Five for Friday!

Another Friday is here and that means it's time to link up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching.  Be sure to check her blog for more fun Five-for Friday posts!

Well, this week was jam packed with creating, updating, and fixing!

 I started the week off finishing up some editable sight word activities and I'm in love!  I included student direction pages for each of the 10 activities so that they could easily be placed in center tubs.  For the activities, I basically created templates so that it'd be easy to edit and change up the sight words, or any words really, whenever you wanted.  The reason I did this is because sometimes I find great sight word activities but I haven't yet taught those exact sight words, or maybe I'm using the Fry word list and the activity is for Dolch, or the activity might be themed but my class is working past these words or... the list goes on.  Anyway these activities can easily be edited over and over again and can even be used to help differentiate activities for students!  Change the words to meet individual student or group needs.

This week we had a little power dilemma!  A handyman came to replace a broken light switch in our kitchen on Tuesday and he did, but then a few hours after he left all our sockets stopped working.  Yes, all of them!  It turns out he ran some type of electrical test that may have tripped a fuse and long story short our power was out for about 18 hours.  This was no fun because our fridge got pretty warm and I no longer trusted the milk, eggs, and meat so I had to throw them out.  Thankfully it's fixed now but we did have to do an additional shop this week.  Blah!  I'm not the biggest fan of grocery shopping.

Look what my mom sent me in the post!  Aren't they adorable?  They make me smile.  They remind me of scarecrows and I love scarecrows.

  

Speaking of scarecrows, I started to put together my scarecrow unit and I am already thinking that it might just be my favorite unit yet!  Do you have any favorite units?  This unit will include crafts, no prep printables, centers, story follow up activities,anchor chart pieces, and more!

 Here's a a small peek at what it's looking like:

Halloween is just around the corner.  I mean literally it's next Friday.  Do you give your kiddos any special halloween treats?  I'm not a huge fan of adding to the sugar on this particular day so I like to give out something "non candy."  Here's a quick idea I whipped up!  Pick up some inexpensive glow bracelets or necklaces and attach a cute tag that reads"Stay bright this Halloween Night."  Simple, cute, and fun.  Click on the picture to download my tags for FREE.  Happy almost Halloween!

And lastly I just have to post this again in case you didn't know.  I am having a sale!  Yes, right now.  I was so excited that I finally set up my Lattes and Lunchrooms FB page that I decided to have a 15% off sale for the next 2 days.  Be sure to check it out and save :) 

Have a Fantastic Weekend.

Collaborative Groups for HFW

 The other night I was thinking about how much I love collaborative group work.  Although teaching how to work collaboratively can be tough in kinder, I believe the benefits are well worth it.  Working collaboratively encourages students to communicate, cooperate, and participate.  It asks them to work towards a common goal and also provides opportunity for peer teaching.  It is a skill that students will use not only in the classroom but in their everyday lives.  With standards focusing on "college and career readiness"  it has to be noted that knowing how to work in collaborative groups is very important.   

As a teacher I'm always thinking of ways to get my kids working collaboratively and I don't just mean in centers.  Yes, I feel they are learning many of these skills during center work, but when I say collaborative group work I mean working together towards one goal.  So how about having them work collaboratively on high frequency words?  Every primary school teacher spends time teaching their students high frequency words.  We sing songs, play games, do centers, complete printables etc.  We are continuously trying to think of fun new ways to teach these words and make sure that our little ones know them inside and out!   So...

Many teachers use a printable like this in centers or possibly for independent work so why not take this idea and turn it into something more.

If you like this sheet you can buy it here

I'd call it HFW Collaborative Teams.  I would place students in groups of 3-4 and then together as a team they would have to read, write, find, and build a high frequency word that we are currently learning.

Here's how it'd work...

1. Read

Students would be given a flash card with their high frequency word on it.  Sitting in a circle they would pass the card around and each person reads it aloud.  They would do this 3 times and then check of "read" from their task sheet.

2. Write

Next students would each take turns writing the word on one sheet of paper.  Each student needs to write the word once.  After all students have written, the group can check off "write" from their task sheet.

3. Find it

Students will use their book baskets to "hunt"  for the word in books.  Together they need to find it 4 times.  They will place a sticky note on the books where they have found it.  After finding the word 4 times they can check off "find it" from their task.

4. Build it

Lastly, as a team students will need to decide how to build the word from given materials (I will provide a HFW word material box from which students can pull).  They need to all agree on what they will do then create the word.  Depending on materials in the box, some ideas might be making a collage word, building the word with blocks, rainbow writing the word, using pasta to outline the word etc.  I imagine this being created on a larger scale possibly poster size.  Once they have built the word they can check off "build it" from their task sheet.

After all students have finished we will take time to share out our group creations.  Also I would have my students complete a "how'd it go"  reflection sheet in regards to how they worked collaboratively. Possibly something like this.  

Click the picture to grab it for free.

Creative Clips by Krista Wallden @ 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Krista-Wallden

Would you try this in your class?  Do you do collaborative group work?