igh Phonics

The last two weeks we have been focusing on igh words in phonics. I decided to do a lightbulb activity. My students thought of all the igh words they could and I wrote them on the SmartBoard as they told me them. They recorded them on their own lightbulbs which I created and will link below. They had a lot of fun with it and got a lot of practice with igh words AND compound words like lightbulb, moonlight, tightrope, and many more! I then hung them in the hallway and put "WE ARE THE BRIGHTEST BULBS!"

igh Lightbulb

Another igh activity I did was a read aloud of Snowmen at Night which is full of igh words. While I was reading I asked my students to raise their hand if they heard an igh word and then I recorded them on the dry erase board. My students filled out a snowman web with all the igh words throughout the reading as well. It was a great way to practice hearing the long i sound and writing the words as well.

Snowman Web

Vowel Teams

Since we are celebrating Valentine's Day this week in the classroom I decided to incorporate it into my phonics lesson on vowel teams. I got the idea from this blog, which I have linked to before, she is awesome! Smitten with First. I started with a read aloud of The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond. During my read aloud I made an anchor chart of all the -ai and -ay vowel teams we heard. My students would raise their hand when they heard one and we would record it. They were so excited to hear two in the title right away! I created the umbrella and stick myself, I just drew it on paper and made copies, and I made the hearts on Paint. My students did it in groups of 3 and they had a blast! They each got to record two words on the heart, one -ai and one -ay. They turned out awesome and we hung them on the ceiling all around the room! The next day they were doing an activity about -ai and -ay vowel teams again and they even looked to our umbrellas for help!

Quotation Marks

On Friday I did a  mini lesson for my Fairy Tales unit, I focused on quotation marks. These are really tricky for kids to understand, a lot of my students thought they were apostrophes at first. I started out my creating an anchor chart along with my students, and then I showed to awesome youtube videos about quotation marks. They were both from the PBS Electric Company, I'll link them below, my kids absolutely loved them. Then together we corrected a sentence I wrote on the anchor chart together. Then they went back to their table groups and did a small group activity. I gave them each a sentence strip with an incorrect sentence on it, they had to add the quotation marks and commas. To do this they used macaroni noodles, they had a blast with it! Once they were done small group they each got a worksheet to correct sentences using their macaroni noodles as well, which I will link below. I think it was a great way to teach something really tricky by making it hands on and engaging for them.

It was also the 100th day of school on Friday as well! We did all different activities about the 100th day, I also made a banner for the door which made the kids really excited! I also made little labels and put them on glow sticks that said, Congrats you are 100 days brighter! I got the idea from here, Glow Stick Bracelets.


Quotation Mark Video 1

Quotation Mark Video 2

This is where I got the idea for the macaroni noodles! It is an awesome blog to check out!

Sugar and Spice Blog

Here is the worksheet I created for it which is very similar to hers!

Quotation Mark Worksheet

Student Teaching Update

This is my third week of student teaching and I love it! I am now teaching a unit on Fairy Tales and my kids are loving it. We began by creating a wordsplash together of everything they knew about Fairy Tales (pictured below). Then we read The Three Little Pigs out of this amazing book I found in the bargain section of Barnes and Noble. It literally has every Fairy Tale you could imagine in it and they are all 5 minute read alouds, its amazing. Then we started our graphic organizer, we only completed the pig side and then the next day we read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and finished the Venn Diagram. The kids loved that the Venn Diagram was a pig and a wolf and they came up with everything that is on it! We are going to continue reading original Fairy Tales and Fractured Fairy Tales and then they will start their own! Tomorrow we are going to discuss story elements and do a graphic organizer together. I will link everything below of where I found it, they are all awesome resources!

We have also been focusing on time a lot, this week I noticed a lot of my kids struggling with telling time so during snack they have been completing little worksheets that I have been finding online. They also made a clock of their own today that has flaps and under it it tells them the minutes which is something they have really been struggling with.One of my students even told me today how helpful it was which made me super excited! I will also put that link below for the clock template. Tomorrow I am going to begin doing a Time Check, they will get a little slip of paper which I will link below, and throughout the day I will say Time Check and they will have to record what time it is on their sheet.

Clock Template

Fairy Tale Story Elements

Pig Venn Diagram

Time Check