Aloha friends! Summer is flying by for me. I cannot believe it is already July!! I had a list a mile long of things I needed to do and I have barely made a dent. However, I have been enjoying myself a great deal, swimming, working out, catching up with friends and binge watching lots of Netflix!! One thing that I can cross off my list is finishing up my Grammar Centers for the Reading Wonders series. Actually all of my Wonders products are complete now!!! Each of these units covers the grammar skills that are covered in the Wonders units. They are great for Daily 5 word work rotations or small group activities. Each unit comes with activities that cover a skill and a practice sheet for reinforcement. Much more engaging than a workbook! Each also has a color and black and white version to make printing easier and more affordable. I also have Morning Work for each unit. These include practice for grammar, spelling and vocabulary for each unit. The skills begin simple and spiral through the year. My kids did so well with this format this year! Finally, I have Spelling Lists for each of the units that include printable lists for On-Level, Above Level and Approaching, vocabulary words and definitions, high-frequency words and sentences for spelling dictation. Spelling Unit 1 is free in my TpT shop to give you an idea of what's included in the other packs. It does not include everything that I added to the other units. I guess I should add that to my list ;) Hope your summer is progressing well and that these resources will come in handy down the line.
It amazes me how much class size affects my teaching and my students. I started the year with 31 students. I just lost my second one at the beginning of this week, so I'm down to 29. I've had 2 kids out all week on long vacations and 2 more out sick. So I've had a class of 25 ALL week!! It's been a big difference. Even though the ones gone are little angels and I still have all the hard ones, it really makes a BIG difference!! Our district and researchers keep telling us that class size doesn't make a difference but I have to beg to differ with them. It makes a HUGE difference in first grade. With a smaller class I can spread myself out more- work with more kids, more often, for longer periods of time. We can get more done- 25 kids take less time to finish an assignment than 31. With all the activities we do in first grade through out the day it can really add up. With less kids, fighting for my attention, I can give more attention to those that really need it. During class discussions, there is more participation by more kids. The shyer kids start to open up. It just feels more like a close knit community rather than a big city. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to teach less than 20. What a dream!! Back to reality. Our school has been doing training in SIOP this year. It stands for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. You can find out more HERE. It actually is training in teaching English Language Learner but our school does not have a very high percentage of ELLs. We actually have only 3 out of 180 in our grade level. But the SIOP model is really best practices and a great review in how to teach better. With the new common core our principal thought is would be a great help. We've had to do lesson studies and just finished one yesterday. Our team did ours on Synonyms. It's great to collaborate and work together as a team developing and analyzing a lesson. Here's a practice page we used and a cute song we found. I don't know who to give credit for the song but our kiddos really liked it. Click HERE if you'd like to grab a copy. Hey, believe it or not but it's FRIDAY tomorrow- again! Gotta love FRIDAY! I hope you all have a GREAT one.
An anagram is a word that can be rearranged to create other words. Make an anagram by using the same letters but in a different order!
This anchor chart set will help your students learn everything they need to know about prefixes, suffixes, base words, and root words. The half size fits perfectly in students interactive notebooks and there are three options for printing! I hope you enjoy! If you love this freebie, check out some o...
One of my favorite language arts lesson to do in teaching students about synonyms. Using the idea of a "synonym roll," every year my students are extremely engaged by the lesson. Want a terrific synonym lesson complete with the outlines for the cinnamon rolls themselves? Here is my lesson plan typed up along with 36 words with synonym examples, 3 different sizes of rolls, and a synonym brainstorming page for students. Synonym Roll Lesson Plan You can also head over to my TPT store and download the outlines.
Help your child to improve her visual spelling skills with these simple exercises, including a fun proofreading printable.
3rd Grade Language Arts Grammar and Writing Workbook 200+ page workbook the covers grammar and writing skills for 3rd graders. This book covers topics such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, con…
It's time for a little vocabulary lesson! Do you ever struggle with teaching synonyms? Well, then this set of printable synonym puzzles is for you! This printable set includes 20 different synonyms including the following words:
Here's a worksheet that helps kids sort out the difference between common and proper nouns.
