I love these mini chalkboards. They have so many uses in our kindergarten classroom. We first decorated the chalkboards during Friday Fun.

Students used smelly markers to decorate their chalkboards. Of course, when using smelly markers, this is bound to happen:

We only had a few polka dotted noses that day!

So fast forward to reading centers today….I pulled out the chalkboards and some chalk, and we practiced writing letters and hearing sounds. Students also played with manipulating sounds. For example, I asked the students to write the letters that say /m/ /a/ /t/. We then blended the sounds: /ma/ /t/…/mat/.

I asked students, “What if the word mat started with the /s/ sound? What would the new word be?” Sat! We changed beginning sounds, ending sounds, and even the middle sound.

To keep developing the listening skills, students participated in a rhyming activity at the independent activity today. Here’s a quick clip of that in action:

A super high five to the students for such hard work this morning! We completed all four reading centers on our first long day of kindergarten. Well done!