Wednesday, April 30, 2014
More Phonics Fun!
The kids have really been inspiring me to create some new instructional routines and practices to make their learning fun for them. Again, I'm feeling so blessed with this sweet group of students. They let me know what they really enjoy and I can see it in my last round of testing of their reading. The games and reading skills we have been reviewing and practicing have made a huge impact on fluency and writing. Below are a few more pictures of some fun the kids have been having by reviewing the long vowels. Although long vowels were already introduced earlier this year we are taking a week or so to review each of vowel spellings in depth within fluency passages, games, and writing. I want my students to have a very strong comfort level with long vowels before heading off to second grade. I've created units that do this and they can be spread over several weeks, used for homework, center work, Daily 5, or in a multitude of ways. The way we've been using them is I create a packet for each student that houses the fluency, the sorts, trace, read, write, questions, and a few other of the pages in the unit. We do a whole class review and student engagement activity like "Find Your Partner" or "Guess my Word" that gets them moving and talking. Then the kids work independently or in pairs while I pull groups. The kids love the characters and I try my best to gear the stories to things that might interest them. I knew I had a hit when I overheard one of my students asked their table mate, "I wonder who the Phonics Friend" will be this week." Some of the pages are in the homework as well. I then put out some of the other activities like write the room, read and roll, puzzles, slap it, etc... in center boxes for Daily 5 word work. It's been working great and the word work box for Daily 5 is quickly in the lead for the kids' favorite Daily 5 activity. Right now I'm working to try to get all the units up on TPT ...I'm almost done with long a. We started with long e, which you will find the link to below, because I had a chunk of students who needed a refresher on ea. I also have phonics units on oi/oy and oo.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Making Phonics Fun
I've been searching for ways to increase student engagement this year along with maintaining rigor and covering the Common Core standards. It's been sort of like a puzzle to see what has worked and been successful for my fabulous first graders. We've tried A LOT of new things, and this group of students I have this year are awesome, adventurous, and it makes for a "laboratory" full of ideas. Here are some of our favorites! The kids love playing Slap it! There are many versions, but ours is best played with 4 in a group. So much fun!
The next video and photo shows a Guess My Word game. The word pages are differentiated so that all students can play regardless of language or reading level. Having the different versions of the I have a word page helps a ton. The kids love it because they get up and walk around having their friends trying to guess their words.
This kids love reading about the "Phonics Friends". They get interested in the characters, and they love highlighting and sorting words from the stories. To the left is an example of one of the oo stories in the oo word work packet. I always include several versions of the same story to accommodate all learners. I even put simple pattern text mini-books in the units for emergent readers.
If you are interested, the following products explain these fun phonics activities in more detail and include many more ideas and resources. They are centered around the combination of learning phonics through reading and Common Core Reading Foundational Skills.
OO Word Work
Long e Word Work
Oi/Oy Word Work
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Lesson Plan Freebie-First Grade
Here are our plans for the coming week. We've been running two literacy blocks (one for narrative/literature and one for informative text) all year and it has been great. We tie the informational literacy block into our science or social studies standards. The kids are really familiar with the features of both text types and we're getting it all in (which can be a challenge). The Spring Word problem are arranged into a weekly packet (differentiated by student level) for independent or partner work.Links to the products we are using are found below.
Hope this helps...
oo word work
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/oo-Word-Work-Unit-Differentiated-1201784
Lost! Common Core Unit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lost-Common-Core-Unit-1195128
oo word work
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/oo-Word-Work-Unit-Differentiated-1201784
Lost! Common Core Unit
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lost-Common-Core-Unit-1195128
Spring Common Core Word Problems
Who's Greater Freebie
Bears Informational Text/Science Unit
Warmly,
Valerie
Saturday, April 5, 2014
New Common Core Literature Unit
I created a new Common Core Literature Unit to go with the David McPhail story Lost!. It is in the first grade Houghton Mifflin anthology or at any bookseller. The comparison book in the unit is The Teddy Bear by David McPhail. This unit covers a TON! It has reading literature, speaking/listening, language, reading foundational, and writing skills ...all based on Common Core Standards.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lost-Common-Core-Unit-1195128
First Grade lesson plans-putting it all together
Well a good friend of mine was telling me about how helpful it was that a teacher blogger posted his lesson plans for her as she was contemplating a grade level change. It made my friend, one of the sweetest people I know, feel so much more comfortable and at peace that I wanted to try posting our team's lesson plans and see if it helped anyone. I put pictures of some of the TPT products we use to show how it all fits in. Not sure if this will help anyone, but hope that it does. As always I am SO appreciative of any new TPT followers or feedback as it is all a new adventure for me.
Warmly,
Valerie
Warmly,
Valerie
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