Five for Friday

It’s been a while since I’ve linked up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. I finally have five things to show you! Ha, ha.

#1 Fall Fluency Cards

I love using my fall fluency cards! There is so much you can do with such simple cards. First, I pass out the cards. The kids look at the picture on their cards and make a prediction.

Then they each get whisper phones to read their cards several times. Then we all get white board pens and underline the part where a character is talking. Then we practice reading that part out loud to work on what our character would sound like. At this point, we talk about what the character could be feeling. Then we take turns reading our entire cards, practicing our fluency and expression. Then I read the card, modeling how my voice changes with punctuation and characters vs. narrator voice. Last, the student who read the card, summarizes the card. If it works out with that card, I try to think of a question to ask them. For the top card I might say, “How do you know she likes to jump in the leaf pile?” or “Do you think she is by herself or with friends?” For the bottom one I might ask, “Do you think Sam will go outside to play?”

These fluency cards are a quick way to practice so many skills!

#2: Short a

For another group of students, I do much simpler fluency strips. These both come from my Short a Phonics Pack.

For some reason, kids love reading word lists if they have something to do like push a little yellow circle. 😉 Next week I will add in another vowel so they can practice reading these words with two vowels.

#3: Types of Sentences

Another group was working on types of sentences in their classroom. They were having a hard time with that, so we did a few activities in my room. First, we practiced orally using the sticks in the small picture below. Then, we did this activity with the sticky notes. I used to always do this when I taught first grade. It was always a center in my classroom. I’ve also put magnetic dots on the back of the punctuation if kids were reusing them a bunch.

#4: SitSpots!!!

Yep, that’s excitement. I LOVE my SitSpots. I have so many ideas for these SitSpots, but so far I’ve just used them for management and I. am. in. love. I have the apples right in front of my door. When my group is finishing up, I just tell them to go pick an apple to stand on and wait for the rest of the group. There is no more pushing in line. No more arguing for the front because sometimes they choose the pink apple in the back. Its amazing how something so simple can help so much!

The circles are all in front of my white board. The kids sit there while I teach a mini-lesson. I only have about 6 kids in my classroom at a time, but you could definitely use this with an entire class. They are SO helpful. Everyone has their own space. It’s so easy to say, “Sit on a circle” or “Sit on the red circle” if they need more guidance. If they start to get wiggling off their spot, you just say, “check your sit spot.” If I were a classroom teacher, I would have 6 sitspots in an area where I wanted to have small group instruction. They are wonderful and come in so many different shapes and colors. I will be talking more about these later as I get more creative with them.

#5 Birthday Surprise

Honestly, I’m not that into my own birthday. But this year it was just magical. Kids at school were ultra excited and my kids at home were too. So it was hard not to be excited about my birthday. It was just the best day. Aren’t kids great?! I was so excited to get this from my husband for my birthday. I’ve wanted a record player for a while and now I have one! I just love the sound of records. Now which record should I buy first? Any suggestions?