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
word work
5 Tips for Teaching Sight Words – How to Make Them Stick!
Today we're talking all about sight words. Specifically, my top 5 effective tips for making sight words STICK! So often we as teachers focus on assessing our student's sight word automaticity in isolation, but overlook the need to reinforce that same instant recall when identifying sight words in context. We assume that easily reading sight words in context will be a by-product of focused instruction of words in isolation, right?! TRUTH: I would always get so frustrated when my kids would recall words in isolation with NO problem, but when reading them in context...it was like crickets! Complete and … [Read more...] about 5 Tips for Teaching Sight Words – How to Make Them Stick!
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
Marshmallow Spaces & Winners Announced
I was blessed with a day to pull my kids one-on-one last week and assess each one individually. We administer our literacy assessments at the beginning of the year and that includes sentence dictation, sight word recognition, oral word vocabulary {how many words can you write in 10 minutes?!}, letter/sound recognition, concepts about print, and DRA. As I was administering the concepts about print portion of the assessment, I realized that a lot of my kids were struggling with differentiating between letters and words. I understand that this is a skill that will develop over the next month{ish}…maybe longer…but I wanted to … [Read more...] about Marshmallow Spaces & Winners Announced
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
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
Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town
I have a thing for Santas. I really do. I have a HUGE collection here at the house and I just can’t get enough of him! He’s so dang cute! SO…it would only stand to reason that I’d want to include a few Santa activities in the classroom as well :) I know that a lot of kids don’t celebrate Christmas, but this year EVERY single one of my kiddos does…so that makes planning a little bit easier for me. However, this hasn’t always been the case! I guess you could say I’m taking advantage of it this year :) I read a book about Santa the other day…can’t remember which one…and had the kids make these cute little scrapbook Santas after we read … [Read more...] about Santa Claus is Comin’ To 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
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
