Short Vowel Fun in First Grade!

Wow... it has been waaaay to long since I have found time to update my blog! I have missed it! This cold, windy day has kept me indoors and it's time to get back to blogging!

I am loving my new class of darling first graders. They are sweet and adorable and they make me laugh everyday. However, I am finding that many of my students have more significant needs for reading intervention this year. We are hitting the short vowels hard to help them build up their word family recognition/ chunking! So far, we have intensively studied short a  and we are currently working on short i.

Here are a few of the activities we have been doing!

FLUENCY READERS:

One thing that I have found about several of my kiddos is that they can read word family words in isolation. However, when they encounter those same words in a simple text, they do not recognize the word families or apply their knowledge of phonics in decoding. I created these little readers to focus on different word families and give students the opportunity to practice reading the word family words in a sentence.

Each Word Family Reader features words in the same word family. I have created sets for Short I, Short O, and Short U so far, but I plan to make them for Short A and Short E as well! I have been using these as an intro to my guided reading groups. I also have my intervention kiddos keep some of these in their book bin to practice reading word family words!

Grab a FREEBIE of my "OG" Word Family Fluency Reader!

Click the links to view each set!

Word Family Fluency Readers: Short I

Word Family Fluency Readers: Short O

Word Family Fluency Readers: Short U

FLUENCY FLASH CARDS!

Similar to the fluency readers, these flash cards give students the opportunity to sort words by word family and read each of the words in the context of a sentence. My kids love these!!

Grab the full set of Short Vowel Word Family Fluency Phrases in my TPT store!

FLIP BOOKS:

These short vowel flip books from Nicole Rios are fabulous! The kids love the interactive format. They are sorting words, making words, practicing handwriting, and much more!

The Short A Flip Book is FREE in her TPT store! She has a flip book for each short vowel!!

Five for Friday: Spring Break Recap!

Wow! What a great spring break! Got so much accomplished for school... but in bigger news, my husband and I started HOUSE HUNTING! (and we found a home that we LOVE!) More on that subject to come... I don't want to get too far ahead of myself!

Here's my Five for Friday (Saturday... oops!) recap of my spring break! Wishing that I had more time off, but also ready to get back to my kiddos!

 

LOADS OF MATH FREEBIES!!

 

One great thing about spring break is spending a little extra time CREATING resources instead of scrambling to get ready for each week on Sundays... am I right?

 

First of all, I finished Chapters 7 and 8 of my ADVANCED MATH BOXES for Everyday Math series for first grade... I have posted about these before, but what I was noticing with Everyday Math was that the extra practice math boxes were too easy for a solid group of my students. This year, I have been creating math boxes that challenge those higher math students... and the best part is, they are FREE and will always be FREE in my TPT store! I do ask that if you take advantage of this great FREEBIE, please leave feedback in my store as appreciation for the time that I've put into them! If you are feeling SUPER APPRECIATIVE, you could even start following me on TPT! Click the snapshots to check them out now!!

 



 

Secondly, I have been spending LOTS of time cutting out lamination to get some of my MONSTER MATH games and activities ready to go for next week! In honor of my excitement to use these, I decided to offer my favorite activity from my monster math set as a FREEBIE... Monster Roll and Add!! Check out the picture below and click -this link- for your own free copy of the dice and printable! Enjoy!

If you like my Monster Roll and Add freebie, check out my MONSTER MATH CENTERS FOR NUMBER SENSE in my TPT store! Six different monster-themed math centers ($2.50).

 

 

MAKING FLUENCY FOLDERS! WOOHOO!

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about my new fluency folders!! I recently downloaded ALL of Cara Carroll's Rock Your Fluency packs from her TPT store and I LOVE THEM!! I am using her materials to put together fluency folders for students to use during our Daily 5 word work centers because they focus on the Dolch sight words... which we work on heavily in first grade!!

All of my supplies and materials!

Take a peek at my folders that I put together and a huge THANK YOU to Cara Carroll for creating these fabulous resources!

Here's an example of one fluency folder for the Pre-Primer Dolch words. I have 5 folders for each Dolch list so that I can differentiate for each student's reading level (25 folders in total!). The folders are color coded: Pre-Primer(Blue), Primer (Lime), First Grade (Purple), Second Grade (Yellow), and Third Grade (Red).

 

Here's what I included in each folder:

2 rings of fluency phrases in each folder!

1 Roll, Read, & Highlight page! Students roll a dice and read a phrase! LOVE THESE!

5 fluency stories for kids to read!

Fluency is something that I have really been diving into this year!! I love Cara Carroll's fluency packs... they are a great way to supplement our Dolch sight word practice. Check out a few of my own creations to practice sight words!

 

Enjoy and HAPPY FLUENCY PRACTICE!!

 

 

SUPPORTING FELLOW TEACHERS AND GIVING BACK!

 

This week, a speech teacher at my school contacted me and another teacher who are sellers on TPT. One of her friends is battling cancer and they are having a fundraiser for her in another school district in our area. Our speech teacher was wondering if we each could create a basket with some of our TPT products to raffle off as part of the fundraiser. I ran out today and picked up this adorable basket and some fun teacher goodies at Michael's Craft Store... still need to put everything together!

 

Now I'm in the process of printing out and laminating a class set of my Telling Time Bingo game and a few of my other favorite products!!

 

Love the feeling of giving back!! Totally brightened my day when my colleague asked me to be a contributor to a special cause!

 

SPRING TIME!!

 

Loving this spring break weather... other than the snow flurries that I saw yesterday afternoon. It felt great to get out for a refreshing spring run!!

Found this gem at Kohl's... couldn't resist!

GO BADGERS!!

 

My alma mater, WISCONSIN, is in the FINAL FOUR TONIGHT!! WOOT WOOT!

Flashback to my freshman year in college!

AAAAAAAND, I feel a special connection to this team because two of the players, Frank Kaminsky and Ben Brust, came to my classroom last spring and read to my students!!!

Ben Brust reading a Franklin story!

 

Whew... that turned into a very long post! I hope that you find it useful! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

 



Five for Friday: IT'S SPRING BREAK!

This week is a much anticipated Five for Friday because this Friday begins my SPRING BREAK! Doing my happy dance! In celebration of spring break, everything in my TPT store is 10% off through Sunday! Enjoy!

Linking up with Doodlebugs... although I'm getting in the bad habit of posting my Five for Fridays on Thursday nights! Oh well, I will link up tomorrow morning!

 

COMPREHENSION FREEBIE!

 

 

 

As always, we have been working on comprehension. This week, my kiddos practiced asking and answering questions while doing Read to Someone. After reading a story, they rolled their comprehension dice and discussed the story. Grab your own FREE template for the dice here! Print on cardstock and tape together! Simple! Enjoy!

 

 

ADVENTURE TO FITNESS

 

 

With this crazy winter and indoor recess, my students need to let out some energy sometimes! Adventure to Fitness is a great idea for indoor recess or movement breaks! Kids go on an adventure in different parts of the world, solving mysteries, and they are moving/exercising in place the whole time... and they LOVE it!! Adventure to Fitness currently has all of their videos for free... I recently got an email saying that they are changing their membership and will be charging for many of the videos, but there will always be 5 free ones! Check it out at adventuretofitness.com!

 

 

READING STRATEGY:

CHUNK LETTERS AND SOUNDS TOGETHER!

 

 

 

 

Recently, I noticed that many of my students were struggling with this reading strategy. They were sounding out every single letter in words instead of looking for chunks or smaller words inside of bigger words. I created these "Chunk it up" cards and laminated them. To warm up for guided reading, students pick a word and find as many chunks, digraphs, blends, familiar vowel patterns, etc that they can. They circle them in dry erase marker and write the parts that they find underneath. They love it and I have noticed an improvement in their decoding in guided reading! Success! Check them out in my TPT store!! - CHUNK IT UP: BE A SOUND DETECTIVE -

 

 

 

MATH WORKSHOP UPDATE!

QUICK FACT FLUENCY!

 

 

 

I have been loving my math workshop structure the last few weeks! One thing that I found was that I needed an easy activity for kids to do while they were waiting for me to get started during their "teacher time" group. Perfect opportunity for some math fact practice!! I created 9 different fact fluency sets for math facts including plus one, plus two, plus three, minus one, minus two, minus three, doubles, making 10, and making 20 facts. When students go to the table for teacher time, they grab a set of fact fluency cards and practice while they wait for me to get the rest of the class settled. I found this old organizer... perfect for my fact fluency organization! Check them out on my TPT store! - FACT FLUENCY CARDS - (the pack also includes a set of numbers for sequencing activities)

 

 

 

MY SPRING BREAK PROJECT:

FLUENCY FOLDERS!!

 

 

I recently downloaded Cara Carroll's Rock Your Fluency packs from TPT... they are fabulous! Over break, I am planning to put together some AWESOME fluency folders with the materials in her packs. I'll post more once I am farther along... Here's a look at the lovely lamination that I have to cut out to get started... Now I need a trip to TARGET to pick up some fun colored folders!

 

 

So close to spring break! Looking forward to a relaxing week!