Sight Word Egg Carton FREEBIE Activity

Today, I prepped a little sight word station activity that took me all but ONE hour... to prep the entire year! All you need for this sight word activity is the sight word packet (that I am giving for free), an egg carton and your sight words! I spray painted my egg carton to make it bright and pretty! I would not recommend spray paint though if you want to color your egg carton! It doesn't take very well! :-) I would use tempera paint!

To begin setting up the station, you'll cut out your letters or use letter tiles if you have some. I am putting mine in a pocket chart. To prevent them from sliding, I staple in-between the letters. It works like a charm!

Next, you will want to pick the sight words you want to use for students to practice! I typed out 8 sets of words that range from pre-primer to 2nd grade Dolch sight words.  I printed out all of the words for the year and placed them in labeled baggies so when the kids are ready, I just pull the next bag!

Fold up the words and put them in some sort of cup/container.

After you have everything prepped, find a place in the room to set up your activity! Right now, mine is set up at home because I am too impatient to wait until I get to school to set it up to show you! :-)

Once set up, the kids are ready to go! The students simply, pick one word for each egg slot. They place the word in the egg slot. Then, they read each word. If they can't read a word, they put it back and pick a new one.

After they have their words, then they use their letters to spell each word. They can lay out the letters or they can put them in the egg carton. After the kids spell the words they can do a rainbow write activity or any other word work worksheet you choose.

If you like this activity, you may also like my other word activities!

       

         

If you are interested in this activity, just click the image below! It's free for you!

Thank you!!

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Scavenger Hunts with WORDS!

Good afternoon! This is my favorite part of the year in first grade. The kids are reading, they're demonstrating everything they've learned and the classroom is basically running itself. This is the time of year when I am also very TIRED! I don't really have time to be laminating station cards each week or cutting them. So, I like to pull out my Scavenger Hunt with Words to keep the kids engaged.

When I first introduce this activity, I have the kids do it with me whole group. I display the spinner, I spin it and together, we search for words that fit the rule.

The best part is that I don't have to prep any station cards ahead of time. The kids simply use the words in the room. They may also look inside of books if they can't find words in the room. This activity keeps them busy!... Which I love! They're active, engaged and on task!

Another great thing about this activity is that YOU can edit the spinner to make it fit what you are focusing on in your own classroom. If you want to focus on words that start with a letter, digraph or blend, you can type it into your own spinner.

If you are interested in doing this activity with you class you can click here!

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Our week back from Spring Break

I missed my post last week so I want to give a quick peek into my week last week! It was our first week back from spring break and my little ones were sooo well behaved! 

We learned all about the long I sound and completed all sorts of dinosaur activities! Students also did a lot of partner work and learned about adding s and es to the ends of words to make them plural. Here are some pictures from last week!

 

 

I do not know about your kids but mine do so well with hands on activities! This sorting activity really helped with this concept. On Friday I gave a quick assessment to see if they got it and I tell you what!!! They got it!

 

Students also wrote about the things they did over spring break. I took a picture of my coworkers spring break writing flower because I love how she did the different color petals!... something to keep in mind for next year!

 

 

Here is a picture of the ones we created in my room! The kids loved it and it was a great kick starter to our week back!

 

 

In math last week we worked on fractions and it was so much fun! All the activities we did last week really helped the kids 'get it.'

 

Here is some our fun!

We created a book of fractions. We cut circles into different equal parts to learn about whole, half, thirds and fourths. (from Cara Carrol's unit)

 

I took a picture of this for obvious reasons. I laughed out loud! :) This little guy of mine is so creative. I always tell him that he is going to be writing books and making cartoons when he is older!

 

 

On Friday I had students complete math stations! We played Fraction Match. Students worked in groups of three either at the yellow table or on an easel to match the fraction, picture and fractional term all together.

 

Students then played addition boom in partners! This is a freebie on Tpt I found a while ago! All I kept hearing was the word, "BOOM!" :) They loved it!

 

Here we have a group of three playing the game. I wish I could show their cute little faces! They are smiling so big and laughing! I love it!

 

Alright that is it for now! My next post is going to be HUGE and all about DINOSAURS! I am stocking up the pictures now and the kids are just loving it!!

 

Have a great week with your littles!

 

 

 

 

 

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New Ideas for Literacy Stations

I have come to realize that my "thing" is literacy stations. I LOVE making literacy center activities. I LOVE doing guided reading groups. I LOVE seeing what my students need help with and I LOVE helping them with their particular skill they are struggling with or just need more emphasis on. First grade is so much fun! It is so fun to see them grow.  Anyway, right now for my literacy stations my students come in first thing in the morning and they complete one station (takes an average of 15-25 minutes per student--their challenging and I am scaffolding). After their one station they go onto read to self/partner. I am loving it... but I need more time with my guided reading groups. I enjoy making these literacy stations a bit of a challenge for my kiddos... but I would like them to be doing stations independently so I can meet with my guided reading groups more.

This is what I have come up with. I hope this may be able to somehow help you too.  I am still going to have students come in at 9:00 work on their literacy stations until 9:30.  We complete a whole group lesson and do this for about 40 minutes.  Then for the last 15 minutes of reading I send students to their stations.  These stations though will be ones they can do independently and stations that I do not have to change weekly.  I want stations like the Daily 5 intends for.

I am like the most confusing teacher ever right now? I want Daily 5 stations... I like a challenge... that is contradicting.  I want them to have a challenge in the morning: I want to scaffold students with those. But.... during the 2nd part of reading I want them working completely independently and choosing a station so I can pull students aside to meet. I have time later in the day to pull 2 groups.  I get to pull groups and we get to work quietly with no interruptions because it is read to self and read to partner. I do not want to do that to my kids in the morning too so I can pull more groups. We read a lot and they love to work independently.

Okay, I will stop rambling. I am going to implement this Monday! I hope it works... Oh, wait! How should I track this or should I let them just choose what they do each day and not keep track? I was thinking about laminated a strip for them.  Placing colors on the bins with the idfferent activities and then students put a check when they complete that color bin.  Then on Friday (just saying) they look at their chart and go to the color bin they have not yet been to... I think I may do that or else I will have students doing the same thing everyday!! (I have a few that would do that and I am sure you do too!

Alright... really... no more rambling! I found some AWESOME FREEBIES to help me transition into this new wave of literacy instruction.! I wanted to share because they are so great!

First, I went and observed a teacher today at another school.  Her students wrote their spelling words on strips and then glued them into a chain. It was so cute!

Here are the things from Tpt I found!

Character Writing Pages from Latoya Reed

Write the room from Alisa Barrett (this will be fun to do with sight words)

I will be going to wal-mart to buy stickers this weekend for this one! I have decided that this one is a FOR SURE!

Sticker Stories! How cool is this? Thank you, Sarah Paul

A Mini How-To Book: Thank you, Caitlin Kramer

A Never Ending Story... Some of my kids would love this one!

Thank you, Kelly Morgan

Mini-Book Writing and Rubrics

Tanya Dwyer

Connect 4 (Sorry for blurry pictures)

Thanks, Michele Smyth

Word Families:  I am thinking about putting a word family menu on the board. Students choose one and complete the form included in the pack below.

Word of the day template (This would be perfect for a sight word for the week... or for my higher ones I may have them look up a work in the dictionary and fill out the template) 

A Book Report Template

When students read a book they can fill out this template for their comprehension.

Alright! That's All I have for now! Let me know if you have any ideas for this! I am all open ears! Trying to do my best during my first year of teaching! :) 

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