CVC Word Fluency

We have been working hard in the classroom to make sure that all students are able to read and write those little 3 letter words fluently.  It is such an important early step in reading and literacy.   This set of cards has made it easy and fun for the kiddos to master cvc words.  It is a big 70 card set and we use it for games, sorts, building words, and other great activities. 

This is an example of a word sort we did.  First the sweeties sorted the pictures by medial vowel sound.  Then they matched the word to the picture.  Then they recorded the words on a paper and read them all back to me before they left the center.  Powerful! 

Here is the work:

Here is the nonsense/real word sort we did.  There are 20 additional nonsense cards in the set.  The kids liked the silly words.  They just sound so funny.  But, reading those silly words really helps reinforce the skill of phonetically decoding words.  It also reviews  the letter sounds needed to be fluent.  This is the same activity as above without the pictures and just using words.  

And some student work:

I love this set of cards, because it has so many of the center activities I like to do to support cvc fluency, but just the one set of cards.   It makes my life easier to just have one set for everything and not hundreds of cards and game pieces for all the activities.  Although I like to have a variety of activities and games in the classroom,  I have found the storage, organization, and maintenance can become cumbersome.  Sometimes LESS is MORE.  That is why I made this set of cards.  One resource with some of the most powerful word work activities around.  

This card set can also be used to support learning for rhyming, and other phonemic awareness skills.  I also have my kids pull a picture card and build words with magnetic letters.  This set could be used for write the room, and many other literacy centers in the classroom.

Just a few examples of some other activities in the set:

This is a 4 in a row Bingo game:

These are some examples of the cards in the set:

This little board game is included too!  This is another fun way to practice cvc word reading.  

If you would like this valuable resource to use in your classroom you can find it at my Teachers pay Teachers shop.  Just click on the image or links below:

Teachers Pay Teachers

Happy Teaching everyone!

Fishing for Numbers!

We have been having "oceans" of fun fishing for numbers in the classroom.  My kiddos really enjoy fishing out magnetic numbers and recording subtraction problems during centers time.  I remembered this idea when I found it on Pinterest.  So, I made a full set of center recording sheets for addition and subtraction.  Thank you to Make Do and Friends for the post!  Here is the link if you want to check out the blog:  http://www.makedoandfriend.com/2012/02/learning-numbers-magnet-fishing.html  This has been re-pinned by lots of people.  I pinned it quite a while back from Charlotte Braddock- this is her page: pinterest.com/kindkids/.  Thank you ladies!

So,  if you are interested in fishing for numbers in your classroom, here is what I did:

I made recording sheets for adding, subtraction from 5-10, and two sheets for decomposing numbers for 5 and 10.  I also added some fish cards to be used as a manipulative for students who need the support. There are also some fish number cards for teachers who cannot or do not want to use magnetic numbers.  These are the fish cards:

You get two full sets of each fish card in this set.  There are also directions for a little number identification game called BANG!  It would be perfect for beginning of the year in Kinder.

If you would like to use this in your classroom you can find it on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Just click the image or link below to get it!

Fishing-for-Numbers-Addition-and-Subtraction-Math-Center

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Teaching!

All-Star Student Writing Rubric

We all know how important it is to let kids know what is expected of them.  If students are ever going to reach the learning goals we have set for them, we have to let them know how to get there and what it looks like to reach them.  This student rubric was a wonderful support for my young writers this week.  The first thing we did was look at each piece of sample writing and talk about what was good and what could be improved.  It was easy for the kids to decide how many stars each paper should have.   Here they are up close so you can see too:

I got some of the best writing I have ever seen from my class that day.  Even better, we now have a permanent tool for referring to expectations for conventions, ideas, sentence structure, and drawings.  Even though we talk about those all the time, it made a big difference for the kiddos to actually SEE the difference between what is below expectations and what is 4 star writing.  My little students were highly motivated!

The best thing is that now, I have a laminated, permanent tool for my classroom that I can adapt and re-visit throughout the year.  The poster is on a regular size chart paper.  I took my 8.5 x 11 writing paper and shrunk it on the copy machine to 80% to make the little papers for it.  I have extras so that I can make examples for different times of the year, as well as ones that demonstrate specific traits of writing.

I have seen some student rubrics on Pinterest, but never pinned any.  This is just my take on the idea.  I like that I can adapt it to the needs of my students from year to year.  It only took me about an hour to make it and the samples.



Happy Teaching!