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Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Word Work For the Whole Year, Meet Ziggy, and Final Wednesday Linky of the Year

One of my favorite things to teach during Language Arts is "Word Work".  As an intervention teacher, so often my struggling readers do not realize there are similarities between known words and unknown words. I love a good word work session to point this out to my Intervention Students, but used this task a ton when I was in the classroom as well. I also love using it as a sight word review, for all of my students but especially the youngest. So this activity is truly versatile.

All you truly need to do this activity is a set of letters- could be letter cards, letter tiles, or my personal favorite, magnetic letters as I love doing this activity on a magnetic board that hangs on the classroom wall.  My favorite magnetic letters are from Educational Insights. They come in a variety of sizes so I have a ton of the small ones, and a few sets of the big one for my magnetic board.  This is what they look like in case you want to take a peek.  The thing I love about them the most is that they are blue(consonants) and red(vowels). You can visually see the color pattern in the words, and your students can start to see that EVERY SINGLE WORD HAS AT LEAST ONE VOWEL.  This is key information for a student to realize.



I also love having my students sitting around me on the floor near the board so all can see and participate. Students are armed with a clipboard, recording sheet, and a pencil for recording the words they come up with during the lesson.

So what is on the board you may be wondering?  You can put any phrase or saying on the board that you would like. It can be seasonal, related to a holiday, associated with a theme/topic you are working on...the sky is the limits. I make sure the phrase has a variety of vowels in it usually, unless we are focusing on a particular word family and then the vowels are limited.  You will know when you have a phrase that is not working for a lesson as there will be very few words that can be made from the component letters. Here is one that we were working on in second grade intervention this week:


My rule is that my students can not use the words that we start with, so no "happy", "mother(s)", or "day".  In teaching my students to do this, I often times will encourage them to put a different beginning on the word and make word family words such as may, hay, say, pay, etc.  We learn how to add endings such as "ed" or "ing".  We don't focus on plurals and just add "s" to a word once per lesson. Once your kiddos get the hang of this routine, they truly could work for 45 minutes on this task.  Depending on what grade level you teach, your students can work on a variety of different skills. This is truly so easy to differentiate and I have used this with all grade levels from K-4th.  




Now because this is so popular with my students, I have to say after years of using this activity, I finally printed up an instruction sheet. I  duplicated this on card stock and laminated it so it is durable and easy to leave should I have a sub in my room. It is way more detailed than I could ever be in my lesson plan book.  Take a peek at it here and you can get a free download of this in my TPT store as well. You might consider tucking a copy into your sub folder for a last minute absence.


If in the event, you are not creative, don't think you can come up with the phrases for this word work, and just like something already prepped for you and your busy lifestyle, I have included a link to my Growing Bundle that is available in my TPT store. You will see a sample recording sheet for Chinese New Year below.  It also includes a second sheet so you can copy the recording sheets back to back. (Color and B&W are included too!) This bundle will have all the information you will need for an entire school year of word work, as well as all the recording sheets and phrases you will need (7-9 lessons per month).  It is not finished yet, but grows month by month and the charge for the product goes up each time something new is added.  So you can get a good deal on it still if you are interested in incorporating this super activity into your routine.  You can take a look at it here for more information and details.

Growing Magnetic Letter Move Around- YOU CAN STILL SAVE $24 OFF THE YEAR LONG PACKET!

Here is what Mary Jayne from Rockville, Maryland recently had to say about this growing bundle.
"I absolutely LOVE this activity.  I bought magnetic letters for my students but didn't have a structured activity to guide them.  Needless to say, the build a word rotation wasn't very effective. Then I found your activity and my kids are really benefiting from having something to guide them."

Now, for the really fabulous news.  After losing my mascot, Izzy, this past Labor Day Weekend, our home and hearts have been filled with our newest addition, Ziggy.  We picked up this little guy this past weekend, and he is just a little cutie pie!  He is spunky, playful, loves to chew, and loves to explore. He is especially fond of his sock monkey, which may be bigger than him! While I knew how much we missed Izzy, this little guy has made it even more obvious. We are so glad to hear the pitter pat on the floors and he has wiggled his way into our hearts in just a few short days. 


And one last little nugget.  Below you will find some great seasonal products from some of my favorite TPT friends.  Take a peek below, and perhaps you will find something you just must need prior to the end of the school year!

Happy Word Working!

Until Next Time, 




4 comments:

  1. Love magnetic letters and I LOVE your blog! It had to have a little westie of course! Hope your little Ziggy is settling in well. What a lucky little guy!

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    1. Of course it had to have a Westie! Ziggy got a fabulous report from my vet. I'm doing a lot of mopping up but I think I am getting things under control! There is a definite reason that puppies are so cute! Thanks Carla.

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  2. Such a fun activity! My students LOVE working with magnetic letters. Thanks for sharing! ~Melissa

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    1. Thanks Melissa. My students could do this activity for a really L-O-N-G time and be completely into it! Thanks for your comment.
      Taryn

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