My Favorite Things: Circle and Write

Three rows, each headed My favorite animal, My favorite food or My favorite color, give this kindergarten page its shape. Every row holds six picture tiles with the word printed under each: on this print fish, duck, pig, giraffe, tiger and sheep; cake, grapes, milk, pizza, carrot and cookie; and six color squares, orange, yellow, purple, blue, green and red. Under each row an arrow points to a three-line handwriting guide. The child circles one tile per row and copies its word onto the line. Three circles and three words finish the page.

On the base all-about-me page the favorites are drawn; here they are chosen from a set and written, which turns a drawing task into a reading-and-copying one. The choice is real, so the word the child copies is a word the child wanted to say, and that is the best condition for careful copying there is. Every printed word is a model, so spelling is not being tested, only letter formation and word spacing. The teacher looks at the copy against the tile: which letters were dropped, and whether the word was written as one piece.

A one-page color print, since the pictures do the naming. Read the six words of each row aloud with the child first so the choice is made from all six and not just the pictures the child can name alone. The all about me page is the drawing version of the same three favorites, and the my name page is the other copying task in this family. Sorting or matching pictures to words is a different worksheet type.