It all starts in the month of February. You know what I'm talking about? After a long winter of no color in the trees or pretty flowers to enjoy....I crave some fresh new colors in my classroom. How about you? This is where this Donut Fun Phonics packet comes in. And, who doesn't love donuts? I know I do. I was looking for something to perk up our reading centers and this little pack did the trick. We are working on vowel teams and blends. So this center was just what we needed to reinforce those skills. The best part …it's a one-time print and cut and then we're ready to go. So go grab one of your parent volunteers and ask them ever so sweetly to cut them out for you. I love parent volunteers...don't you?
But first, take a look at what you'll find inside.
Each vowel team or blend has its own box ready for your students to fill up with yummy donuts.
Each of the sets has picture cards for students to sort out which one goes in each box.
And finally, there is a recording sheet for students to write out the words. These are optional but it gave my students great practice on spelling words.
Today I am talking about Money. We could all use a little more right? Well in my classroom I have noticed that some of my students grab the concept of coin identification quickly and others do not. Then after a few short weeks we are expected to teach our students how to add up money and count it. AHHH it can be a struggle. One thing I have added to my math centers for practice are these money identification strips that have helped my students at the beginning of our money unit. You can grab them free here:
Once we move on from those task cards I add a little fun activity into the center with these Ipad tablet shaped task cards. These were laminated over the summer and cut out to fit right into my storage containers for math. My students are to identify the amount of money and circle the coins they would need to make the amount listed. They have a recording sheet to use so that I can check for understanding. You can grab them here:
Once we moved on from using our Ipads we went onto these locks which were a hit with the kids if they like puzzles. These keys and locks were laminated and I asked a parent volunteer to help me cut them out. Win win on a time saver. These locks were a lot of fun for the kids to place together especially for my tactile learners. You can grab them here:
Next we move onto the newest activity that I plan on adding to the centers for next school year. These reading passages can be used two different ways. I can print them out and have my students complete them independently for morning work or add them to my math center. I plan on adding velcro to the backs of the pieces and to the cards after they have been printed out on cardstock and laminated. I can't wait to hear my students reading and adding a little math to their day. We love cross curricular activities in my room. You can grab them here:
I hope you find these examples useful in your classroom.
Context Clues are one of my favorite strategies to teach in reading. Why you might ask? Because my students become detectives in their reading and look for clues to find out the meaning. This strategy is especially important because when they take those standardized tests they need to be able to identify those unknown vocabulary. I've attached a video from BrainPop above that I show in the classroom to help introduce the topic. So, here's 5 ways I teach them to identify unknown words using context clues.
1. Make an Inference:
This is HUGE!!! By now my students have learned how to make an inference. So, we play a telephone game where I have students act like they are about to order a pizza or make an appointment to a hair stylist without actually saying they are doing that. This allows them to make an inference on what is being said on the phone. This is great practice when we are reading words in context. If the passage says "We were huddled up together under a warm blanket during the snow storm." My hope is that the students could make an inference that the word huddled meant "together" based on the clues of snow storm, under a blanket, and warm.
2. Look for the Definition in the passage
Teach those readers to look for the definition right in the sentences around the unknown word. Sometimes they don't even realize the meaning is right there in the passage. Tell the to look for key words such as like and the word or. For example: The boy grasped, or held , the baseball. We often spend time reading a passage and then highlighting the definition to practice this skill.
3. Find a synonym:
This strategy is where we look for phrases that have the word "or" in them. For example : He was joyous , or happy, when he saw his grandmother. We highlight the words joyous and happy to identify the synonym.
4.It provides an example:
This strategy makes us really think because we have to decide if the example is giving us clues or leading us to the definition. An example of this would be "A group of vulnerable newborn puppies, like newborn kittens who need extra support, were found near the highway. The part of the sentence that reads like the newborn kittens who need extra support should signal us that vulnerable means something or someone who needs help.
5. Find an antonym:
For this strategy we look for words that say unlike, opposed to, or different from when reading through passages with unknown words.
In order for us to remember all of this we do add all of this information into our interactive notebooks (don't you just love those) Grab it here:
Now, if you are looking for a fun culminating activity to use with your lesson on context clues this activity will not disappoint.
This was SNOW much fun!!! Sorry couldn't resist. :) Whether or not it is snowing outside it will be in our classroom when we play a little context clue game . My students absolutely LOVED this game we played to finish up our unit on context clues. Who doesn't love a snowball fight especially in the classroom?
SETUP:
This game was really easy to set up and can be used over and over again. I divided the class into two teams and then had one student as my official task card reader. After reading the task cards students take their snowballs and throw them towards the board to see if they get the correct answer. If they hit the same snowball and it is a tie then they go to take a turn towards snowball challenge board. Whoever hits the highest number their gets the point. Play continues until all the task cards are read.
My students loved this game and I hope yours will too! If you like what you see you can grab it here.
YAY! Summer is here! I am so ready to lounge around poolside and soak up some sunshine. How about you ? I wanted to pop in and share with ya'll some of the end of the year awards that I love to give out to my kiddos at the end of the year. These turned out beyond adorable and my students loved them.
Each one of these awards perfectly described my students and they loved the colorful awards they received. O.k. before you think it will take all of that ink...really it doesn't. I print them out over the last few parts of the year and I also use the HP printer Envy 4520 a real ink saver.
Each one of these awards are printed out on cardstock...you could laminate if you wanted. Grab those classroom volunteers and let them cut them out for you. I always have one parent or two that are willing to help. The best things about these awards are they are completely editable and I can use any font I want.
So cute and the kids loved that their award was shown from the stage. The parents loved receiving them because of the bright colors and it was a memory they could hold onto and treasure.
O.k. time to hop back into that pool and make plans for next year. Happy Summer ya'll.
Grab those coins and get ready to count some money. This unit is great for math centers at the beginning of the year or at the end to use as review. Printed on cardstock and laminated for use over and over again from year to year.
Money Recognition can be a tough skill for a lot of students. My hope is that with a little more hands on practice they can easily understand how it works.
Here is what you will find:
20 Ipads that have students circle the correct coins to make the change listed
20 Ipads that have a toy with a price tag and then students decide how much change they should get back after giving the cashier the money.
Recording sheets that allow my students to record what they have done and see which groups of children I might need to pull to the back table for extra practice.
Each card is numbered so that students can easily record their answers without any confusion. A completely independent activity and also a great one to leave for a substitute.
We love using these in our classroom and small group Daily 3 math time. I hope you find them useful in your classroom. You can get them here.
I wanted to share with ya'll a cute craftivity we used during our Geometry unit on Translations, Reflections, and Rotations. We had a great time making our seascape pictures that especially helped with my visual learners who need a little more help seeing how the concept of translation, rotation, and reflection worked. Here is what we did.
First, we printed out all of our pieces...of course my students had black and white copies to color and make their own. This was one I created as a sample for my students to see. Next ,we took all of the pieces and got it all set up on our construction paper.
Then , we glued down the waves and then cut the slit through the dotted line. Just fold the paper gently and make a slit. After that, we took our Popsicle stick and taped it down to the back of the boat as shown and then glued the sail onto the boat (make sure that you glue both reflection pieces back to back so when it flips the image is seen on both sides) . Do not glue the boat down it needs to slide. ;) Finally we slid the popsicle stick through the slit so the boat could slide side to side (translation).
Here is what it looks like so far but we are not done yet.
We are going to add the sun last. Here we will need to use a brad fastener to take the sun and attach it to our paper (Note: do not glue the sun down to the paper...it needs to rotate) We placed the brad through the sun but do not fasten it tightly leave a little wiggle room to rotate easier.
If you wanted to make the pieces more durable you could always use cardstock. Another option we could have done is worked as partners to save paper and time and less cardstock if desired to use. However, we made these with paper and it worked just fine.
Once we finished up our crafts the next couple of days we practiced the skills we have learned by doing a sort in our math interactive notebooks , a mini flip book , and worked with task cards that were printed on cardstock and laminated . I added them to my math center rotations as an informal assessment.
You can grab it here if you like what you see : Click on the picture below.
Hey Everyone! I wanted to share with you a little activity that is going on in our math classroom as we wrap up graphs. I can not tell you how much it makes this reading teachers' heart happy when I can use a picture book to tie in a lesson in math.I just love going across the curriculum for my activities.
Anyway here is what we did:
We listened to our story: I had a copy of the book on hand but you can easily find a read aloud on You Tube. :)Next, we broke up into small groups and each group had a bag containing these graphs printed on cardstock and the manipulatives to create pictographs on their own. Each student also had a copy of the mini book which I would collect later for a grade and then add it to their interactive notebooks.
While they are working on their graphs and reviewing their skills they have learned this gives me the opportunity to work with those students who may still be struggling with different concepts on each of the graphs.
Once our math center time is completed the students will turn into to me their finished books. They look like this:
So cute and a great way to add a grade to my gradebook for math. This is perfect for small group math centers.
One of the many reading strategies I try and teach my struggling readers is to visualize what they are reading. Research has shown that students who are struggling with reading comprehension actually benefit from visualizing the material they read. Creating what I like to call a T.V. in their head.
So how do we do it in my classroom??? Well we start off with several mini lessons using small sentences to get us started practicing the skill. A sample sentence would look like this:
" Sam was so excited to see all the balloons hanging around the room. He saw his superhero cake on the table beside a pile of presents he could not wait to open. "
After reading this sentence I grab our white boards and then we draw what we saw. We would draw a cake, balloons, and Sam. We talk about how to create those pictures in our head.
HOW WE PRACTICE THOSE SKILLS
After many lessons and practice using the skills, I decided it was time to take our lesson one step further. We plan on looking at small passages and highlighting key words that will help us visualize after each small paragraph. As we read the paragraphs we will go back with our pencil and highlight those key words that help us visualize what the passage is about.
Next, we take a look at the pictures below our paper and check out which ones would be a best fit to the words we highlighted in each paragraph.
Finally, we glue them on and then check in our passage to make sure we visualized the correct picture to go with the passage.
The stories I created follow a theme and there is one for each day of the week. On Friday my students are given review questions to practice their comprehension skills over the week.
Wow!!!! It has been a long time since I have blogged. Where does the time go? I wanted to talk about homophones and how we are using this handy little freebie in our classroom. We started off with a little jingle to remember what a homophone was. It goes like this (I just added a little jingle to it but you could add any little tune)
"Homophones: Sound the same but spelled differently! Sound the same but spelled differently!
It stuck with my little learners as soon as we began the chant to begin our lesson. I wanted to create something interactive with my learners that we could add to our notebooks to review and refer back to. Since we are heavily into soccer season at my house I decided to use that when I began to create.
Here is what we did! Stay tuned freebie below. :)
We cut out our title/definition and began cutting out the soccer balls to color.
Next , we placed them in our notebook matching up the homophones. After we matched up our homophones then we made it interactive by writing the short definitions of the words underneath so my students could look back as a reference.
If you like what you see and want your own copy you can get it here:
Posts
