Short Vowel Activities

Hi everyone!  I just love literacy time and finding/creating activities for my students and I to use.  I am a firm believer in spiraling in first grade because there are so many skills taught!  I can't expect mastery after one lesson or one week of instruction.  Because of this, I am always looking for things to use to help reinforce concepts I've already taught my kids.    

I run literacy centers and guided reading daily.  The beginning of the year is always difficult for kids to get adjusted to the center routines, and although I am floating around monitoring and helping them, they need to have simple, yet meaningful activities to work on.  I created these little short vowel packs to support independence and reinforce what I've taught in class.  

I spend a week focusing on each short vowel at the beginning of the year.  For example, last week, I focused on short i.  We did lots of activities to go with short i, including a few little things from my short i activities pack.  So this week in literacy centers, I will include a short i game from the same pack as one of my five centers.  This will ensure spiral review.

I have 5 packs {one per vowel} and then a bundle.  *The bundle price is like getting one pack for free.  Each pack contains the same activities/printables so that your kids will know the format.  These activities are great for RTI, tutoring, guided reading, literacy centers, small groups, or whole-group instruction.  I hope you will take a moment to check them out below!  

Short a Activity Pack

We are in our 5th full week of school this week.  I can hardly believe it!  As I've mentioned in prior posts, I don't begin guided reading until near the end of the 1st quarter.  I like to give kids time to re-acclimate themselves with school before shuffling them around in groups.  I teach whole-group Phonics every day, all year.   I begin the year with beginning sounds and then move into the short vowels.  I incorporate the most frequent short vowel word families/patterns into my lessons.  We play games, read a poem, and do some slate {dry erase} activities throughout the week.  My block lasts 20-25 minutes.  The week after I've introduced a Phonics pattern or word family, I place an activity or two into literacy centers.  I like to have my students constantly reviewing skills they've already learned.  I think spiraling is super important, especially with grades k-2.  I created this little ditty for short a, and will be posting the other vowels this weekend.  It has some simple activities included that can be used for whole group instruction, centers, RTI, and/or early finishers.  Click the cover to take a peek!

xo
Megan 

Word Families

We're knee deep in our word family practice!  We've covered several short a, i, o, and u families so far.  The kids are doing really well!  I've posted about how I do my Phonics instruction before, but I have a lot of new followers so I thought I'd share it once more!

So each week I choose 2-3 word families to focus on.  I like to do more than one because it provides opportunities for kids to practice sorting words.  I always start with short vowels first semester and then move into long vowels later.  I like to have a systemic approach so the kids are familiar with the routine each week.

On Mondays, I introduce the families.  We brainstorm the words together.  I write them on my chart paper and the kids write them on their recording sheets.  We read through them and practice saying them in sentences after.  They head back to their seats to color the word families in after we finish. Next, I introduce my poem of the week.  This is a poem that has one of the word families we're focusing on in it.  You can see what poetry books I use by clicking here. 

On Tuesdays, we re-read the poem.  We also read through the little word cards that I place in my pocket chart Monday evening.  I like to use these b/c they are small and compact and can be up without taking up tons of room like the anchor charts do.  The anchor charts sometimes get covered, also.  Next we play a game of some sort and do a practice page.

On Wednesdays, we re-read the poem again and review stretching the words out on our dry erase slates.  We'll also do another practice page afterward.

On Thursdays, we re-read the poem.  We also do some writing with a mini-book/sentences.  This usually takes the bulk of our time.

Fridays are busy!  We have "Open Mic Fridays."  If we have time, we'll do another game and finally we review our words with partners for our Spelling test. The kids love doing Find-a-Friend!  You can get these for FREE by clicking the picture below!

I love having my word family posters handy as a visual in the classroom.  If the kids are unsure of how to spell a word, I simply remind them of the posters and they remember!  The kids have also been having fun playing "teacher" with the anchor charts we create together.  Isn't the picture below so adorable!?

To check out my word families pack, click below.  It's on sale today, Tuesday, September 30 through Friday, October 3!!!

xo
Megan

Teaching Word Families

Tonight's post is about how I teach word families in my classroom.  Skilled readers recognize patterns in words rather than sound words out letter by letter. Readers can use word families to decode words by using what they know about one word to decode another. Recognizing word families helps students become more skilled at decoding so that they will eventually be able to decode longer words. 

There are 37 most common word families in the English Language and I teach all of them throughout the year.  Each week, I introduce one, two, or three families, depending on spelling patterns.  For example, if we are learning about the double l, we'll learn -ill, -ell, and -all together. To start the week, I introduce the family with the poster and possibly a Youtube Video or Between the Lions clip {if there's one available} and we brainstorm a list of words together.  I write them on chart paper and the kids write them on their organizers/list papers.  We practice saying the words aloud in sentences and re-read the words several times.  I try to keep the chart paper up during our week of study but space is limited, so I created mini-word cards that I keep out in a pocket chart from the Target $1.00 Spot.  They serve as a great reference for activities during the week!  I also let the kids come up and use them, like I do with my word wall.  

Next, we'll read our weekly word family poem. I get my poems from this book.  It's great! 

As the week progresses, we re-read our poem daily, play a game or two, and do an activity such as rainbow writing, abc order, or a mini-book of words with sentences.  On Friday, we take a Spelling test over our words.

If you'd like to check out the posters, mini-books, vocab cards, and more, take a look at my "Word Families" pack.  It's a 305-page set that includes activities for 37 of the most common word families in the English Language. It's a phenomenal resource! 

I want to give a shout-out to my pal, Susanna from Whimsy Workshop Teaching!  She is so creative and great at making clip art!  Check her out!

xo

Megan