One of the most challenging tasks at the beginning of any school year is the daunting feat of teaching a classroom full of 5 -7 year olds to function independently...and effectively!!...in centers/stations. From organizing independent groups to setting up differentiated learning centers, fast finisher activities, and planning for small group, it's a challenge to say the least! #andalltheteacherssaidamen Something I hear from teachers quite frequently is, "they always forget what they're supposed to do! I end up losing so much of my small group instructional time trying to redirect confused learners and fan out small flames." Does that … [Read more...] about Audio CVC Centers
cvc words
Short Vowels, Deal of the Day, & A Freebie!
We talked a bit about writing on Monday, so I wanted to follow up with a few short vowel activities today. Teaching our kids how to identify medial vowels, blend, and segment sounds is one of the first steps we take to make them independent readers and writers. One of the first phonics skills I cover at the beginning of the year is vowels. I introduce both short and long, but focus mainly on the short vowel sounds until that concept is mastered. However, I think it's important for our kids to know BOTH sounds since they'll encounter those sounds/vowels in their reading. When I introduce vowels, I tell my kids … [Read more...] about Short Vowels, Deal of the Day, & A Freebie!
Stoplight Sounds (Freebie!)
So, I was in Wal Mart the other day (I promise this isn't the start of a bad joke ;)) I was grabbing a few things from the travel section and found these great little containers. 97 cents a piece. Of course, there was no way I'd use them for travel purposes, but I knew they'd make a GREAT activity for the classroom! I picked up a red, yellow, and green because I knew I wanted to do something with a stoplight theme. They had orange and blue containers as well. As I was driving home it dawned on me. STOPLIGHT SOUNDS!!!! I could use the lids to segment sounds ...beginning (green)/ middle (yellow)/ end … [Read more...] about Stoplight Sounds (Freebie!)
Well, Isn’t That Clever?!
I'm gonna brag for a second. I have smart friends. Really smart. Very talented. Extremely CLEVER friends. And I love to be around them because I have no less than 5,089 "a-ha!!!" moments when I'm with them. Now let's change gears for just a second before I go braggin' on my clever friends. I've often been asked how I assess and/or know exactly what my kids are doing when they're working independently in literacy/math stations. I have a few different things I do, but when my very clever friend, Deedee, told me what she does, I immediately knew I had to change the way I was doing things! Deedee … [Read more...] about Well, Isn’t That Clever?!
Coming Up…
I love weekends where I have absolutely NOTHING planned. This weekend was NOT one of those weekends. My oldest played another exciting game of basketball yesterday {I should also add that these games are nothing short of comical} and then we enjoyed a little family lunch in town. After lunch, I rushed home to take a little siesta and then headed to the other side of town for an auction dinner in honor of my alma mater. Y’all. Let me just tell y’all this. I left a little piece of my heart behind in high school. I mean, I wouldn’t go back to high school to save my life, but a little part of my heart … [Read more...] about Coming Up…
This is How We CVC
I do realize that CVC isn’t a verb, just incase you were curious ;) However…I thought I’d share with you a few things we do in Room 206 to reinforce and practice identifying, creating, spelling, and reading CVC words. Blending and segmenting is such a tricky concept for some kids to grasp, so I try to integrate this skill as often as I can so that my kids are constantly being slammed with practice…even when they don’t realize it. One of the first things I like to do is help the kids build a visual image of what CVC words look like so that they can distinguish an easily decodable word from a sight word. We practiced sorting … [Read more...] about This is How We CVC