language arts Archives | Lucky To Be In First

November 19, 2016 Leave a Comment

Mastering Short Vowels with Games

Phonics is probably my favorite subject to teach! English is SUCH a hard language and phonics gives children a chance to connect these tricky sounds to something! Because I teach phonics in some capacity each day, I like to mix it up!

You may have found some new Phonics Ideas over in my Short Vowel Savvy post!

Today, I’m sharing how I use phonics games to give students a chance to practice those sounds as much as possible!

Shutterfly Puzzles

Are you the Shutterfly’s email list? If you are, you’ll notice they send you emails all the time for free goodies! Well, one day I got an email for a FREE puzzle. I racked my brain for how I could turn this freebie offer into a classroom tool!

Ta-da! Short Vowel Puzzles! I did have to pay for the shipping {around $7, I think} but look how amazing it is!

The amazing thing about Shutterfly is that they always have sales! So even if you can’t score the puzzles for free…you can certainly get a great deal on it!

Click the picture to snag the high-resolution photos to add to Shutterfly. Then, you just simply drop the photo into your project! You can choose between a 60 and 252 piece puzzle. We don’t have all year to put them together, so I opted for the 60 piece 🙂

The kids L•O•V•E these puzzles!

Phonics Dominoes

I love these dominoes! Super easy to prep {just print, laminate, then cut – laminate first to save a step!} and pop into a Center or Daily 5 activity bucket!

As with any phonics activity, it’s important to review the pictures & words before you begin. Often, a lot of these words are new to your little people! If you review the words as you introduce the game, they will not bug you {as much!} during the activity!

Short Vowel Memory Games!

The latest craze to hit my classroom is our Short Vowel Memory games! Again, using the coupons Shutterfly sends me, I’ve created a Memory Game for each short vowel!

Using the “Upload Your Own” option, you can drop up to 12 pictures into the project. Since this game comes with 24 cards, you basically get two memory games for the price of one!
You have a few different options for the “back” of the game, so make sure to switch it up for each design so that you can easily keep track of game pieces!

Want to make your own? Grab the high-res pictures HERE!

Please note: these memory pieces were created with special permission from Sarah of Educlips. You may not use these high-resolution images for any purpose other than this memory game or you will be in violation of my Terms of Use.

Dice-Dice Baby Games

These games aren’t limited to vowels {the bundle includes ALL of the important phonics sounds!} but these are a huge hit around these parts. I love that kids can play on their own or with a group.

They’re also self-checking on the backside, so kids can be completely independent!

Want to learn more about Dice Dice Baby? Read all about it HERE!

A few other phonics games…

I keep these low-prep clip cards, puzzles, and short vowel spelling cards hanging in our Daily 5 area so kids can easily grab and get to work! You can find all of these activities inside these phonics packs!

I think the more you ~~shove in their face~~ expose students to words, they really do start to pick it up!

Slainte!

November 3, 2016 Leave a Comment

Short Vowel Ideas to Make Learning Fun!

I’m always looking for new ways to mix up how we practice our short vowel words. I get bored looking at their work sometimes, so I imagine they get bored doing the same activities all the time! {Tell me I’m not the only one!}
So today I’m sharing my favorite activities for working on short vowels!

Short Vowel Word Searches

Once in a while you need your kiddos to pick up their pencils {or crayons!} and prove what they know! Well, who says it doesn’t need to be fun? These Short Vowel Word Searches are an educational spin on what they’d find on a kid’s meal menu!

Short Vowel Word Mats

Each week during the school year we focus on a word family. At the beginning of the year, we spend a lot of time on short vowels! The kids “show what they know” about word families by completing these Word Up! Word Mats.

They need to make words using the letter tiles and determine if the words are real or nonsense words.

Short Vowel Poems

At some point in the day, we chant our short vowel poem. I have NO idea where these poems originated {please share the source if you know!} but I do have them as a FREEBIE over on the Lucky to Be in First Facebook page!

Make sure you’re looking at Facebook from a desktop computer. You’ll find them in the “Fan Freebies” tab {along with a few other goodies, too!}

Check out these helpful directions from Traci of Dragonflies in First for printing these posters larger!

Short Vowel Task Cards

I’m always changing up our activities during Daily 5 to make sure that my students don’t get bored! Recently, I added these Short Vowel Task Cards to the mix.

It includes two versions for each vowel sound so you can differentiate for your class. The top picture shows how students are asked to write the beginning and ending sound.

In the activity below, students are asked to write the vowel sound and the final sound.

As with any phonics activity, you hope your students can independently work on, it’s important to review the pictures so students become familiar with the words!

Word Family Workouts

The latest addition to our Phonics repertoire are these Word Family Workouts! This one paper covers a bunch of skills: word recognition in various fonts, ABC order, and sentence writing!

Check out these Word Family Workouts over on TpT!

Slainte!

October 18, 2015 Leave a Comment

5 Ways to Perk Up Your Daily 5 Word Work!

Are you looking for new ways to perk up your Daily 5 Word Work routine? Look no further!

I’ve been doing Daily 5 for almost five years now. I love that it gives students a choice in their own learning! However, after many, many days of this routine in my classroom over the past half-decade, I’m kinda bored with some of the choices! So, I thought I’d share how I mixed up my Daily 5 time a bit more this year!You may remember way back in February that I visited the Ed Expo in Atlanta. One of my absolute favorite discoveries was Touchtronics Letters {and Numbers!} created by one very smart man, Duncan!

He figured out how to make an iPad interactive with “magnetic” letters! The kids absolutely LOVE this new way to work on their phonics!

Even if you only have one iPad in your classroom – these letters are SO worth it! I created a Roll & Do die to give your students TONS of options!To make, you’ll need to print out the the die and assemble. I’ve included a colored version and black and white…along with an editable version for you to add your very own options!

If they roll an activity that requires writing, they can write all of their weekly words on My List of Words worksheet!
I have a stack of these ready to go so students can simply grab the worksheet and a die and get going! Another easy to set up and fun to use Word Work idea is sand! I went to the Dollar Tree and grabbed colored sand and plastic storage containers. The kids simply take a list of words, a fancy pencil and a bucket ‘o sand!

Touchtronics Letters Daily 5 Word Work Lucky to Be in First

One of the major skills we need to be teaching our little people these days is keyboarding! My goodness – I am afraid printing will even become a lost art in 20 years!

Students love this fun “keyboard!” I just printed out a few copies onto colored cardstock and they got peckin’ away on the keyboard. {I would laminate these little keyboards before dirty little fingers get on them! Lesson learned!}

Making our own word search is definitely a fan favorite in my classroom! The students simply grab a word list and a blank word search and get to town! Later in the day, they are able to solve each other’s word search {if we have extra time!}

Are you wondering what words I use for these activities? Well, I’ve got two options for you!

Racing Through Sight Words

These lists are colored coded! The “red” car has the first 20 words of the Top 100 sight words and they progress in color through the list!

Words for the Week!

Each week I type up the Words of the Week for my class {taken from A Year of First Grade Homework!} This file is editable, so you can simply type your words right onto the page, print onto colored paper to jazz it up and laminate!