New Hard & Soft G Sounds Activity Pack (freebie & Currently too!)

Whew! That must be my longest blog post title yet. I've enjoyed my time off this summer so much. Just relaxing at home. It's been nice. At the beginning of summer we thought we'd lose our little blind kitty Stevie to his kidney disease. He's 4 years old and it hit him again hard! But with a lot of effort of his part, from us, and from our fabulous vet, he's still here- happy, purring, and playing.

Aside from that I've been able to catch up on some reading and get some things ready for this coming school year. I can't believe it's time to get back in the classroom already!

One of my projects was to finish up this hard/soft G sound packet I started using with my first graders last year. I had a group of higher readers who were getting confused about how G could sound like J in a word like huge. So I created a word sort and game for them to play with my instructional aide. They had so much fun with it! And it got them through that little struggle they were having. With more time to work on it the activity pack I've added a Read/Write the Room activity for my whole class to do and a few other things. I like having something like this because it's easy for my aide or parent volunteer to do with a group too. It looks like this and you can pick it up in my TPT store. It'll be in my TN store early tomorrow.

My aide started off with a word sort to explain how the G sound changes depending on what follows it (often anyway).

They did this over a 2-day period. My aide is so wonderful and teaches some of our RTI groups, so she was able to judge what my students needed.

After that she thought they were ready to play this game

I wanted to save myself some printing, so next year I'll use these same cards for a Memory game. To play Memory with them I'll print a 2nd set of cards and sort them so that each pair of students gets only 16 words. I'll put each set a in a baggie and that way I'll actually have 3 games and can they can play Memory several times. Once the game has been played in a small group with me or with my aide or parent volunteer I may include it as a choice for Work on Words during Daily 5.

This word sort also helped incorporate what my students were learning about language.

You can check out the entire packet on my TPT store. I included a directions sheet for each activity so that an aide, volunteer, or sub can easily know what to do. Here's a little freebie from the packet for you. Just click on it to download.

I'll leave you with my Currently.

I almost forgot... I created some ocean themed number cards for Math Work Stations. They're in my stores too and I'll have school themed ones there tomorrow. Wow! Thanks for sticking with me  through all that! Have a terrific week back in the classroom or hanging out at home!

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Long Vowel Word Work

Happy Friday! Boy am I glad it's Friday. I'm ready for a week off and some time to catch up, blogstalk (which I haven't done quite a while), and visit with family. The kids in my class seemed ready for a break too. They're starting to argue like brothers and sisters! Despite that, they are a really fabulous group. They love Daily 5 and are quite disappointed when they don't get to do Read to Self. Before each reading group the kids choose what Daily 5 they're going to do and head off to that activity. Before I was even finished checking in with everyone, one of the girls already had her beanbag on the rug and was reading a book. I looked her and was a little jealous. I wanted to be lounging in a beanbag reading a book too. 

Instead, I got to reading groups. Don't get me wrong, that's not a complaint. These kids are improving so much and they're all so motivated. One of my higher reading groups is currently working on decoding long vowel words. So I gave them the first page from my Write, Read, Draw packet as their word work activity for Daily 5 yesterday. It looks like this

This wonderful group of such sweet kids went straight to work. Pretty soon one of them came to me and asked how to draw a picture of the word shake. I just said, "Think about it." It turns out that it sounded like a strawberry milkshake to her. She also drew a spikey haired Jake and a coiled up snake.

When I asked how the first picture showed "late" this student said it was a picture of a girl running down the hallway holding her backpack. I never thought I could draw very well so as long as they can tell me what they intended and I can tell what they meant, then it's usually ok with me.

What I like about these pages is that the kids have to read the words and sometimes really think about what the words mean in order to draw the pictures. The packet is my newest creation and is just like my short vowel packet (which you can download free HERE). The difference is that the long vowel packet also has word searches which use some of the words the kids write, read, and draw. 

The whole packet contains one Write, Read, Draw sheet for each long vowel and one half-page word search for each vowel. Just an FYI that 2 of the word family sheets were previously freebies on my blog. I've added the word searches and the other 3 vowel sheets and put them altogether. You can check it out more by clicking HERE.

I hope you had a wonderful week! I'm looking forward to getting back to some blogstalking tomorrow.  Have a great weekend!

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My New TPT Store!

If you're reading this, thanks for stopping by! I'm so excited to have opened my new TPT store! And a little nervous, I must say. So far it's very small. There's this new item and a my Write, Read, Draw short vowel freebie that seemed very popular.

My first "for sale" product is something I really wanted for my classroom- Traceable Handwriting Practice Cards. For a long time my students have used some Math Their Way number tracing cards at the beginning of each year. They've been great for Math Work Stations. Now that we're doing

Daily 5 I've been looking for beginning of the year things for Work on Words. These will be useful for everyone but especially good for my little ones who cannot read yet and don't know all their letters and sounds. Once they're laminated kids can use dry erase markers to trace letters. Each letter has a green dot to show where to begin.

Here's what they look like

Just click on the picture to get them for your classroom.

I've spent a long time getting these ready and I'm thrilled to finally share them with you! Thanks also to  two special bloggers, Jessica from Tales of a First Grade Teacher and Barbara from
Grade ONEderful for support and encouragement to get this going.

It would make this teacher super happy if you would follow my store, pin this, put it on instagram, etc. I'd love to hear from you too!

Have a spectacular day! Thanks for checking out my new creation.

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Word Work Freebies

It's 2013! And since I chose "creative" as my one little word, here's the first step toward that goal. These are 5 short vowel word work sheets. I call them Write, Read, Draw. First students write the beginning sound, read the word, and then draw a picture of the word.

I first posted one of these last February for long e. You can get it {HERE}. In December I posted another one on long A and you can get that {HERE}. That one's actually my second most-viewed post. So it's probably about time I finish up some more of these.

This is the short vowel pack. Just click on the picture and leave a comment, please, if you download it.  I hope you find it useful. I used it as review for my students and they really enjoyed it. Some of the words are a little tricky to draw pictures of, but 13 of my 21 students are EL kiddos and with some thought, they figured out a picture they could draw. If I see a picture and I can't tell how it shows the word, I'll ask them. Usually they reach for the eraser immediately (and I try to ask questions of their correct answers too, really I do!). I have to assure them that I just want to hear how they think their picture shows the word. It's fun to listen to their reasons for some of the pictures! They almost always make sense with the word.

Before I go, here's a picture of our little Stevie. He went back to the vet for a steroid shot today to hopefully, hopefully, stop this allergic reaction he's having. He says "thanks" for wishing him well.

Have a wonderful day!

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