The Write Stuff - Ten Pin linky

Did you know my undergraduate degree is in writing?  You'd think that would help somewhat with teaching writing- but as it turns out, not so much.  So, like everybody else, I'm always searching for things that can help me out there.  I mean, really- how do you convince an eight year old that "I like it" and "It was fun" are not particularly descriptive.

So here we go with Ashley's Ten Pin Linky party over at Just Reed:

I have eight boards dedicated to writing over on Pinterest. Teaching Writing is my catch all, then I have Book-Making, Word Work, Mechanics, Nonfiction Writing, Letter Writing, Narrative Writing, and Poetry.


1. There are lots of heart map pins out there.  I like this one, since it guides the kids into what actually to put in there in a Give Me Three sort of format.  Structure can be good.  I also dig on heart maps because it can become a dynamic piece to a writer's notebook, and whenever they attempt to say they don't know what to write about, you can rally back with "Don't know what to write? Go look in your heart!"


2. I enjoy making books with the kids.  They dig on having hard covers.  makes them feel extremely professional. I adore Kathy Barbro's blog Art Projects for Kids, and this is a super way to recycle and show kids how easy it is to make a book for themselves.


3. Word Work.  I always feel like I want to do a great job with this and then I never really do.  But this pin got my attention a couple of weeks ago because I'm in the midst of planning my first PYP unit, How We Organize Ourselves, and the social studies connection is to economics.  It's not just about reading sight words, but also spelling them/using them correctly in your writing.  This seemed like a cool way to "pay an author".  So the writing assignment is due, and they swear that they've actually edited their work.  Just look up a the word wall, give them a sight word buck for each one they used and spelled correctly.  Seems pretty simple. Who will become the best-selling author?


4. This is a fantastic visual rubric for revising and editing.  Additionally, I am wanting to do this Three little Pigs deal at the beginning of the year, and this would work in perfectly with - "Is that a straw house story or a brick one?" rubric idea.


5. LOVE this book.  LOOOOOOVE it, I say!  Tony Stead write a great book here, really easy to follow along with, extremely inspirational to my teaching, useful to the core.  I really like how he has the kids do a writing piece about what they THINK it's supposed to look like, and then he can assess the prior knowledge from there and break the kids into needs based groups as well as plan his lessons.  Why teach a lesson on write your materials first on a procedural piece if everyone already knows how to do that?


6. Sandi from Rubber boots and Elf shoes writes an amazing blog that I find something I want to do in my classroom from at least once a week.  If not more.  She did not disappoint with this gem of an idea.  Lots of folks have their class pet write to their kids- but she makes her kids write to her class pet- and they cover all of their revising and editing in it to boot.  I just caught a toad last week, and have set him up in a nice little habitat and am looking forward to working this writing magic come the fall.


7. I realize that the watermelon to seed idea is not anything new or fantastic.  But I do like this visual rubric.  I also like the idea of having a blank one where we can really workshop these sorts of idea together as a class and change up the watermelon ideas whenever I see an author struggling.  Even making smaller ones that are laminated or in sheet protectors in their writing notebooks so they can use them as they plan.


8. Another possible use for a fake Christmas tree in my forest themed classroom this coming year. This site has tons and tons of ideas.


9. I have yet to find a way of storing writing materials that I am pleased with yet- but I like this idea.  I might just give it a go.


10. Bahahahaha! I just had to.



Write on, kittens!

Musings about Vocabulary Instruction and awards

Confession: I feel guilty when I don't have any "real" photographs to go along with my posts.
So, here's a random picture from my three mile trail of sweat:

Part of my walk takes me by a farm, and this is all that is left of what once must have been an expansive rock wall.  I love it.  I love how it still stands.  I love how the rocks are all jumbly, yet smooth, and fit together so well.

On a side note- the walk is killing me.  It doesn't seem to be getting easier to heave myself up and down hills.  And in the end of it- my pedometer says I've burned 300 calories.  300!?  Are you kidding me?  I could burn 300 calories "aggressively kissing" for half an hour.  Shoot.  And it would be more enjoyable than this walk.  And right there is probably the reason for the weight gain folks- you stop kissing and you blow up like a balloon...

Ok- let's get educational.



I've been reading Laney Sammons Book, Building Mathematical Comprehension.  I wrote a post on the first chapter regarding why you should infuse reading comprehension techniques into math.  There is also a book study going on through Primary Inspired that I'm linking up with- but they are way ahead in the book reading than I am.  I'm just here on chapter two. Beth from Thinking of Teaching hosted this chapter.

Chapter two is about vocabulary instruction.  A very meaty chapter- as is most of the book.  And I think a struggle I had with this chapter is guilty feelings about not really teaching vocabulary in any significant way- or even thinking about it much for that matter.  This last year I had a high school student teacher helper put up a word wall for me- and it was sort of a mad disaster.  Colorful- but completely unusable.  And then I felt guilty about taking it down, I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I just left it up.  And I just sort of decided I'd do a better job of it next year.

Another motivator for having a word wall in this next year is that Flamingo Fabulous made me word wall cards in my color scheme. 

But here's what makes me hesitate:
I don't want my walls all covered up. I didn't get rid of three fourths of my hoard just to clutter walls.  Even if the rest of the room does look nice and tidy, a cluttered wall completely throws the whole thing off.

Now, I thought at first I'd go and find pictures of word walls on Pinterest and flash them up here and say- SEE- I don't want THAT.  But then I thought, that is way sort of mean, sister, curb it.  So I'm just going to say this- it's a personal choice of mine, not to have a lot of things on my walls.  So when I do have a word wall- I plan to only have certain words up at a time.  For instance- just the sight words we're working on at that particular time, and then when everyone has mastered a particular word- "retiring" it into a class book and replacing it with the next one we're working on.

But sight words aren't VOCABULARY words.

The first quote in this chapter that really got me was this one on page 46, Laney quotes work by Thompson saying " as teachers we should consider every student a mathematics language learner regardless of his or her level of English language proficiency".  This one hit home for me because 90% of my class every year IS an ESOL student- so from the get go, I've been depriving them. This was the hook that got me to really focus on this chapter.

She talks at length about DIRECT vocabulary instruction and what this should and should not look like.  Definitions for example.  NOT to be found in the dictionary.  They need to be created as a class in language that the kids understand and can manipulate in a conversation.  Because if they can't TALK about the word, they won't use it and they won't understand it.

There is also discussion on representing these words in both linguistic AND nonlinguistic ways.  Enter the graphic organizer.  In addition to many other types of organizers, she also suggested a Frayer diagram:

The word, clearly, goes in the middle there.  But that got me thinking- if this is really what the kids need to "see" a word- that's a bit more than a word on a wall.  In this case, I'm definitely going to have to have a revolving system of words on the wall- and "retiring" them not because they are mastered, but because I need the space.  But I also don't want to give the impression that the word isn't necessary anymore, so I will need to keep a class book of vocabulary words that is available to the students and that I refer back to often.

 

And there is also a significant piece on having the students play games where this vocabulary is part of the review.  Now, on one hand- I can incorporate this into my word work time during reading.  And I can also create a center rotation that is about math word work during math time- but that pushes me further into the realization that I'm going to need to do this with vocabulary in all areas of my curriculum- not just math.  Not just reading.  Everything.  How do you play games to make vocabulary fun?  And am I just being poopy about it because it doesn't sound like fun to me?

 

There is a nice piece about games you can play with your word wall- but nothing overly specific about independent game practice.  So I am going to have to go a'hunting.

 

I do appreciate that the book does really go into how to deliver direct instruction on the words- with how to pick your words, form questions, drive the discussion, scaffold and move it into the realm of student independence.  And I know at my school a lot of their assessments they have to write why they did what they did to solve the problem, and they aren't super good at this.  The quote I love about this subject is on page 64- Laney says, "Before expecting students to record mathematical ideas independently, it must be modeled - not just once, but repeatedly.  Until students have a vision of what is expected, it is unfair to ask them to attempt it on their own."  And I FORGET this all.the.time.  This was another quote that just centered me in my thinking- and now I know.  First quarter, don't worry so much about what they write down as their answer- just model, model, model.  Keep my own super big book of mathematical thinking right up there here we always meet for group discussions and constantly refer to it.  Perhaps this will help me to decide what looks/works best in math journals, and actually be able to create one with the kids that is useful.

 

But, WOW, what a complete hunk of newness.  You know, I read these books and I get really gung-ho and I just want to do everything and it ends up being too much.  I know last year I wrote a post on taking baby steps- just picking one thing and going with it until I felt strong enough to add in something else.  I guess at this stage, I'd have to say that incorporating in the vocabulary instruction would be as much as I could handle- but I'm only on Chapter TWO!  My word, what else will I be in for?

Let's lighten the mood here:

Christina at A Tale of Two K Teachers, Kristin at Fifth Grade Ramblings, and Victoria B at Enchanted in Elementary each nominated me for a Liebster award.  And I do love getting positive feedback.  But, as mentioned in an earlier post  I feel like a complete cheater since it's supposed to be for bloggers with under 200 followers.  And I'm over that- it just looks like less because they are split between Blogger and Bloglovin'.  However- it would be great if folks that are following me go and check them out and share some follower love.  And also, I love answering the random questions.  Spread the quirk, you know?  I won't answer all 33 though- maintain an element of mystery and all that- I picked four from each person who nominated me.

1. If you won the lottery would you still teach?
A very important question- and one I have fantasized about at length. To the point where I've already picked out my "claim the winnings" name, since I want to maintain a bit of anonymity. At this point, I still believe I would keep teaching.  I'd want to bask in being able to buy my whole class iPads and things like that.  And also, I really do love what I am doing now- and I can't give that up for money. (I would however, start heavily vacationing during my summer weeks off).  Another reason I would keep working is based on the fact that not too long ago I was unemployed and on welfare for two years.  The first paycheck I got at my new job was the best day of my life.  I called up social services and cancelled my benefits and vowed never to go back to that place in my life again.  Now, of course, winning the lottery isn't the same as being on welfare- but there is a POINT to contributing to society- and it's my personal feeling that I need to continue to do that.
 

2. What's your favorite thing to wear?
Shoot, kittens, at this point in the stage of being Mrs. Claus- elastic waist pants.

3. Have you traveled?
I have visited my sister in New Zealand.  It was a great trip, and the only vacation I have ever taken all by myself.  I'd like to do it again- but Traci and I have discussed that she and I would visit other locales about the world.  Do they still have the game The Amazing Race?  She and I could rock that, I think.

4. What made you start blogging?

Reading other blogs and being constantly on Pinterest.  Also, my undergraduate degree is in writing- so this seemed like a great creative outlet for me to reflect on my work. I've kept on doing it because I've started to make virtual connections with people that I really enjoy collaborating with.  I know this award is about followers- and I know that getting more followers means getting more comments- but for me, one great connection is better than 100 people clicking "follow me" and never hearing from them.  So don't worry about the numbers, kittens- just love the relationships.

5.  Favorite all time movie?
I actually love love LOVE movies- so it is hard to pick one.  However- hands down, I will never give up on the Empire Strikes Back. just minus the Degoba scenes.  But this is when Harrison was HOT HOT HOT, and Mark wasn't whiny anymore or super creepy yet. And I'm sorry- but those Ewoks totally did something to Carrie while she was with them and they ruined her.

6.  What is your favorite food/thing to cook?
TACOS, TACOS, TACOS!

7.  Ultimate destination vacation?
Ok, so I saw this pin the other day and have decided I must complete all ten:




8.  Coffee, tea, or neither?  What gets you movin' in the morning?
It's evolving.  I did at one time love love love the cold Starbucks double shot drinks you could get at the gas station in the morning.  White chocolate being my favorite.  And then I noticed that the calorie count wasn't helping me.  So then I switched to hot green tea, and became, um, used to it, but can't say that it ever seriously pleased me.  And I love Pepsi, but it does at times feel wrong to have it in the morning.  So at the moment, I'm all about mixing my own lemonade with real lemon juice and adding some real fruit bits before I get in the car for my commute.

9. What is the best piece of teaching advice you have received?
Relax.

10. What is one thing on your Summer to-do list that you haven't gotten around to yet?
I haven't been cooking meals like I wanted to yet.

11. When you were in elementary school, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Indiana Jones of the ocean searching for buried treasure. Yep. Totally serious.

12. You just found $100 in an old coat pocket, what do you spend it on?
Crayola crayons, elastic-waist pants, a 44-ounce Pepsi from 7-11, and then the rest on stuff on my TpT wishlist, which is probably thirty pages long at this point.

And before I go- here's two other blogs I came across in the past week that are under 200 followers and need some attention:
Marcy from Searching for Teacher Balance is a fellow moose lover- and this raises her to the highest pinnacle of my esteem.  And she has also inspired me to try out yoga in the classroom this fall.  Which will be HI-larious people, watching Mrs. Claus try to "balance" this basketball.

And I heard from Laken at Whole Brain Teaching in the Ladybug Club today- and am very excited to find out that she is a fellow second grade teacher in Virginia AS WELL AS totally being into Whole Brain Teaching, which I absolutely adore.  Please go check these two ladies out, and the three above and love, love, love on them all!

 

Peace out, kittens!

Another Monday Made It- Rainbow Words, Soap Box Heaven, and Flower Box Supplies

    So it's the 8th week there for Tara at 4th Grade Frolics, but only week two for me.  That's A-OK however, because today I am super proud of myself.

May I present to you, the ever delightful upcycled CD cases of dry erase crayon rainbow word heaven?

All I've got here are old CD cases (I kept the CDs to do that CD weaving deal that's been on Pinterest).  I used graph paper to make the handwriting lines, scrapbook paper for the front and back covers, contact paper, and some puffy velvety letters I got from Dollar General for 25cents each.  I carefully pulled apart the two halves of the case, and washed them with soap and warm water to get off any gunk.  Then I traced the shape of the two pieces onto graph paper and scrap book paper.  Used a sharpie on the graph paper to make the handwriting guides, and then glued the graph paper to the scrapbook paper.  This way, when you OPEN the cd case, it's the plastic case that you are writing on with the dry erase crayon.  It wipes off super easy.  I used the contact paper to attach the scrapbook/graph paper combo to each piece, and then reassembled the case.

Of course, I have misplaced my dry erase crayons.  So I couldn't take a picture of how it works.  But I think you get it.  I wanted the crayons to fit inside the case, so everything was contained all in one packet- but there is a snag in my nefarious plot.  First and foremost, CRAYOLA makes a superior product.  Let's not get uppity- I know the other stuff is cheaper, but, um, hey- it's CHEAPER all the way around.  Crayola knows how to do a crayon, kittens.  No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Secondly though, *sigh*, Crayola made their dry erase crayon large- which does mean it holds up well- but it doesn't fit inside my case.  So then I thought I'd melt it down and pour it in a straw and make a smaller one.  Yeah- I said it. I got a McDonald's straw because they are a little thicker, you know?  But then I couldn't get the crayon out of the straw without breaking it.  So then I thought I'd pour it into candy molds and just have different shaped crayons that were flat and fit in the case.  Before I did this though, I put my most favorite sweat pants ever in the laundry.  And when they came out I discovered that dry erase crayon isn't the most "washable". My poor sweats.  My heart really heaves for them.  But anyhow, that tossed out the plan to make shaped crayons.  So now, I'll just have to put the dry erase crayons in a can and put them out with the cases.  Unless somebody else has a better idea.

*UPDATE* I retract my statement about the dry erase crayons by the ultra fabulous most cool ever magnificent company that is CRAYOLA not being "the most "washable"".  A second time through the wash (even after I had dried them) and my sweats are restored. My heart leaps for joy, and my head hangs in shame for not trusting that good old Gold and Green guarantee.  I'm still feeling lazy though, and haven't found my crayons, so I'm still tossing the melting it down plan. *END UPDATE*

Why not markers?  Because I'm just this side of OCD and can't stand it when the marker point gets all smeared up with other colors.  But I suppose if you're not "touched" like I am, go for it!

For my second presentation, not so much a MADE IT as a COLLECTED IT, but I am proud of them.  I have put together a pretty rockin' collection of small items to use for both my fine motor spelling word work centers and as math manipulatives.

Up first is my collection of natural objects.  I was also trying to think of multiple intelligences.  So I've got twigs, shells, acorn bits, money plant leaves, beans, and rubber fishing lure worms.  Then I've got assorted pom poms and foam stickers.  I'm going to tell them not to take the sticky back off the sticker.  But since I only spent a buck on them at the dollar store, I'm not too worried about it.

And then in a general mish-mash, we've got hair combs, mini sticks, birthday cake candles, sparkly gems, jingle bells, and alphabet beads (I've got pipe cleaners for the kids to string the beads on), red counting chips, hair bands, googly eyes, buttons, beads, and those clear transparency counters.

I also picked up some nuts and bolts.  Originally to do that whole putting alphabet letters on the nuts and twisting them onto the bolts.  But then I got really lazy, so I'm not sure if I'm going to do that or not.  They still make great fine motor pieces and math counters though.  And word to the wise, not all soap dishes are created equal.  The clam shell version on the left was found at Walmart for a sweet 97cents.  And the pop open version on the right was at Target for the same price.  Originally I got a ton of the Target version because I wanted the boxes to all be clear.  But what do you hear in the words "POP - OPEN"?  Did you hear "Super Annoying Kill Me Now Mess"? Because I sure did.  And as soon as I got all giddy and tried to show my Mom the sparkly gems one, POP-OPEN in your face SUCKER! Yar.  So I went back to Wally World and raided the rest of the clam shell cases.  I'll have to figure out something to do with the Pop Open ones...

But I was able to use six of them for this cool find.  Also at Walmart, in their scrap booking section in the 97cent bins, they had these little alphabet set stampers and also the little ink circles.  I thought they were pretty nifty for a spell it stamp it station.  And they don't fit in the clam shell soap dishes.

Okay, and time for the big finish! I wanted to create a supply organizer for my students desks that housed the pens and glue and what not they need that they don't usually have in their pencil boxes.  And I also wanted to make sure they didn't put my stuff in their pencil boxes.  Last year I used those three section tubs with handles, but it always ended up such a mess with everybody mixing up the markers and what not.  And then I found the flower boxes under the back porch stairs.  Dad says he does not want them or need them.  And there were five, so I power washed them up and ended up with this :
(after a little bit of work)

So what did I do?  I put some smushed up plastic bags at the bottom for filler, and then used this pet bed stuff called Carefresh Natural Premium Pet Bedding.  Essentially, it's ground up card board pieces vacuum packed into a plastic bag that then expands two and a half times it's size when you take it out.  And it was brown, so it's like dirt, without being dirty. If that makes sense.  I bought fake flowers at the Dollar Store, and used fancy duct tape to put them on my supplies.  In this box, I've got scissors, red/black/blue ink pens, pencil sharpeners, and bottle glue.  When I get back to school I'll add flowers to my marker sets and put them inside the flower box too. But I don't have that stuff here with me at home.  I love my flower box organizer!  Here's another angle:

I think I'll add more filler when I've got all the pieces in.  I also have to add the date stamper and stamp pad for writer's workshop.  I used the same color of flower for a single supply, so they'll put them back together in clumps and make it look preeeeeetttttttyyyyyyy! I should hope...

 

Trying out a New Look & Wondering about Word Work- Part Two - Center Time

Well, I have a button now, at least.  And I played for HOURS with photo editors trying to do something, ANYTHING!  And this is pretty much where I ended up for now.  I am trying to make the pic to the right my own tiled background, but I'm having an epic fail of it. Every time I try it says cannot upload because of internal combustion- or whatever.  Something like that.  If anyone wants to tell me what the heck to do, I would appreciate it.  And the header, it would be nice to figure out how to make it long with out stretching everything out like Jabba the Hut. *sigh*  Those are the basic colors in my room scheme I'm going for next year though.  What do you think?  Foresty enough?  Yet still cupcake accessible?  I would eat a cupcake in a forest if I had the opportunity.  I would eat a cupcake anywhere.  And I would certainly eat a cupcake during Word Work time, if it wouldn't completely derail the kids' work.


So, let's get to the fun part.Word Work Centers.  The time consuming part at first will be putting them all together- but my hopes are to pick items that can be used long-term (I'm hoping YEARS), adaptable to other parts of my curriculum, and don't need constant changing.  I also want to try to make the activities kinesthetic when possible, and also a place to practice fine motor skills. My school doesn't have a specific handwriting program, but I did have three kids this past year that really needed to work on it.  And I'm pretty sure it came down to fine motor skills.  I know in the first grade rooms now they have fine motor activity time- but I don't have time in my day to make that separate.  So I'm going to incorporate that into the word work practice.


Ever watch Baby First TV?  I watch it on Netflix.  They have this one show called Art and Music, and I use it to help my Babyzilla fall asleep (although I have to say, I'm getting a lot of drawing tips from it myself).  Anyway, there's this segment on the program called Arty Party.  And two hands work on different simple drawings covering them up with little toothpicks, and shells, and pompoms, and seeds and what not.  So I was staring at this thinking "Why not have the kids do that with sentence strips and their words?"  Same idea as the wikki sticks or playdoh, right?  






So I make up the words from the word lists on sentence strips, laminate for long-term use, store in envelopes marked with either the sight word level or spelling feature so they can be found later, maybe even color code them somehow so the kids know which words to pull.  But then the kid takes the strips for the words they have that week, and work using tweezers or even just fingers to cover up the letters with these different materials. For one) the words change every week, so that keeps it somewhat fresh, and two) the dollar store is ripe with these sorts of baubles and they change up seasonally.  So I can have a change of materials from time to time as well, but nothing that really kills me to get out and ready.  I figure I could store them in little travel soap dish boxes.  If I want to work math into it, after they've covered their word with hair bands or rocks, they lay them out side by side and then measure how long that word is.  Nonstandard units and then with a ruler.  


Time-Saver ALERT! ( from me? how unconventional! ) Ms. Jessica at A Turn to Learn has a super-awesome-inspiring-world-changing tutorial on how to print onto sentence strips.  I can choose the perfect font for this center, type in all my words, and let my printer handle it without me making any "Gadzooks, my big toe itches!" or "Oh, look! A duck!" sort of handwriting mistakes.  Am I the only one that happens to?






I was also looking at this sight called PreKinders for fine motor activities and saw this picture:  and I thought "How easy would it be to punch holes for the list words so they can sew them?"  Yes, it would require some prep work- but if done on nice heavy card, and laminated- I think this would be a good one. -Time saver thought- (another one?  What was in YOUR watermelon lemonade this morning?) Plastic canvas.  This stuff was the golden craft of the 80's.  Rarely hear about it anymore, but I still see it in the craft aisles.  I could use a Sharpie to write the words large on the canvas, and then the kids could sew over that or use a pipe cleaner even.  Then I'm not punching holes or laminating for hours. I'd just buy the kind that had the largest spaces.




3rd Grade Thoughts has three different word work stations related to math that I really like- scrabble tile adding, word worth money, and place value word work.  And those are three that would be easy to do, long term, but also put out at different times of year as I progress through the math curriculum.  Scrabble early on, money next, and then place value (because you can end up with some quite big numbers).... She has this available in her TpT store as a trio bundle for $3.50 and folks, I believe it will be worth every cent.  I have not yet bought anything for actual dollars yet at TpT, but this will be the first come August.  She deserves the support for this level of genius-ness.



Over in Mrs. Bushong's Second Grade, she made up a very cool homophone activity with puzzle pieces, that I thought was super groovy.  This is easily adaptable to ANYTHING.  I was thinking they could match sight words, math facts, I could even do Window of Inquiry questions I suppose...  Of course, I went out and bought puzzles.  Now, my memory, if it ever were like an elephant's, would be like a geriatric elephant with dementia. Sooooo I got the kind that don't have a board behind them.  Dork dork dork.  I shall win in the end though- I have decided that I will put the puzzle together, lay it on a piece of tag board, trace the lines of the puzzle, add my questions, answers on the pieces, LAMINATE, and then put on a cookie sheet.    Then I just have to put a little snip of magnet on each puzzle piece and VOILA, I've feeeeeexed it.  After hours of work, I am sure.  But isn't this the glory of how I roll?


ok- and hey hey hey, also thinking about how, since I'm tracing and all, I could trace a basic puzzle pattern and let the kids design some?  Am I breaking a law there, by tracing a puzzle pattern?  I'm not sure...


Now here's a gem at Make, Take and Teach, Bowling for Sight Words.  My big score is that I found a never used plastic bowling set in my son's room.  Along with a lot of other cool goodies that I am plundering, emancipating, setting free, granting independence, pardoning, etc.  He's not using them, so it's time that I got my money's worth out of it, dang it! I like this idea activity for it's kinesthetic appeal, and also the boys will eat it up.  And, handy handy handy- can be adapted for ANYTHING.  I could even put Window of Inquiry QUESTIONS on the pins, they bowl, whatever they knock over they have to ANSWER the question correctly to get the point. Genius, I say! Huzzah for the Moose!

I admit that I think a lot about my boys.  Being a girl (yep, that's what the birth certificate says), I can easily pick froo-froo stuff for the girls.  But then I feel bad having the boys decorating with lace and what not.  So I ran across these two beauties on Pinterest:
                       
The nuts and bolts is from Michelles Charm World.  I like this idea because there are tons of these dodads in different shapes and sizes FOR CHEAPS at the hardware store.  I also don't think girl's would be opposed to using them.  AND they've got that fine motor thing going on with the twisting.  The kids could easily "race" to see who could twirl their word the fastest.  And I could add in math and have them measure the length and what not, or see how heavy it is on the balance scale.



The second picture is of rubber worms for fishing bait from Teach 123.  Same idea as wikki stix, just a different medium.  She also has word mats available for sale in TpT.  I like the creative use of other materials.  I have never been to a fishing store, but I am imagining that besides worms, there might indeed be any other number of interesting finds that could also be used to cover up words with the Arty Party idea I have swimming around. (ooo, punny!)  I do not know if my girls would go for it, but that's ok for the boys to have something that is THEIRS.

Two kinesthetic winners here:

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas has used a Twister game board for sight word practice.  The gold here folks, is that you can adapt this to any part of the curriculum.  And, if you don't have a Twister board handy, it's easy enough to get a Dollar Store shower curtain and put the circles on yourself.  I am concerned a little over the noise level on this one, so it might be something that I save for an indoor recess, or game day, or even make available for outside time.  Because I have control issues, yo.  And also, I really have volume issues in general because I happen to be a loud person.  Shocking, I know.  But your room volume and tone is set by your volume and tone- soooo yeah.  I need to get a muzzle or something.

The gals over at Kindergarten Rocks had a cute version of a slap-it game for sight words.  I have seen slap-it games before, and even played them myself, but I liked how they themed it up with bugs on the shower curtain.  It is similar to the Twister idea, but no feats of freakish contortion are necessary.  Just a quick SLAP.  Which can come in handy for the ladies later in life, right? Heh heh heh.  Anyhow- I like it.  It gives me ideas.  Again, Dollar Tree, ripe for the pickins!  Get some curtains, get some Sharpies, I could make these for the sight word lists and keep them for a loooooong time.  Kids just have to get out which list they are working on. I've differentiated, and still kept it interesting. And is it not adaptable to other areas?  Math facts, and trivia.  Win win win!




There are tons more ideas, but I'll stop here for today.  I collect them on my Pinterest Board if you want to take a gander.  


Have a lovely weekend, everybody!

Wondering about Word Work: Part One

Remember when we just called it spelling?  There are times when I think back with some affection to my old spelling textbook when I was in school.  The same regular activities each week- my favorite was write a story using all of your spelling words.  I seriously doubt that my teacher bothered to read them, as I often filled five or six pages each week.  I'm sure I was a homework grading nightmare.  But times are different now, and I suppose that this new fandangled way is sort of fun, and more appropriate.


These wonderings about Word Work, just like with behavior management, are all theoretical.  I don't have any kids to try this with.  Some of these things I've done in the past, and I'll be bringing them back out of the bag come September, but a lot of this is brand new to me- so we'll see.  Because I have a lot of ideas here, and I also get nervous about making my posts too long- I'm going to break this up a bit.  This post will just be the getting ready part.  I'll handle centers in the next post.


 I don't have a problem coming up with word lists.  I'm a big fan of the Ganske assessment, and have my own personal way of interpreting the data to decide on which features for how long a student gets.  Are you familiar with Ganske at all?  It's a 25 word test for four different developmental stages.  The younger your students, the fewer stages you have to worry about- but you do occasionally end up with a couple of super clever kids who get up there to the last stage.  In each of the 25 word lists there are five words for a specific feature.  For example, in the first stage, there is a feature for short vowel sounds.  






When I look over the data, any feature getting less than 5 points tells me how many weeks to work with that student on that feature.  Student gets a four, then one week of work.  Three equals two weeks, etc. And I start at the first feature and progress forward.  Every sixth week I retest and see what progress they've made. Yeah, sometimes I have seven different lists.  But eventually, over the year, they all seem to catch up to each other except for a couple of quirks and I might only have 4 lists going in any particular week.  The time consuming part is talking over the words with the kids and giving the tests, but making stations for word work not so much.  I generally rely on the same tried and true activities each week.  But I'd like to switch that up more this year to incorporate some other elements.


The thing is- there's more to word work than just phonics/spelling features.  I really need to be better at getting the kids to practice sight words, and also I need to incorporate language arts vocabulary like synonyms and compound words and the like.  And then there's handwriting- which really comes down to fine motor skills, when you think about it. My plan is to only make the spelling part of the word work ten or twelve words. 2 features, five words each.  Three features four words.  I rarely do the four feature sort.  It just seems inappropriate for my grade level.  But if I had to- I would make the list up to sixteen words and still keep four words per feature.  Three words only in a group feels silly to me.  I'm going to split up my sight word lists into groups of five, and then there will be five additional language arts related words to whatever grammar deal we've got going that week.  This grammar component will have to be flexible in the amount of words, because I don't want more than twenty words per week.


Ok- let's talk time management.  Assessment wise, I keep this on a six week plan (even though I teach by the quarter).  Spelling itself is not anywhere on my report cards, nor are sight words.  So as far as grading goes, I'd link it pretty much as a participation grade and then see how it affects their overall reading and revision of writing. So in the first week of school, I've given the Ganske assessment- just one a day (usually I can stop after two days).  I use the data to plan out my class word lists for the next five weeks.  So one weekend of deep word strategy and I'm good for five weeks- lesson plans written for that time block, kapow! Looking good.  


I use the Dolch lists for sight words, and there are five levels.  There are some lists with nearly forty words on them- 220 words all said.  If I do a simple 20 a day it will take me 11 days to get their initial data.   I will therefore spend the first three weeks teaching word work center behaviors using their individual names before they get their own individual list.  And that works out fine that the first six week spelling rotation will end with the quarter.






Lists are given from Monday to Monday.  My reasoning for this has to do with my literacy block schedule.  Monday's are morning meeting days, which means the only guided reading groups that get met with that day are the below grade level ones.  This, in general, frees up at least two reading rotation blocks for me. So that will be the time that I meet with word groups and give out new words.  But what about giving the test?  Aha! I have a new plan for this.  In my room, there is an old cassette recorder, and a good twenty or so unused still-in-their-plastic-wrap cassettes.  Why do I need to give anybody a spelling test?  All I have to do, is record myself saying the word, the sentence, and the word again.  They listen to the tape, they can rewind it as much as they please to hear it again, and I'm free to just talk words in small groups, as opposed to droning out a test. And that is their listening center rotation for the day. 


Since the first three weeks are assessment and routines and regulations and all- I've found that a great way to get them acclimated to word work is to use the names of my students as the word list.  These will also be the first words that go on the word wall. And I'll save my word wall thoughts for another post as well- since I've never done this justice either.  In the past, I thought up five or six different spelling activities and they did them all year and only the list changed.  And yeah- they got bored.  So did I.  But here they are:


1) Write your sort - blarty blar.  It was meant for them to always have a list to look back on whenever they sorted their words for a self check.



2) Word Shapes - long guys, tall guys, short guys (which I like, but it needs revamping) The idea of it is to see the word form in another way to give their brain an extra way of seeing if the word "looks" correct or not.

3) Rainbow Words - as long as I allowed them to use "exotic" coloring utensils, this never lost it's juice for the kids.  The thing here though, is that I don't let them do a different color for each letter.  I want them concentrating on the whole word, not just a letter at a time, so we write the word in one color, and then trace over it in two or three more colors.






4) Create a Word Find - gave them a square grid and had them put in their words, fill in the extra spaces with the alphabet randomly, and then switch with a friend to solve.  They actually liked this one pretty well.  






5) Comic Fill-In - I'd take comics from the paper, blow them up a little, white out the speech bubbles, and then copy them for the kids to use to write their own sentences in using their words for the week.  Probably broke tons of laws doing that- but I never sold them or shared them, so maybe I'm o.k. in the eyes of the law.  This, you'd think the kids would like, but they didn't really go for it.  And many times the sentences they wrote didn't make any sense, so I'm not so sure I was doing anybody a favor.

6) Scavenger Hunt - whilst reading any book of their choice, be on the look-out for words from their list, or words that matched the feature on their list.  I found that most of the kids would willingly sit there with a book, but very few would ever notice that they found one of their words, and they rarely - if ever- noticed a feature.






7)  Definitions - now this, I like, because they need the skill of how to properly use a dictionary- but the kids hated it.  They had to look up two words a day and write down the definition.  I really don't know how to make the dictionary exciting outside of the realm of finding a kick-ass word for Scrabble in order to defeat my Dad.  And that's sort of a very specific and individualized motivation right there.  Hard to pass that on.







*sigh*  And then, in the end, they turned in their word work folders and I was supposed to grade them. Time consuming.  And on top of it, spelling isn't even on our report cards.  So what am I taking a grade for anyhow?  So- the mission- that I have chosen to accept- is to create word work that 1) doesn't have to be graded and 2) actually provides legitimate practice that the kids should likely find enjoyable.  Fingers crossed that this message does not self-destruct...




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