Last Week...and then some

I am so behind on my blogging! I haven't blogged about my actual teaching in two weeks. I have a little excuse...conferences! We had conferences two weeks ago and then last week I had some training to go to, so I had another short week. So this post is a bit of a mish-mosh. There are even pictures from Halloween. EEK! I am hanging my head in shame for that one. :) 

Long o words: This was a freebie from last year

I printed these, laminated and put magnets on the back. Now they are my own magnetic letters! I wanted to have the ee, ea, oa, and ai on a shared card. We practiced making words (I say a word and they build) and we did the opposite (they make the words and read them to the group).

This was a fun way to practice reading ea words! :) My little ghost helper. We actually did this the week after Halloween. They still ask for it though!

I used this with bigger words for my third graders too!

Sorting short and long e (from my 2nd grade October literacy centers)

First Grade:

 

Matching onset and rime to make words

Some of my first graders are still working on memorizing those first sight words. I wrote these basic sentences on chart paper. They are all sight words we've been practicing mixed with phonetic words. We reread this every day for a week. They had to point to the yellow dots as they read. For some reason, they love when I write anything with smelly markers! One of my sweet boys was so excited. This was the first time he felt like he  could really read. 

I did this with my other first grade group. They are starting to learn more sight words and they are getting so much better at blending words together. It's so exciting to watch their progress. It's really clicking now! Instead of highlighting the short u words like I did last year, we highlighted the sight words we were  working on. This group needs more work with sight words than with short u, so I thought that was more appropriate. Here, this student circled words that they weren't sure about. We read this three times total and then they took it home to read some more. This is from my short  u pack. It's perfect for practicing fluency because there are mostly basic sight words and phonetic words. There are also comprehension questions that really make them think. I'm new to close reading, but I think this works pretty well!

We worked together to rebuild a poem

For guided reading, I gave each student a different book for two days to work on. The first day, we talked about  doing a picture walk, making predictions, etc. I modeled with my book, then they did it with their book. Then they practiced reading it, using their reading strategies. I listened in with each student. The next day, they practiced again on their own, then read it to the group. Each student talked about the characters, setting, and main events. I also asked them to tell me the big idea of the book. This was a fun way to do guided reading.

I LOVE these. My friend Becca over at Foxwell Forest makes these sight word play dough mats. They are a big hit with my students. 

More sight word practice:

Students read the sentence and then flipped over the word to build it themselves. 

And some more Halloween left-overs:

This freebie was here

I hope you all have a great week!  I promise my next post will be a little more timely. :)