Beads Glorious Beads!!!

I have had so many questions about beads lately that I figured it was probably time to do a little Bead-ology 101 follow-up from last summers post.

 

I think the majority of everyone has letter beads of some kind or flavor laying around their room somewhere.  Sometimes it’s those tiny little square capital letter beads or another small pony type bead but if you are lucky, you have a set of these sweet little beads.

I love these because they are colorful and sturdy and the lettering doesn’t wipe off over time…the bead IS the letter.   But, of course, my number one question regarding beads is…where can I get them?

So here it is.  If you’d like the lowercase version you can get them by clicking on the picture below:

 

If you’d like the capital letter version, then click on this picture.   (FYI…I have both!  I just couldn’t resist.)

 

I know what you’re thinking now…”ok, I have them, now what do I do with them?”

They are a great tool. No doubt but unless there is a purpose your kiddos are going to start using them inappropriately or not at all.

**** PLEASE NOTE:  The pictures below are of my original Bead Freebie in action.  It has since been revamped and improved but I didn’t want to remove pictures that have been pinned.  So if you have my original Bead Freebie, please reload it and get the updated (editable) version HERE.

At the beginning of the year, with my kiddos that do not have letter mastery.  I do a lot of sorting by color,

 

‘in my name/not in my name’ work and

 

letter matching

 

and sorting capitals and lowercase letters.

The easiest way I find to store the letters when I using these activities is to place them in one of these chip divider plate thingies that I also use for sorting by color. (I know there is a technical term but it escapes me at the moment).

 

Just as a note, you can get the materials shown above as a freebie just by click on the pictures, but if you would rather, you can also use the letter chart I made that includes pictures for matching your beads as well.

This would give those kiddos who need to have a break from magnetic letters a little something new to keep them engaged.  It would work the same way as the magnets, just place the chart on a cookie sheet to keep the beads from falling all over the place and have students match the beads to the letter and sound it represents.

 

From here, you can use your beads to work on letter order.  When I do this with my kinders, I either provide them with one of these little plastic organizers (I prefer this because they can grab and go anywhere in the room)

 or it they are at a station that is staionary, I provide one of these labeled drawer units.

 

 I just labeled this one with vinyl letters made on my Silhouette.  (I love that machine by the way.  I only have the little one but I hope to upgrade to the Cameo someday. I’ve had both a Cricut and a  Silhouette and I prefer the Silhouette much more.  You can find out more about these awesome cutters if you would like by clicking here.!)

 

Either way, the work they do is independent and self-correcting (I LOVE that!!!)  These cards ask them to identify missing letters.  After they have beaded the letters and written them, they open the card to see if they were correct.  Easy!

My students use beads for practicing their sight words.

And as your students start to learn their letter sounds and begin segmenting, you can offer other bead activities like this CVC and CVCC/CCVC one.

 

Or my latest digraphs for later on in kindergarten or for review in first grade.

There are also differentiated recording sheets for this one because so many people requested I add one something that students could use to take home and show parents what they had being doing.

Oh and my last advice, never use string for letter bead work.  Do yourself a favor and use pipe cleaners.  I even cut mine down to make them more manageable.

I hope this answered most of your bead questions but if not, definitely drop me a note.

And just for fun, cuz I’m feeling the need for a little fun today, if you leave me a comment with a suggestion for another new bead unit along with your email, I will pick a couple a people to win my new digraph unit.

My three boys will choose three numbers between 1 and 30 to pick the winner.  Make sure you leave me your email with a suggestion to qualify. When I get 30 comments, I announce the winners.