Revamping the Word Wall

So..... wall space is at a premium in my classroom. With just a few bulletin boards....and having to adhere to fire safety rules, I don't have much space on the walls. Over the years I have gotten creative. Last year I hung up a "cloths line" and now it is where I hang the anchor charts for each unit. I have been wracking my brain on what to do with my word wall. I know it is important for the younger grades to have it available when they are writing. The issue is where to put it. With about 200 words to display, it was taking up my entire back wall.

Most of the children have to bring their writing to the wall and copy down the correct spelling of the word either because they can't see from their seats or they have trouble copying from the board.  This got me thinking. Why not let the students bring the word wall to their desks like they do for the Tired Word cards.  I reprinted the Fry word lists from The Curriculum Corner (my new favorite resource)  and laminated them at Lakeshore Learning (they have the best price around).  I realized after I made them that they will also work well for independent and partner Fry practice time.  (side note- The students also have a Fry list in their desk folders but somehow throughout the year they slowly disappear.....)

More Snow Means.....

More snow has fallen which means one thing for me lately....I put another product up on my TpT store! I have so many great materials I have made over the years for my classroom and students and I am excited to finally be able to share them.  The third and final week of our Fairy Tales, Myths, and Fables unit was a week of fractured fairy tales. The kids and I love reading them and it gives them the opportunity to do some serious comparing and contrasting practice along with discussing point of view and voice in dialogue.  (all part of the new common core standards for grade 2)  This Fractured Fairy Tale Unit is a blast! We start with reading The Three Little Pigs and the Princess and the Frog.  Then we read Jon Scoeszka's versions, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Frog Prince Continued.  There are so many fun activities to do with this unit. Find it here on my TpT store.  If you want to check out my Fables unit on TpT click here or my fairy tale materials click here.  ( I have more fairy tale materials to upload....just need another snow day) Hope your students enjoy it as much as mine did! 

Scrabble Word Work Center

It is finally up! I have been working on improving this center for a few weeks now. I have made simple changes like increasing the space where the kids write on the worksheet and making the scrabble tiles a little bigger.  I print the third page of this packet on different color card stock and laminate. Then I cut them out and put them in baggies.  Hope you enjoy my Word Work- Scrabble Center I know the kids in my room do!

Center Time!

Catch up post 2 :-)

During my language arts block I have students in and out of the classroom for reading, speech, and OT services.  Because of this I find that I do a lot of small group instruction - more of a workshop model set up.  Here are a few of the centers I have done in the past few months. The partner fluency station and word work stations typically stay the same but other centers change depending on the unit I am teaching.  I try to make them very hands-on and interactive for my sensory needs kiddos :)

Play-dough Words- word work

 Common & Proper Noun Hunt - The Sunday paper was perfect for this center- and FREE!

 Partner Fluency Center- so Cute!!! I use beach chairs also- they can be stored out of the way!

Type It Center- Word Work- Great for those broken key boards laying around!

Scrabble Center- Spell out the spelling words and add up your points! Coming Soon to TpT! 

A Unit on Overcoming Obstacles

Well, I am playing a little catch up with my blog posts but here it goes....

A few weeks back we were teaching an ELA unit that focused on a Common Core ELA Standard on how people or characters overcome obstacles. Throughout this unit we studied the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Betsy Ross, Susan B. Anthony, and Helen Keller to name a few.  To be honest, we picked these particular people because our school library had the resources. 

The first week we focused on the inventors  We read books, watched videos, and did research on the computer.  The students started to realize that these inventors had to overcome all kinds of obstacles.  By the end of the week we were comparing and contrasting what we had learned.  

The second week focused on women in history that had to overcome obstacles.  Click here for a link to a few of my resources I have on TpT. (this link leads you to a Betsy Ross free download. Go to my store for the other worksheets I mentioned.) A few are free downloads so make sure to check those out.  

At the end of the second week we started a writing project. The students invented their own pencils! This pencil had to make their lives better in some way.  I used Jennifer Mueller's product I found on TpT and just tweaked it a little for this project.  Her graphic organizers for this unit are great so check her out! The students had to brainstorm some ideas, draw a prototype, and write a paragraph about their inventions. They did so well and had so much fun! Then using Jennifer's templates, we created a model of our pencils. Check out a few below.  

Great Resource

I want to say a quick thanks to my sister-in-law at Mrs Lodges Library for the shout-out about my new blog! She is incredibly inventive with her teaching and creates materials for her students that they can truly interact with.  I even came home one day (to my childhood bedroom) to find 7 foot Dr. Suess Truffula trees covering my bed! It was like walking into the story! :)  I also wanted to mention that my brother helped her create a game called Shelve-It that teaches children how to further understand call numbers. Check it out and let her know what you think!

This year our city adopted the Common Core State standards (CCSS-another teacher acronym haha) for math and language arts.  I have been fortunate to be a part of the curriculum writing team for language arts.  Through the many hours of research we found a great resource website. It is called K-12 Reader Reading Instruction Resources for Teachers and Parents.  Although they have many great materials, I wanted to talk about their spelling program. They have 36 week programs for grades k-5. Most of the lists include sight words, pattern words, and academic challenge words. Our students love this system and it mostly matches up to our ELA program.You can print out any week you need. You don't need to necessarily go in the order they created. The site also has dictation sentences for the spelling test.

I just uploaded the worksheets I made for these spelling lists to TpT. Each week/spelling pattern has a two page worksheet with 4-5 activities. Check out the document here on TpT.