Sneaky Silent Letters - FREEBIE

My kiddos have been working on their sneaky, silent letters. 

We started by reading the book Silent Letters Loud and Clear by Robin Pulver.

It is a really cute book where the students don't understand why they have to use the silent letters when they don't hear them. So they wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper stating their case.  Well, the silent letters disappear and the letter makes absolutely no sense.  Moral to the story:  We NEED those sneaky silent letters!

To practice recognizing some of our words that have silent letters, I created a Sneaky Silent Letter Sort.



If you are interested in this freebie, CLICK HERE!!

The fun fonts are from Kevin and Amanda.

Enjoy!!

Happy Tuesday!

Tagged and a Math FREEBIE!

I have not played tag since last summer with my boys, so it is neat to play a bloggy version of tag in the middle of winter!  I have been tagged by Holly over at Crisscross Applesauce in First Grade.

Here are the rules of Bloggy Tag:
1.  Post the rules
2.  Post 12 fun facts about yourself on the blog post.
3.  Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create 12 new questions for the people you tagged.
4.  Tag 12 people and link them in your post.
5.  Let them know that they have been tagged.

My 12 Fun Facts:
1.  I am a creature of habit....
2.  Unless it is in the classroom - if something isn't working, I'll change it!
3.  I once went parasailing...I was terrified the whole time.
4.  I love popcorn.
5.  I love storage containers....probably from my need to be organized!
6.  I met my husband on a blind date.
7.  He fell asleep in the movie on this blind date.
8.  On the same date, after he dropped me off, he almost ran over me.
9.  I haven't let him forget it.
10.  This July, we will be our eight year anniversary.
11.  We are lucky parents to two sweet boys.
12.  My sons are named Luke and Parker.

These are the questions that Holly has asked the people she tagged to answer:
1.  What is your favorite kind of candy?  Hot Tamales or anything chocolate.
2.  What is something that you are really uptight about?  Being late!!
3.  Is your car clean at this very minute?  Ummm....Not so much!
4.  What is your "favorite" household chore?  That's tough...I guess laundry.  I don't mind the washing or the folding, it is the putting away that I get tired of doing.
5.  Do you miss Oprah?  I was never home in time to watch Oprah, so no, not really.
6.  Do you play an instrument?  I used to play the guitar, but it has been years.
7.  What is your favorite piece of technology?  At school it is my document camera.  At home it is my Nook Color.
8.  Do you have a social life?  Kinda....it's hard with young children and school!
9.  Are you a phone talker?  Yes...I live four hours away from my family, and we talk about everyday.
10.  Do you text?  No, I would much rather hear the person that I am speaking with.
11.  What is your favorite piece of furniture in your house?  Oh that is easy.  My pineapple chair.  I love it, but my husband can't stand it.  I think it is one of those things where you either love it, or hate it.  Here is a picture so you can judge for yourself:

12.  Does anything make you squeamish?  Spiders, blood....hold on, I've got to put my head between my knees to stop the clanking in my ears.

Okay.  I'm better now.

Tag...you're it!

Edana - Color Me Kinder
Michelle - Fabulous in First
Jenn - Finally in First
DeAnne - First Grade and Fabulous
Tammy - First Grade at Klinger Cafe
LaughinBrunette (Jennifer) - First Grade Blue Skies
Johanna - First Grade Fanatic
Kimberley - First in Maine
Haley - Following Optimism
Barbara - Grade ONEderful
Miss DeCarbo - Second Grade Sugar and Spice
Amy - The Resource(ful) Room

Okay ladies, here are your questions:
1.  Do you have a pet?
2.  What is your favorite type of food?
3.  Do you have a phobia of anything?
4.  If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
5.  Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks?
6.  What did you want to be when you grew up?
7.  Where did you go to college?
8.  When did you realize that you wanted to be a teacher?
9.  What is your favorite grade level to teach?
10.  What subject do you like teaching the most?
11.  What is one thing in your classroom that you feel like you can't live without?
12.  What is your favorite part about blogging?

Shewww.  That was a LONG post.  To reward you for getting to the end, I have a math freebie for you!  It is a Valentine's Day themed math game.  It is to help children with adding three digits.  They take turns rolling three dice and then moving the same number of spaces as the sum.  I have only pictured two of the three slides.  The third slide has the game pieces.

If you are interested in this freebie, CLICK HERE!!

Happy Sunday!!

 

Crash, Thump

That is the sound of me falling out of my chair.  I was blog stalking yesterday morning and I headed over to Dragonflies in First.  She always has some neat ideas or a funny story.  Anyway, as I was reading her blog, I noticed the random generator and saw that I had won!  Hence the falling out of the chair.  I never win ANYTHING!

Let me tell you a story about how I never win anything.  One of the other first grade teachers is the luckiest person I know.  Whenever we go somewhere and there is a door prize drawing involved, she ALWAYS wins.

Some of you may remember me talking about the football pool we had going on at school back in the fall.  My friend was in it too.  My strategy for picking who would win each game was to look at the stats of the teams, look at injury lists, etc.  My friend's method?  I kid you not, she would pick the team that she had heard of or which one was geographically closest.  We had lots of giggles as I sat with her and watched her choose her teams.  It would take her about 45 seconds....it could take me an hour.

Well the laugh is on me because she ended up winning!!  This little story just goes to show how LUCKY she is!

But I'm not bitter.

Really.

I'm not.

Hmmm...

But, I guarantee if she had entered the giveaway, I would not have fallen out of my chair yesterday morning!

To get the awesome unit that I won, CLICK HERE.  It is titled Fabulous February Word Work, and it has great activities.

Happy Saturday!

Words Their Way My Way

Like any program out there, most teachers that I know take it and make it work for their specific classroom needs.  That is what I have done with Words Their Way.

I have gotten several questions about word study, so I thought that I would share a little more in depth of what it looks like in my classroom.

I have three groups of kids who are on different reading and spelling levels.  The Red Group, Green Group, and Blue Group.  Each group has their own reading selection for the week and spelling list.

I get my lists from the Words Their Way books.  All of my groups are in the Letter Name book:

One of my groups will be going into the Within Word Pattern book next week:

(These books are relatively inexpensive:  under $20 each.  The books have many, many word lists with features that build on one another.)

Okay, back to my week with Words Their Way.

On Monday each group will get their list of words, cut them out, put their initials on the back of each word, and put them in the baggie in the back of their word study notebook.  During group time on Monday we color the header words red, green, or blue depending on the group.  We go over the features for the week, sort, and talk about our sorts.  The kiddos also write the sorts in their notebooks.

For the rest of the week we will sort and write our words daily.  We also will look for words that follow our feature patterns in what we are reading. 

Each group has their own homework packet where they practice spelling their words and sorting some of their words at home.

The assessments are a little different than what one might traditionally think of as a spelling test. 
     1.  Each child sorts their words on their desk.  I walk around and check off that they were able to correctly complete their sort. 

     2.  The actual written part of the test is different too.  Not only do they have to spell the word correctly, they also have to put it under the correct feature header. 

I hope that this helps bring a greater understanding of how Words Their Way looks in my classroom.

I hope to be able to post some pictures of the children sorting and the assessments in action soon.

Happy Thursday!

Word Study and an Award

Last Friday, my principal asked if I would like to attend a conference on word study, knowing how much I like Words Their Way.  Not knowing much about the conference, I said sure.  So yesterday at 5:00, I walked into the Executive Auditorium at the Higher Ed center and I was schooled on word study. 

By Shane Templeton. 

One of THE authors of Words Their Way.

Jaw drop. 

Holy Cow.

He was an excellent speaker.  Here are some of the highlights of his talk:

1.  How kids spell words tells us what they know about words and what they know about reading.

2.  Look at what they are using, but confusing.

3.  Three layers of vocabulary:
    -Immersion in rich oral language, wide spread reading, and writing for a purpose.
    -Explicitly teaching and talking about word structure
    -Deep intense study of specific words:  general academic vocabulary as well as content specific.

4.  Activate a background knowledge of vocabulary.


I know that this is what we do, but it is just nice to be reaffirmed in our teaching actions.

Along the lines of word study, I wanted to share how it works in my classroom.

Each child gets their own word study notebook.  It is just a simple composition notebook.  On the back inside cover, I tape in an envelope:

I know that it is hard to see, but all I had were white envelopes.  They are like the ones that you put a report card in to send home.  In this envelope is where the kids keep a baggie with their words that they are sorting for the week.

The children sort and write their words every day.  Here are a few examples:

On Friday for the assessment, the students not only have to spell the words correctly, they also have to write them under the correct feature heading.

One of the reasons that I love word study, is that it is differentiated for individual learners.  Our reading series has a spelling component, but it did not meet the spelling needs of most of the students in my class.  I had used Words Their Way when I taught third grade, but have been too worried about learning the first grade curriculum for the last two years.  This is the first year that I have used it with my firsties.  I was super nervous about it at first, but my guys have caught onto the idea of sorts and features very quickly!

Okay, enough rambling on about word study.

The last part of the post title says an award.  I am so thankful to Amy over at The Resource(ful) Room for awarding me with her favorite follower award!

I don't know about you, but when I see that someone has left me a sweet, encouraging comment, it gives me confidence to continue to do what I know is best for my kiddos in my classroom.

There are a lot of kind friends out there in bloggy world that have given me all kinds of encouragement, and it is really hard to narrow it down to two, but here they are.

First, I would like to thank Barbara over at Grade ONEderful.

 She always takes the time to leave a comment, no matter how crazy my ramblings!

My next favorite follower is Jessica over at Apples and Papers.

She is a first grade teacher, and it appears that we are kindred spirits in the organization movement!  Her support has meant a LOT!

Thank you for making it to the end of this VERY long post!  You guys are the best!

Happy Tuesday!!



I Can't Believe That I Am Going to Share This...

My mom was a second grade teacher for many years.  When she retired, I inherited her "empire."  I carried box after box after box of awesome teaching stuff to the bonus room above our garage.  And that is pretty much where it has stayed.  Until now.  I am in the process of turning the bonus room into my office. 

I would LOVE something like this:

or this:

Here is my reality.  Please don't judge me!

YIKES!!!  I PROMISE the rest of our house does NOT look like this!  I have just been at a loss as to where to start.  I got the bookshelf for free from the secretary at my school, and my husband just bolted it to the wall for me tonight (I've had it for a month and a half.  sigh.)

So you can see that I have made some progress....sorta...kinda...okay not really, I just want to make myself feel better!  Hopefully I can find a happy medium between my two dream rooms and my in real life room!

I hope to be able to post "after" pictures soon!

Happy Saturday!

Wow and a Freebie

You know how you have those days where you would be better off just getting back into bed?  If only I knew then what I know now!

My day started off rough because I was running late.  Not just a little late.  SUPER late.  The kind of late that you get stuck behind every slow car and get stopped by every traffic light. 

So, I have spent most of the day trying to catch up, but never fully succeeding. 

This afternoon, I had just put my seat belt on and started the car, when I saw it.  I took a picture of it at home.  Are you ready for this?

Seriously?!  Do you SEE the foot long crack in the windshield?  I promise that it wasn't there this morning.

So I am driving along getting really annoyed by the stinkin' crack and the way that it is distorting everything and getting really, well, let's say irritated...that's a good description.

I get to my Mother-in-Law's house and tell her all about the windshield and she looks kind of sheepish and says that, on top of everything else, she thinks that my youngest has an ear infection!

One trip to Urgent Care and an hour later we have a diagnosis of a double ear infection. 

sigh.

Okay, onto happier things!

Yesterday I promised a freebie, and a freebie you shall get!  The adorable clip art is courtesy of The First Grade Diaries.  It is an ABC order activity with response sheet.  I hope that you enjoy!

CLICK HERE to get your freebie!

 

Hope your Thursday is a happy one!