My Letter Sound Dictionary

Hiya Friends! So, we headed into class very quickly yesterday to grab a few To Do's to get us through.  

When we arrived, we were surprised to find our classroom doors wide open...Oh! Fortunately everything was still there, including our cool custodian who had just labored his day away cleaning our cardboard classroom carpet. 

How is it that the one day this week that we finally get fully showered, dressed and actually head out of the house we cannot get in?!?  Couldn't help but think it was some sort of Summer Gods sending us a message "Staaaaayyyyy Awwwwaaaayyyyy".  But, we quickly shushed those silly thoughts because we were dressed for goodness sakes and we were NOT about to leave empty handed! 

So, since we couldn't tiptoe in gooshy kiddie carpet {which we thanked the Summer Gods for sparing us on that one, though we did beg ask}, we found ourselves up in the Copy Room prepping one of our annual activities.

My Letter Sound Dictionary is given to our friendlets the first week of school. Some years, we give them the full color version (depending upon our ink supply), and others we use the printer friendly version and let them add their own coloring details...Keeps them busy and gives them ownership of their own book. :) 

We provide them with all of the pages bound together in one book, but each page can be used on its own too. 

As we introduce our letter sounds through our Language Arts program, we spend time discussing words that begin with our letter of focus.  

We created these Class Posters to introduce 10 words.

We call on students to come up and "highlight" (wikki sticks, highlighter tape) the given letter as they appear in words.  We discuss the position that the letters fall (beginning, middle, end), draw any pictures in the blank spaces to the sides in case we encounter a word that we don't know, and done!  We keep them in our Word Center for the kiddos to grab as they need, but we also created a smaller version that we put on a binder ring for use during centers time. 

 

 We spend time establishing our Letter Sound Dictionary routine the first weeks of school.  They catch on pretty quickly, and before we know it we have some independent workers at the beginning of the year. What?!?!?

This activity takes us most of the school year to get through.  We love that we prep it now and it is d.o.n.e. One less activity to think up each week and exactly what our friends need to apply those new letter sounds! 

We've just updated My Letter Sound Dictionary in our TpT Store.  

If you've already purchased, please head on over and download our new version.  

If you're looking for an activity for applying letters and sounds and like that "I" word at the beginning of the school year, head on over and grab yourself a copy today.