K-3 Teacher Resources
K-3 Teacher Resources Newsletter
June 2009

Welcome to K-3 Teacher Resources 

Tips & Updates Newsletter  No.  23

June  2009
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Contents....
*Welcome
*Teaching Ideas Winners
*Teaching Tip
*New Resources
*Free Resource for Newsletter Subscribers
*Resources Coming Soon

*Welcome..

Welcome to JULY

We hope this finds you and your families safe and well. 

Another big month with loads of work related to updating our phonics resources to be in line with the '44 Sounds'. (see below).

My nearest and dearest are telling me to 'slow down' (not sure what that means !!!), but my sleep deprived body is telling me the same thing.  So, we will still be adding as much as we can each month - maybe just a little bit more slowly !!!!  I am sure many of you can totally 'relate'.  Will be trying to work only 12 hours per day instead of 24 LOL, and actually relate to my wonderful family each day !!

Thanks again to all our members who have helped us kick off the NEW Photo Gallery of our resources 'In Action'.   It is sooooo wonderful to see the fabulous ways you are using the resources and even better to know the children are benefiting - we look forward to more photos - Don't forget - send in 4 useable photos of our resources 'in action' and have a year's membership on us....TAKE A LOOK...

Finally don't forget the best way to stay up to date with new additions to our site is to join our RSS mail - updates  via email whenever someone adds a new teaching idea or a new resource is added.

Enjoy.....

HERE'S TO JULY !

CHARITY UPDATE - WE HAVE RAISED $255 SO FAR AND RISING - KEEP THOSE TEACHING IDEAS COMING - THANK YOU THAT IS GREAT!

Teachers Zone Update...We now have 665 Zonees.  *****PLEASE JOIN IN - ADD YOUR OWN FILES, PICTURES AND VIEWS ON THE K-3 DISCUSSION FORUMS******

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*Winners - Teaching Ideas Contributions..

It really is so very difficult to choose winners as you have all contributed so many wonderful ideas.   We just want to thank each one of you for your ideas - they have all been so helpful to so many Teachers......

Congratulations to the following winners this month....

Congratulations to Cheryl for her winning........

Cheryl shares her great Delicious Links..

Congratulations to Jasmine for her winning.(please contact us Jasmine)

Jasmine shares how she manages Work Stations...

You can now view past winners here...

***Please share your ideas - Read others and be in the running to have your Teaching Idea in our next Newsletter, as well as your next Year's Membership for Free.

This month's question...

*Ways to Keep Track of 'What's New'

SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES AS NEW RESOURCES AND IDEAS ARE ADDED

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*Teaching Tip Time...

Phonics and the 44 Sounds...

To be honest, I have been grappling with the 44 sounds concept for quite a while now.

It is basically a new concept for an 'old' teacher like me!!!!  I will admit, I resisted at first mostly due to the concept seeming to incorporate sooo many sounds - I thought it would be just too overwhelming for children to learn (almost too much information)

Over time and after much reading and studying this approach - I am finally beginning to understand it's many benefits as an aide to teaching reading and writing.

There are many and varied views on how to best integrate phonics - I firmly believe that phonemic awareness and sound/symbol skills are a very important part of any early literacy program.  Just the how-to part of it can be tricky....

Many international curriculum programs are encompassing the 44 sounds approach.  I have tried to ascertain whether our National curriculum will be taking up this approach but cannot seem to find any information on this yet.  If anyone has any, it would be great to hear about it.

Whether your school chooses to fully encompass a 'formal' program such as THRASS using the '44 sounds' approach, or whether you use it just as a basic guide - the great thing about it is that it is comprehensive, it does cover each sound.  At the very least, it provides a reassuring 'base' from which to manage your teaching of phonemic awareness,  for your circumstances or curriculum guidelines.

We would love to hear how you / your school approaches 'phonics' -  Please share at our question of the month....

We are excited to also be in the process of upgrading our phonics charts to incorporate all the 44 consonant and vowel based phonemes and related graphemes. 

This way - all options are covered.   Just choose the graphemes (blends, digraphs) that match your programming, or if you are taking on the '44 sounds' approach as a formal program - go for it.....

We are also excited about our new phonics 'flip chart' for making and 'playing' with simple 3 'chunk' words - incorporating graphemes for initial (onset, consonant based), medial (nucleus, vowel based) and final (coda, consonant based) chunks.  Flip chart can easily be customised for different levels...

We look forward to hearing about your views and approaches to phonics .....thanks...

Cheers to all
Donna

*New Resource Additions to Membership...

Alphabet Printables

**Phonics Activity Flip Chart

**UPDATED Phonics Charts - 20 Vowel Sounds / 68 Related Graphemes

**24 Consonants AND 62 Related Graphemes....COMING SOON

Nursery Rhymes, Poems and Songs

**Hey Diddle Diddle

Classroom Themes Word Cards

**127 Maths Words - Language of Maths...

Maths Resources

**Ordinal Numbers Puzzle Chart - UPDATED UP TO 31st FOR CALENDAR USE

**Printable Number Puzzles 1-10  

*Resources Coming Soon....Thanks for all your suggestions - we are doing our best to gradually work our way through...thanks for your patience

'Camping' theme words (just about to add)
More updated Phonics Consonants and all Updated Phonics Words
Similes
Alphabet Handwriting Poems
Praise Charts

*Free Resource for Newsletter Subscribers....

POCKET MONEY GAME
(to be added to members section next month)

You will need to access your emailed original to download this resource - Thanks

Enjoy and Thanks for subscribing to our Newsletter....

Till next time - Take Care..... Donna

PS ****(DON'T FORGET WITH ALL OF OUR PRINTABLES YOU CAN PRINT THEM ANY SIZE USING THE PAGE ADJUSTMENTS ON YOUR PRINTER - THIS PROVIDES SO MUCH SCOPE FOR SO MANY USES OF ALL OUR PRINTABLES - make them smaller and black and white - ideal for individual student copies as well.)****

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