Year Round Resources Product Review

Have you been to Educents to scoop up the amazing Grades 1-2 bundle deal? 

I have been enjoying using some of these amazing items in my classroom!  I was super excited to use Christina from A Tale of Two K Teacher's Mark my Word Pack.

This product contains 30 print and go worksheets. On each page the students are to stamp the word, trace the word, color the word, write the word, and highlight the word in the box of sight words. Great for morning work, literacy station, or guided reading groups. Regular retail price of $7.00 and 32 pages are included.

Take a look at how I used it in my classroom:

There are so many great sight words in this pack and they go right along with the books I use in Guided Reading.  This particular day our book had several sight words, but we focused on "look."

The students stamp the word.  This was the most exciting thing EVER...EVER!  We have not stamped yet, but they sure loved it.  I only have one set of stamps, so we passed it around the table and worked on whatever we could in the mean time.

You stamp, trace, color and write the word.  Then you highlight.  I didn't have enough highlighters, so we just used our yellow crayon which was perfect.

When we finished, we wrote our "Look" sentences similar to the book.  Can I just say that every.single.child could write the word look without hesitation!

Here are some others that the groups practiced:

We loved this product! 

So what are you waiting for?? Go grab the bundle while it's still 74% off!

Dry Erase Circles & Guided Reading

I am SUPER excited.

Only a teacher could get excited about a dry erase circle. I mean really!  Anyway, I ordered these Avery Dry Erase Circles from Walmart.Com on Saturday and they arrived on my doorstep yesterday.  I applied them to my table today and used them not even an hour later. EXCITED.  They come in packs of 3 for just under $7 and shipping is 97 cents per item.  Very reasonable.  I bought 3 packs.  My table is a little unusual and seats 8.  I keep 6 chairs there for Guided Reading, but my math groups are 7-8 so I wanted to have them there for math also.  And because I was so EXCITED I gave myself one too :) 

As usual, we made the sight word we focused on in our book, can, and then the wrote the word using their model and then without.  It was really nice not to have to pass out dry erase boards!

Here's a new activity for you.  We read a book today called "What Can You Do?" All of the sentences in the book were "I can ____."  Yesterday we interactively wrote "I can play." on a sentence strip like I posted about last week.  Today I introduced their Guided Reading Journals. (This is 8 1/2 x 14 paper folded in half and stapled...really simple and it keeps me from having to get paper all the time.) 

Today I wanted them to independently write the sentence we wrote yesterday.  I draw blanks for them as we say the sentence together.  We do this for every child's journal.  This helps them to remember the sentence and hear the words several times so it will be easier when they write.  This was our first time, so it's very step by step for now.  They wrote I and can pretty much independently and we sounded out play together.  Having the blanks helps them to remember space, write left to right and how big or small their writing should be.

Finally I had them illustrate and tell me what they were doing.  One friend told me he and his brother were playing tag - the picture was really cute.  Obviously this cutie is playing outside. 

Hopefully you are learning some activities from my Guided Reading posts - let me know if you have any questions! :)

More Guided Reading

I posted last week about some of the things we do in our Guided Reading Groups.  I promised a few more pictures this week, so I am back to deliver.

We started again with practicing our names with correct formation.  I am starting to see this transfer over to our regular papers, but some of them are still resistant to change.

Today we read a new book - a Level 1 book called Things I See.  I chose this book because I wanted to focus in on the word see.  It is one of our spelling words this week and it is one of the first sight words I like to teach because I usually teach them to write I see sentences first.

We did our picture walk and I planted the vocabulary for them and then I had them read with their whisper phones.  I love the whisper phones!  I am able to listen in to see if they have grasped the patterns but they don't disturb each other while they are reading.

This group is working on pointing one - to - one, so I pulled out my "old lady fingers" to give them something fun to point with.  (They are witch fingers, but I don't like to say that just in case someone doesn't believe in it.  These came from Oriental Trading, but now is a great time to get them anywhere.)

 Last week I mentioned sight word practice after we finish reading and retelling.  As I mentioned before, our sight word was "see" in this story.  I gave them their letters and asked them if they knew what word we could make with those letters.  They got busy making their word.

Then they write the word on a white board.  I got these lined strips in the Target Dollar Spot this summer.  The pack had 4 for a dollar.  The lines are a little small, so I'm not focused on how the letters are on the lines just yet, but they are a lot smaller and less cumbersome than a regular dry erase board.  I actually just ordered some dry erase circles to stick to the table.

After we finish our sight word, we write a sentence.  This was our first time with any interactive writing.  I chose a sentence similar to our book - "I see a bug."  Our book actually said "I see the bug." but I only wanted to focus on one sight word. 

When we finish writing the sentence, we cut it up and put it back together.  Then they read it to me.

 

I have every student in the group do this.  Then I put it in an envelope and write the sentence on the front.  I let someone from the group take the sentence home to show their families how to put it back together and read it.  I promised them someone different could take it the next time.  I typically do this twice a week and on the other 2 days we will do some independent writing.  I'll post more on that later. 

I hope these ideas are helpful to you!  Please don't hesitate to ask a question if you have one!

Guided Reading

Assessments are complete, we've got the routine for switching Centers down, so this week we began some true Guided Reading lessons.  While my children differ in the knowledge of letters and sounds, I don't have any readers at this time.  Most of my students are a level RB (Reading Behaviors), which means they are ready to read, they just don't have the knowledge base of sight words and reading strategies to read the Level B.

I started out with a Level A (which only had 2 words on the page) just to teach them our first strategy, Eagle Eye (look at the picture).  This gave me the opportunity to see what they knew about one to one matching, how to navigate through the book and other basic print skills.

Here's a typical lesson for us:

Students come to my table.  They start by practicing their name with a dry erase marker.  I typed their name in Century Gothic font and placed it in a page protector.  They trace it, write it underneath twice and then they turn it on the back where they can't see the model and write it a few more times.  We spend about 3 minutes on this.  All of my students can write their names, now we are working on writing them correctly.  1 uppercase letter, the rest lowercase - all facing the correct direction and formed correctly.  Breaking muscle memory is hard!  We are working hard on getting them to transfer this skill onto their regular papers.  We're almost there!

When I see them form a letter incorrectly, I write it at the top so they can see the correct formation.  This sweet fella was forming his n incorrectly, so I had him practice it a few times.

Another example of writing the letter at the top so they can see the correct formation.  

This is a great transition activity, because it takes the students varying times to get to me so they can start as they get to me.  We will NOT do this forever.  As soon as I see that they've transferred the skill to writing their name on the regular, we will stop this.

Next we move on to our book.  We read this book yesterday, so today was a reread day.  This book is a Level 1 - A Day at School.  I go back over the book and what it was about and remind them of the sentence pattern by saying something like "Oh the book was about what we do at school?  What is something WE CAN do at school?"   This is very helpful for them. 

Whisper reading.  This is the elbow piece of plumbing from Lowes.  6 of these cost me about $25.  I didn't have the money for the real deal but these work just fine.  They love them!

After they retell the story, we do this activity.  I wrote the sentences from the story on a sentence strip and they find the page it came from and put the sentence back together.

 After the sentences are together, I shut their books and we talk about more print skills.  Right now we are working on Capital Letters, Puncutation, How many words are in the sentence, Find a word with x amount of letters, and pointing one to one.

Next we practice our sight word from the story.  The sight word in this story we focused on was "can."  I give the students paper letters and ask the what word they think we can make with those letters and then they make the word.  We "mix and fix" which is where they mix the letters up and make the word again.   I didn't get pictures of this today, but I will get them soon.  Then they write this word on a white board a few times and we practice spelling and saying it.

To end our lesson if we have worked hard, we get iPad time.  I have 1 iPad for my classroom, so I find this one of the most effective ways to use it.  These are our favorite apps right now depending on ability level and group.

Abby Sight Words - They have a free version, but it's well worth the couple of dollars for the full version!  This one focuses on having them find a specific sight word and there is another part of the app to spell the words.

Abby Phonics - Again they have a lite version, but it is well worth the extra few bucks for the full version.  This one focuses in on sounds.  It has them match the letters, find pictures that start with the "h" sound etc.

ABC Alphabet Lite - Totally Free and I haven't needed to upgrade it.  It focuses on finding a specific letter.

I usually spend about 3-5 minutes on one of these games.  It's a great motivator for my students and also educational.  I basically go around the table with everyone getting a turn until we are out of time.  Everyone gets the same amount of turns.

I finish with a smart skittle and hit my "Don't Worry Be Happy" button and we transition to the next center.  And that's our reading groups for now!  We will add more as we go!