Daily 5: The key to an interactive Word Work Round

Welcome to my third post in my blog series about Daily 5. I hope that you enjoyed my other posts about how to get set up before the year begins and Read to Self. If you missed them, click these links to get caught up - How to Get Started with Daily 5 and Daily 5: Setting students up for Read to Self success.

Now, I want to put this out there right away and I said this in my other posts as well, I am in NO way affiliated with "the sisters" or the Daily 5 on any official platform. I think that the sisters are FANTASTIC and I highly recommend buying the most current Daily 5 book. But me? I am simply a first grade teacher who utilizes the Daily 5 framework and I have adapted it to meet my own needs.

Okay, today I am writing about my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE part of Daily 5. It is definitely my students' favorite as well. I have ALMOST ZERO behavior/management issues during this Daily 5 round and I attribute that to the interactive (As Fancy Nancy would say.... Interactive is a fancy word for "FUN.") nature of word work. For me, setting up Word Work is much simpler than other rounds of Daily 5, especially in the first few weeks of school.

I begin word work on the Monday of the second week of school. I begin by introducing our Word Work I-Chart.

After introducing the I-Chart, I like to introduce our first week of spelling words. Our first grade team has developed our own spelling lists, which consist of 7 word family words and 5 sight words each week. I have them available for FREE on Teachers Pay Teachers if you are interested in grabbing them- each week includes a spelling list to take home, spelling homework, a few practice pages, and a set of word list cards for the classroom. This is 27 weeks of spelling... We do a few review weeks throughout the year or have themed word lists around holidays which are not included in these sets... that's why it's not quite a full school years worth of spelling.

From these sets, I have word cards that my students use during word work (on the left of the photo). These word cards really come in handy because I allow students to choose a spot in the classroom for word work. They can bring their words with them anywhere! It is especially handy when you have classroom volunteers or paraprofessionals who work with students. I can easily send our word list with them as well. I begin by showing my students how the word lists are set up and the difference between word family words and sight words. Depending on the word work activity, I sometimes ask students to use the sight words and sometimes the word family words. Most of the time, students are allowed to choose the words from the card that they would like to work on that day.

At the beginning of the year, I like to build a nice base of paper/pencil activities that the students become familiar with. I get the activities from this AMAZING FREE RESOURCE.... I like to develop the paper/pencil tasks first because the whole class can work on them at the same time. 

The other more paper-based activity that we start in the first few weeks of word work is interactive notebooks for phonics and word sorts. My students have a very general "reading notebook" where we put all of their phonics interactive notebook pages, reading response, etc. We study short vowels at the beginning of the year so I use The Sassy School Teacher's First Grade Phonics for Interactive Notebooks. Highly recommend!

I created my own Interactive Notebook pages for Long Vowels, which you can grab here.

For the first few days of work work, we continue to review the I-Chart and I have the students sit in their desks. I tell my class that when they show me that they know how to demonstrate the word work expectations, they will be allowed to choose a spot in the classroom. Usually after about a week or so, I allow students to start choosing spots- they can use clip boards and we use the arm length rule... They shouldn't be within arm length of another student in their chosen spots.

After a solid month of word work, when the students are comfortable and independent with about 5-6 of the paper/pencil word work activities, I introduce our WORD WORK BOARD. It is really important that students are familiar with the initial word work activities because this is also when I start pulling reading groups during word work so I am not as available to help with questions. From this point out, I usually introduce one new word work activity each week and the rest of the activities are things that my class is familiar with.

This word work board allows me to differentiate my word work for different leveled reading groups. It also allows me to create more interactive, hands on activities because only about 4-5 students complete each center each day. Therefore, I only need five sets of beads or stamps, etc. Students get to each word work activity throughout the week. Here's how it works. Every student in my class is doing word work at the same time, but they are doing different activities, depending on their assigned group. Each student in my class is assigned a color group (you'll notice on the far right, there is a little poster with each student's name and their color). 

The left side of the poster shows the day of the week. The top row shows the different work work options for the week. When students want to find their word work, they put their finger on the day of the week and follow it over to their color. From the color, they follow it up to the word work activity for the day. After 2-3 days of practice, students are good to go! The activities at the top of the poster are on Velcro so I can easily trade them out each week. I also have a few blank cards that I can write on with dry erase when I create a few center "on the fly." If you want to copy of these header cards, you can grab them here... they are definitely a work in progress for me since I am always adding new centers, but at least it's a start for you!

I have all of the word work activities sitting on the top of one of my classroom library book shelves. I can get all of the activities ready on Monday and then I am set for the week.

Okay, so that answers the question of how I set up word work in my classroom. Now comes the fun part... the actual activities!!!

Here is a snapshot of a few of our favorite activities. I blogged about each of these activities a few months ago so click this link to read about them : WILD ABOUT WORD WORK! LOTS of freebies here!

Okay, here I'm just going to start posting some links to activities that I use for word work!

I recently began making sets of literacy centers for each month of the school year. Here's a link to my September centers!

First Grade Literacy Centers for September

Short Vowel Puzzles: grab them here!

Sorting words in Pocket Charts: My students complete this as a small group!

 Link here to the Long E Freebie!

Build a Sentence Word Work.... My students LOVE this one!

One element that I am adding to my word work this year is an interactive word wall... This is a very new creation for me and I don't even have it set up in my classroom yet. I cannot wait to use it this year!! The word wall will have student names and our sight words that we learn throughout the year (our students are required to spell the First 100 Fry words). Along with the sight words, I am going to include some Word Family Posters that I am going to have students create with me. I will also have additional activities that students will complete at the word wall for one of our word work centers. Here's a sneak peek at my resources.

The word wall letter headings:

The word family posters:

Each time I introduce a new word family. I plan to have my students help me brainstorm word family books to add to the word wall. I'm going to laminate these posters so that I can write on them with Vis-a-vis or dry erase markers.

Grab my word wall materials here: Ultimate Interactive Word Wall Materials and Activities. 

The word family posters can be bought separately from the word wall complete set by clicking this link.

I also use Cara Carroll's Rock Your Fluency materials as part of my word work centers!!

The Moffatt Girls' CVC Word Family Word Work.

Susan Jones' First Grade Grammar Activities and Printables!! So many fun, interactive activities in here!

Love of First's Noun and Verb Sort Freebie!

Okay, I know that I just totally overloaded you with links but I highly recommend checking them out. 

Thank you for stopping by to read about how I set up word work in my classroom. I hope that you found some good ideas to take with you!

If you have word work activities to share, please post a link to your own blog post or TPT products in the comments section of this post. I'd love for it to be a collaborative collection of ideas from myself and other teacher readers!!

On to the next post: Work on Writing!

Wild about Word Work!!

Do your students just LOVE word work?? Mine do!! I try to keep a delicate balance between paper/pencil based practice and very hands on, interactive materials!! Take a peek at some of our favorites!!

In many of the photos in this post, you will notice small, laminated word list cards. These are our weekly spelling words. The little cards allow students to take the list around the room with them and they make it convenient for students to practice their weekly words. ALLLLLL of my spelling lists and homework are available for FREE in my TpT store. I created these lists in collaboration with my first grade team so I don't feel right about profiting from them. However, I still wanted to be able to share them with you! I hope that all of our hard work helps you to lighten your work load a little bit!!

Here are the links to my word lists!! Click the photos to be directed to these FREEBIES in my TPT store! Please help me out by leaving feedback!

BEADS:

Let's start with my students' favorite center! BEADS!

I started using beads in my classroom about a year ago. I went to Michael's Craft Store and bought two different kinds of beads. I also got these cute little organizers for the small beads. I took this photo before I used the beads in my classroom and these little containers did NOT work out... the covers didn't snap shut and I had many spills of the beads... all over the floor.... Also, because the sections of these containers were small, students had a hard time getting out the beads that they wanted to use.

After about a week, I moved the beads and pipe cleaners into old pencil cases. They have worked out well ever since!!

WORD SORTS for POCKET CHARTS:

This center is a new addition to my word work centers!! I use these pocket chart word sorts with my class as a whole group sorting activity at the beginning of the week. We revisit it during guided reading practice and I use it as an interactive word work center. Students sort the cards by word family. Once the cards are sorted by word family, students put the words in ABC order. Super simple and fun!

I have these available in my TPT store for both Long Vowel and Short Vowel words!!

Want to try these out before you purchase the whole set? Grab my LONG E word sort cards for FREE!!

FOAM LETTERS:

The other fun interactive center that I started using last year is foam letters. I found these on clearance at Michaels... not sure if they have the same exact ones anymore, but I know they have similar things!! I find that any letter manipulatives work well with my firsties!! The key is variety... I switch out the centers weekly so they don't get bored with the same ones! Then, I reintroduce the centers a few weeks later!

BUILD A SENTENCE:

This is one of my newest, most popular centers!! Students take color-coded word cards to build sentences! Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other words (articles, etc) are all printed on different color cardstock and laminated. Students explore different combinations of the words to build sentences. This center also includes a recording sheet for students to write their sentences on after they build them!!

I also used these cards as a whole group... we took a "random" group of words in a pocket chart and arranged them into an interesting sentence together!!

To grab this fun word work, click the photo below!

BOGGLE WORD SEARCHES:

Here's a GREAT freebie that I found in Krista Wallden's TPT store!! Boggle boards!! Students search for 2, 3, 4, and 5 letter words and record them on a simple sheet! So fun!! Her freebie has 6 different boards!

INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS:

One of my favorites additions to word work and Daily 5 has been interactive notebooks! We use these notebooks for many language arts activities and WORD WORK is one of them!! During word work, we use our notebooks for long and short vowel practice! PHONICS! Earlier this year, I started using some FABULOUS short vowel notebook pages from The Sassy School Teacher...

Here are some of my favorite pages from her product that we completed!!

After seeing my students' success with these short vowel practice pages, I created some of my own for Long Vowels!! Take a peek!

Grab my entire set of long vowel interactive notebook pages here!!

MAGNETIC LETTERS:

We love using magnetic letters as a part of our word work routines!! These long vowel sorting mats are perfect for my first graders as we explore long vowel spelling patterns! The majority of these cards feature the CvCe spelling patterns. Students add magnetic letters to the beginning of the word families to create words. Then, they write their words down on a simple recording sheet.

These are FREE in my TpT store!! Enjoy!

SIGHT WORD STICKS:

I got this idea from Reagan Tunstall! She has a great set of Sight Word Stick sheets to go with her center!! Visit her store to see her product!!

Grab my Stick ABC Order sheet here!!

Oh my gosh! I feel like I've still only scratched the surface of word work!! I hope that you find these activities helpful and simple, just like I do! They have all been tested and LOVED by my students!!

Build A Sentence Interactive Word Work!!

Blogging... two days in a row??? It must be spring break! Oh my gosh. I am soooo enjoying a relaxing week at home to catch up on school work, run errands, and binge watch Gilmore Girls.

This morning, I started prepping my word work for when I return to school next week. I wanted to come up with a fun activity for students to interact with parts of speech as they are creating sentences and I put together this super simple idea, Build a Sentence Interactive Word Work.

Yesterday, on my errands, I picked up this awesome cardstock on sale at Michael's Craft Store.... 3 packs for $10!! Woohoo!! I had lots of fun colors to choose from as I put together this activity today!

I started by printing each of my word sets 

{nouns - verbs - adjectives - prepositions/conjunctions/articles} 

on different color cardstock.

Then, I cut the cards apart and mixed them together. There are 60 word cards all together.

As I began making sample sentences, I realized that 60 word cards may be overwhelming for my firsties when we begin this activity for word work. When I introduce this in my classroom, I plan to start with half the cards and then gradually add in more words in future weeks.

Here's a sample of the types of sentences that students can make.

I also created a printable to go along with the sentence building cards so that students can write their sentences. We will have to talk about adding uppercase letters to the first word in the sentence and punctuation when we write the sentences... since the cards are all lowercase letters so that the words can be used anywhere in the sentences.

And there you have it... a fun, simple, interactive activity! Can't wait to use it with my firsties next week! Enjoy!