Cara Carroll

Word Work

Audio CVC Centers

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

Valentine’s Day Freebies! – Blending & Sight Word Games

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and today I'm at home nursing a sick child.  There is nothing worse than not being able to help your baby feel better.  This just STINKS.  We could absolutely use the prayers.  Fevers scare the daylights out of me...especially when the Motrin/Tylenol combo doesn't do a thing to relieve them.  For those of you who will be at school tomorrow, here are a few activities you can implement for a little extra fun.  Of course, they'll work perfectly for the month of February as well so no need to put them away after all the Valentine excitement has died down! First up, Valentine Bingo. … [Read more...] about Valentine’s Day Freebies! – Blending & Sight Word Games

-OR Activity

We learned about the –or & –ar chunks last week and I used Abby’s fab craftivities to reinforce the sounds.  We made the DARLING pirates {from her Pirate Mark unit} for our –ar words and the kids flipped.  They LOVED ‘em!!!  And I used her popcorn tub template {from her Let’s Get Poppin’ With Adjectives unit} to reinforce our –or words.  SO much fun!!! … [Read more...] about -OR Activity

The cOOkie Monster Freebie & A “Bag”pack Tutorial

We finished up learning about the /oo/ {as in cookie} sound last week and I was so proud of my kiddos when it was time for our spell check on Friday.  They did AWESOME!!  One of the little activities we did for word work last week was “Feeding the Cookie Monster”.  The kids had to sort through /oo/ words on little cookie cut-outs and feed the cookie monster with the cookies that had the /oo/ {as in foot} words. Click HERE to download :) We celebrated our learning with a little “Cookies & Bookies” party on Friday :) {I just passed out cookies while they read during D.E.A.R time.  Put the word “party” in front of anything and the kids … [Read more...] about The cOOkie Monster Freebie & A “Bag”pack Tutorial

Stomp Your Feet

I’ve been a little MIA lately.  In all honesty, I’ve had the blogging “blahs”.  Not a whole lot of motivation to sit down and post anything.  I’ve just been lovin’ on my boys and spending an insane amount of my “free” time just having fun with my little family of four {and some out of town visitors, too!!}.  Since my last post, things at school have been, ummm…CRAZY.  Since Friday, I have… …sanitzed my hands…and the hands of 17 littles…NO LESS than 2,347 times. …successfully cleaned up a few cases of the pukies {talk about gag reflex} …counted 6 kids absent on Friday & Monday…and sent two pukies home today. …cloroxed {yes, it’s a verb ;)} … [Read more...] about Stomp Your Feet

Onomatpoeia. Say it Three Times Fast!

HA!!  That's my little running joke with my firsties.  They think this word is SUCH a HOOT!!  Cracks me up.  We’ve been talking about onomatopoeia words since October-ish.  The kids LOVE to tell me when they find one of these sound words when they’re reading and they sit on pins and needles waiting to say, “I heard an ONOMATOPOEIA!!!!” while I’m reading to them.  I love that they’re so quick to identify these words without any help.  I decided it would be fun to do a little extension to reading activity to reinforce this concept. Since the weather is changing and April showers are on the way, we read this … [Read more...] about Onomatpoeia. Say it Three Times Fast!

On A Roll

After reading this post, you *might* think I’m a little obsessed with dice activities :)  Not true…however, my kids totally are!!!  And I know that when they’re excited, I might as well milk it for all it’s worth!  HA!  One of my firsties told me today, “You know what’s weird?!  I feel like I’m having a lot of fun, but really I’m learning!”  Oops…guess the cat’s outta the bag ;) I’m LOVING this little activity…and so are the kids!!  This activity focuses on ADJECTIVES.  Now, I might be obsessed with that!!  HA!!  I prepared 7 envelopes.  6 envelopes contained 4-5 different adjectives.  1 envelope contained 12-15 different sentence strips.  … [Read more...] about On A Roll

Dictionary Skills Activity

Okay…so my kids don’t have them YET, but they have been introduced to this wonderful little resource.  Resource is a BIG word in my class.  My kids know that if they’re having trouble with something, they need to use a RESOURCE for help.  Lately, they’ve been really curious about words and their meanings.  I LOVE that!!  When they’re reading to self, I’ll often have kids who bring their books to me and say, “what does that mean?!?!” as they point inquisitively to the word in question.  While I really try to encourage them to use their context clues, sometimes word meaning can be a little tricky to figure out!  SO…it was time to teach my kids … [Read more...] about Dictionary Skills Activity

Fractions, Editing, Compound Words, & Freebies

Since this is a post of a bunch of random things, I’m calling it my “potpourri”. {Does anyone dislike that word as much as I do?!?!  Mark it under one of my most not-favorite things to say} Is anyone else BARELY getting to fractions?!  We started our fraction unit this week and started by discussing equal & unequal parts.  I folded a bunch pieces of construction paper {even & uneven} and passed them out to the kids after a little fraction introduction on the SmartBoard.  The kids had to go back to their desks and cut the construction paper on the creases and then determine whether or not they had equal or unequal parts. Then we … [Read more...] about Fractions, Editing, Compound Words, & Freebies

How Many {Antonym} Feet Do We Meet?!

This week we’ve been working on antonyms and the kids are lovin’ it!  We started by reading this book……and then we brainstormed a list of opposites.  Surprisingly, some of my babies were having a hard time with the concept.  So I had to explain to them, “If something is ______ it can’t be _______!!!”  After a few go ‘rounds of that, I sent the kids off to trace their own feet and write a pair antonyms on either one!!I added all the pairs to a big anchor chart…The kids have also been working on their very own little antonym books!  They’ve been keeping these in their book baskets and adding to them every time they have … [Read more...] about How Many {Antonym} Feet Do We Meet?!

Candy Heart Math {& A Making Words Activity}

I know Valentine’s Day is over, but I like to extend my Valentine-ish activities throughout the month.  After all, February is the month of LOVE, right?!  Well, that’s what I’m goin’ with anyway.  Candy hearts are my favorite February math manipulative and here are a couple of little math printables & activities for you!!  The first is a little candy heart graph.  I know there are a GAJILLION of these floating around right now.  I like to graph the number of letters in the conversation.  I pass out a large conversation heart to each kiddo and have them count the number of letters on the heart.  Then we create a big ol’ graph on a giant … [Read more...] about Candy Heart Math {& A Making Words Activity}

Boggle – Making Words

I love Boggle.  One of my most favorite apps. While writing about my love for this game during Writer’s Workshop one day, I realized that my kids sorta love this game, too!  A few of them said that their parents play it on their phones and some of the others talked about playing Boggle Jr. at home with their families.  Love it!  So I combined their love for Boggle with their love for the SMARTBoard and now they ALL have a FAVORITE Work Work activity!!  At least once a week, I have the kids visit the SMARTBoard to play Boggle…and they LOVE it!!  They each take turns connecting words and then recording them on a corresponding sheet.  You can … [Read more...] about Boggle – Making Words

Chocolate Pudding & Penguins

I’m trying to catch up on a few little things, but thought I’d share this in the meantime.  We’re stuck INSIDE today…no school…with tons of ice on the ground and temps too cold for me to talk about.  Yuck.  But the upside to this little sleet day is that I’ve got a clean house & chicken noodle soup on the stove.  Speaking of soup, if you’re dealing with stay-inside-weather like we are, you’ve seriously gotta try THIS SOUP.  Y’all….it’s DANG good.  Perfect cold weather meal!!  Moving on… This week we’re learning about the “-ch” digraph.  My firsties are LOVING the Digraph Kids and talk about each of ‘em like they know them personally!  … [Read more...] about Chocolate Pudding & Penguins

Noun Town

Oh…I’m SO lovin’ all these fun little Christmas activities!  There’s just something about this time of year, don’tcha think?!  I’ve gotten SO many WONDERFUL ideas from blogland that I can’t wait to implement in my own room!  Y’all are too dang much!  Here are a few more things we worked on this week… I was so inspired by Sarah Cooley’s Noun Town that we made one of our own, too!  Since it’s the holiday season, we decided to make a Gingerbread Noun Town.  We did some “city planning” before we got started.  We talked about people, places, and things that we might see in our town and brainstormed a list of each.  After city planning, I had each … [Read more...] about Noun Town

Mystery Words

This week was a chunk week review for us, so I made up a little activity that would get the kids thinking about word families & popcorn words.  I took a couple of lunch bags and filled them with letter tiles.  In one bag, I included the letters contained in all of our popcorn words {to date}.  In the other bag, I included all the vowels & word endings to the chunks we’ve learned thus far, plus a few additional letters.  The kids had to pick a bag and use the tiles inside to make words.  I told them to read the room if they had trouble figuring out what words to make. {We’ve got our chunk charts & popcorn … [Read more...] about Mystery Words

Who Lives Here?

At the beginning of each week, we usually introduce 3 new chunks to our kids.  We brainstorm words for each chunk both real and nonsense…they LOVE coming up with nonsense words!  We also encourage our kids to come up with words that contain the chunk somewhere inside…not necessarily at the end of the word.  I LOVE seeing what they come up with!  After we brainstorm our chunk words, I give the kids a tri-folded piece of paper to make houses for their word families & they record the words they can read inside.  This has become their favorite Monday activity!  They usually keep their houses in their book baskets … [Read more...] about Who Lives Here?

Stamp A Spider

I included a little stamping activity in our Word Work station this week that the kids just loved!  Stamp-a-Spider!  They used our chunks of the week to stamp short o words {-ot, –op, –og} onto strips of paper that became the spider’s legs.  I had a sweet mom pre-cut the spider body templates so that all the kids had to do were stamp the chunk words!  I think I’ll keep this activity out for the next few weeks as a choice for Word Work!! click to download STAMP A SPIDER … [Read more...] about Stamp A Spider

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