfer them to the 10-frame, matching them with the correct number. Fine motor and number sense in one activity.

Puking pumpkin emoji face — We carved a puking pumpkin for letter P after voting for what we should carve our pumpkin to look like. I have to admit I came to school sure that I would be carving a panda pumpkin- but my class is hilarious this year! It actually turned out pretty awesome.

Letter N

Activities for N week

We splatter painted our night skies and made newspaper Ns.

We made name necklaces with each person's name out of these great natural wood beads from Michaels. — We made name necklaces with each person’s name out of these great natural wood beads from Michaels.

We investigated nests at our science centre.

Making our own nests was a popular activity at our nature table.

On our neighbourhood walk we gathered natural materials and tried to make a nest. We discovered it was not as easy as the birds and squirrels make it seem.

One of our numeracy exploration centres: What can you make with 9 objects from a loose parts basket?

Letter R

Activities for R week

A light table provocation with loose parts to create a poppy for Remembrance Day in Kindergarten — Light table poppy making provocation for Remembrance Day.

A light table provocation in play with loose parts to create a poppy for Remembrance Day in Kindergarten — We try to give a wide variety of materials for them to explore on the light table.

grey river stones with names — We started with rocks from Lake Ontario that we washed and glued our names on the back with white school glue.

River rocks painted with poppies to observe Remembrance day in Kindergarten. — After watching a video about how to paint poppies we used acrylic paint to paint a poppy. (I sealed them with a spray-on acrylic sealant outside after school.)

River rocks painted with poppies to observe Remembrance day in Kindergarten formed into a wreath with the words We Remember beneath. — Our Remembrance rock wreath. I love how every poppy is different and beautiful. And each person was able to bring home a piece of the wreath to Remember.

This is the video I showed in class to show them how to paint the poppies. It really worked so well- everyone was able to do it- even our three year olds.

A rangoli made of flat glass marbles as part of our Diwali celebration. — We created Rangoli in our class to celebrate Diwali as well. The kids also made the most gorgeous Diyas. I will make a separate post about those!

Remembrance Day bookmarks with white tassels coloured by the students. — Remembrance day bookmarks.

A collection of rocks for the students to study at our science and inquiry centre. — Rocks and minerals study at our science investigation centre.

cardboard tube rockets made by children from our recycled materials — We made cardboard rockets at our maker centre from recycled materials.

transparent, translucent rainbow coloured river rocks on a light table — Rainbow rocks at the light table.

Our literacy teaching station for letter R week. A poppy is to Remember was our central Text for the week. Picture includes recycled rockets, and poppies made with chalk pastels. — Our literacy teaching station for Letter R week in Kindergarten.

Letter E

Activities for E week

Our Evening Evergreens was our big art project of the week. Each one turned out so excellent! Picture is of watercolour backgrounds will collaged trees and eleven glittering snowflakes on each one. — Our Evening Evergreens was our big art project of the week. Each one turned out so excellent!

Basket of clipboards, watercolour paper and painter's tape used for our Kindergarten art this week. — We started by using painter’s tape to tape down the edges of our watercolour paper to clipboards. Then we used blue and purple watercolours to paint the entire background.

Then we glued small pieces of tissue paper onto watercolour paper with white glue. This was a collaborative effort with each child having a turn to add to the collage. Picture is of the beginning process of the tissue paper collage. — Then we glued small pieces of tissue paper onto watercolour paper with white glue. This was a collaborative effort with each child having a turn to add to the collage.

The completed collage paper was coated with another coat of white glue then left to dry overnight.

triangles cut from our collage paper to create evergreen trees for our Kindergarten art. — We cut various triangles to be our evergreen trees.

Completed Evergreen art work for letter e week with evening skies and eleven snowflakes. — Then we glued them onto our watercolour backgrounds and added eleven glitter snowflakes.

image from our science centre with a book about evergreens and items from our nature walk to study. — Our science inquiry was all about evergreens. We learned to identify three main types of Evergreens by looking at their needles.

This is one of the videos we watched before our nature walk to help us learn to identify Evergreen trees.

This fun activity was one of our math centres. Students had to put the eggs in numerical order, matching them to the numbers written in the carton. Then they had to pick up the correct number of little egg yolks (pom-poms) with the clothes pins and drop them into the carton. Finally they clipped the clothes pins onto the carton to say they were finished. It was great practice for our junior Kindergarten students.

Elephants for a size sorting activity for letter E week — This small world activity was very popular. They basically free played with the elephants and built them habitats, etc, but when it was time to put them away they had to put them in order of size.

Letter E phonics teaching centre including images of Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches an Egg, Enemy Pie, The Recess Queen and I am Human, A book of Empathy. — Our big topic this week was empathy- which isn’t the easiest skill to build in Kindergarten, but it is essential. We read about Horton the elephant who heard a who, and hatched an egg- we read about enemies and bullies and making friends. The ripped up and scrunched heart is on the bulletin board to remind us about how words and actions can make permanent damage to someones heart and feelings.

Letter M

Letter M Activities

a magnetic math game to solve how many fish — Magnet play at the science centre.

magnetic investigation inquiry kindergarten — A guided science centre activity to test out Magnets.

wooded letters being sorted into little wooden cubbies — Alphabet matching activity.

children creating secondary colours by mixing primary colours on snow — Colour mixing on snow. Students were given spray bottles and squeeze bottles of primary colours. Their goal was to find someone with a different primary colour and create a secondary colour!

brightly coloured snow with primary and secondary colours — We then brought in our mixed up coloured snow and watched it melt. We measured and compared the volume of snow to the melted water.

Our letter M Literacy learning station. — Our letter M literacy centre. The kids LOVED the moon globe.

Letter H

Letter H activities for Kindergarten

Popsicle stick houses with our families drawn inside with Pencil Crayons / coloured pencil. We added holiday lights for Hanukkah with blue and white tempera paint with our hands.

loose natural parts in kindergarten for habitats and animal homes study — Some of our loose parts for making animal homes and habitats.

hippopotamus habitat small world Kindergarten — Our small world activities included making Hippo habitats.

Measuring hands with blocks in Kindergarten — We have been very interested in measurement. We wanted to see how high/long our hands were, and used small blocks as a non-standard measurement tool.

We used a piece of wool to record our height then taped them to our wall. non-standard measurement, comparison, play based measurement activity in Kindergarten. — We used a piece of wool to record our height then taped them to our wall.

Our letter H literacy station for the week in Kindergarten. — Our letter H literacy station for the week.

Letter D

Activities for Letter D Week

Image of two paper dreidels and two wooden dreidels on Kraft paper. — We made our own dreidels with a print out from Scholastic. I would only recommend this activity in Kindergarten on a day with either a very dedicated and crafty parent volunteer or an older reading buddies group. You can click the picture of the dreidel to be taken to the template we used.

Image of a white craft stick snowflake ornament, white school glue, sequins, rhinestones and pom-poms. — We usually make a December gift for the families. This year it was a decoration. We glued craft sticks together and added a string. The next day we painted them white. The final day was glue, sequins and beads.

image of completed craft or popsicle stick decorations. The snowflake ornaments are covered in sparkling silver and gold sequins, beads and pom-poms. — Some of our Snowflake decorations drying.

Picture of a bulletin board with burlap background and black scalloped border. Am experience chart filled with words that begin with the letter D is in the centre. A pennant and snowflake decoration also hang on the board. A small chalkboard with the letters Dd is standing there and various books about the letter D. — Our letter D literacy station.

Letter G

Letter G activities

Distance learning and virtual teaching

Letter G week was a big transition week for our class as we were all moved from in-person learning to distance learning. It was called a pivot, and teachers were expected to use our Winter break to prepare and be somehow independently trained as we went live the first day back. Teaching at school during a pandemic was tough, and everyone needed a break from that stress. To have to use our very well earned down time to prepare for a whole new way of teaching was brutal. We have such a great group of students and families that were so kind and patient with us as we continued to learn how to teach from home as we were teaching.

A Letter board with the message: Welcome to letter G week, is surrounded by books including Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, Gorilla be Good, Goodnight moon, and a plant in the upper Left corner. — Some of our read-alouds for the week.

A letter G worksheet is pictured with a plant, small chalkboard illustrating how to print the letter Gg, with rocks and wooden letter G cut outs. — Thinking that it would be possible, if not probable that we could be shut down for in-person learning, we had thought ahead and purchased a few books from Teachers Pay Teachers. We had them printed for our class into books, and sent them home in September with each family with STRICT instructions that the books and supplies were only to be used under teacher direction in a shut down situation. A link to this resource can be found if you click the photo of the worksheet.

A rustic barn-board background with a small chalkboard has "Can you make a pattern written at the top in white chalk. Two patterns are underneath. The first is made of small wooden cut-outs of glasses and gingerbread man in an AB pattern. The second pattern is made of Large and Small google eyes in a ABB pattern. A small hexagon shaped box in the lower left hand corner holds extra parts for making more patterns. — We never miss an opportunity to make a pattern in Kindergarten!

A small chalkboard is used as a graph. Small blocks in rainbow order are stacked up to depict "What colours of blocks do we love?" Green is the clear winner with the highest stack of blocks. — We did a little graphing for letter G week in math!

Four versions of the same piece of directed artwork of a green watercolour background with purple balled up tissue paper grapes and a dark green tissue paper twisted vine and leaf — Our mixed media grapes. We used watercolour paints on the backgrounds, then we glued small balls of purple tissue paper into clusters. We then twisted a piece of dark green tissue paper into a vine and puffed the ends out to make leaves!

Letter O

Letter O activities for Kindergarten

We continued our inquiry into nocturnal animals with a focus on owls. Our JK students printed O’s in their journals, and SK’s added a sentence. A montessori sorting tray, river rocks with letters and some table salt made a great sensory spelling activity.

We have been working in our sight word readers.

Math was focused on understanding and using 10 frames to represent numbers. A big shoutout to Jack Hartmann for his excellent subitize videos that we enjoyed all week. Click on the photo of the math page to see Jack sing!

Our art has to be individually completed at home- from a small kit of art supplies we sent home. These adorable octopuses were made with construction paper and crayons!

Letter L

Letter L activities for Kindergarten

Kindergarten seat work. printing practice. kindergarten journals. Letter L. Phonics and phonemic awareness. — We practice doing a bit of seat work each day. On Wednesdays we practice printing the letter L in our workbook, on Thursdays, we write more independently in our journals.

Sight word practice for kindergarten or reception. Look sight word. How to teach children to read. Balanced literacy. Phonics and whole language. — We have been working on our sight word reading. This is an amazing resource that I purchased from TPT. If you click on this picture it should link you right to the TPT store. While I believe that phonics and phonemic awareness are absolutely essential and the core of my literacy program, giving our students lots of exposure to sight words can really propel them into becoming a more accomplished reader. I focus on them knowing 100 words by the end of SK- plus all the words they can sound out because they have received strong phonics instruction.

Letter L week literacy station. Teach letter L. Phonics in Kindergarten. Letter L anchor chart. Literacy cat. — My teach from home literacy station- and Trooper the Literacy cat.

Books for teaching about the letter L.
Little Humans, Log hotel, Light, Leaves. — Books to read for letter L week. Little Humans, Little Red Riding Hood, Log Hotel, Leaves and Light. These books helped to launch our inquiries of the week.

Living and non living things. Ontario Kindergarten curriculum expectation 14.2 — Living and nonliving things is a great inquiry in Kindergarten. Ontario Kindergarten Expectation 14.2

Leaves sorted by 2D geometric shape. Kindergarten Math. Kindergarten Science. Kindergarten inquiry. — We launched into our geometry 2D shapes work with a study of leaf shapes!

Kindergarten Light and Shadow puppets. — We learned about light and shadows in Kindergarten.

Kindergarten writers workshop. procedural writing. How to make lemonade. — In our Senior Kindergarten writers workshop we worked on procedural writing with the steps to making lemonade. The SK writers were so proud to teach the Junior Kindergarten friends how to make Lemonade on Friday afternoon.

Letter F

Letter F activities for Kindergarten

Kindergarten seat work. printing practice. Kindergarten journals. Letter F. Phonics and phonemic awareness.

Letter F Literacy station. Tip for new teachers: When asking students for suggestions, say, “What words do we know that begin with the letter F?” repeatedly instead of “What F words do you know?” That way when they go home they hopefully say, “Ms. Bee taught us words that begin with the letter F”, and not “Ms. Bee taught us F words.” Trust me.

Letter F frog craft made with construction paper, school glue and crayons. Kindergarten craft. Phonics craft for letter F. — Letter F frog craft made with construction paper, school glue and crayons.

The Five senses. Kindergarten science. Kindergarten Inquiry. — Our interactive Five senses board.

Sink and float kindergarten inquiry. — Sink and Float experiments.

Life cycle of a frog kindergarten inquiry. — The kids loved our frog inquiry. Revisiting the theme of life cycles and patterns in nature is an important part of the Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum.

Children's books for Letter F week. All about frogs, From Tadpole, Feast for 10, Rainbow Fish... — A few of the books we read this week to launch our inquiries… All about frogs, From Tadpole, Feast for 10, Rainbow Fish…

Hi. I’m Kelly Buchanan, the Ms. Bee of Ms. Bee Teaches. Here I want you to be the teacher that has time to listen, to build community and to truly teach kindness, self-regulation, empathy, confidence, and the joy of learning. I have devoted my whole career (over 25 years now!) to teach mostly Kindergarten. I’ve taught in Canada and the USA in private and public schools in inner city, rural communities, and affluent suburbs. As a busy teacher, mom, wife, friend, guide leader and mentor, I know that educators are time strapped and looking for balance, without sacrificing excellence. Whether you are a new teacher, new to kindergarten, or a veteran like me, I can set you up for your most successful year yet. Want to have the best school year ever? Subscribe to my blog and be ready for transformative content that takes your classroom from a sticky mess to a thriving hive of happy, engaged and empathetic students that you truly know. Be kind to yourself.