My student who didn't know most of his letters said, "We can make the word hat - h, a, t".

Word Detectives - Using the 5 letters found in the word teach, how many words can we spell? We found 13 words - Great Detective Work!  Words and word lists are included for nine lessons

Lesson Introduction- I display the word, discuss the number of letters, number of vowels and number of consonants.  Next, I explain that we are going to be word detectives, discovering how many words we can spell using the five letters in the word - teach.

We began with one letter words, two letter words, and three letter words.  This became more and more difficult as students began to see words of varied number of letters. We found 13 words!  Great Word Detective Work.  We had to create a bulletin board!

Student Work Sample

Word Detective Bulletin Board

Students love being word detectives- nine full lists of words can be found at the end of this post!

Words and word lists for nine lessons

Student Practice Pages

 

Change the words / actions from I Can Do It to I Did It!

Change the words / actions from  I Can Do It to I Did It!

This year I implemented a tradition to celebrate students’ accomplishments. It is my goal to have a post-it note for each student placed on our chart weekly.  At the end of each week, students take home their post-it notes to share with their families.  As suggested, many parents have helped their children create an I Did It Container at Home.  Students can then post their notes on their containers.  As they acquire more notes, they can store previous post-it-notes in the container.    



Some students can assess their accomplishments, others have a difficult time.  In the beginning all positive accomplishments are accepted including I am a good friend. I am good at soccer and I walked someone to the office.

 

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Below is an example of an I Did It Container at home highlighting student accomplishments identified in class!

Recently, setting goals, working toward them and accomplishing them is emphasized using the form I Did It Plan!  When not accomplished, I ask students what needs to be done,  When accomplished, I ask students to identify steps/actions  taken to meet their goals.

Form Used Above

 

How to make good choices! 

 

 

When h follows c, s, t or w, the two letters together make a new sound.

When h follows c, s, t or w, the two letters together make a new sound.  Introduce /Practice digraphs with Sponge Paint Tip Applicators, pictures beginning with the digraphs: /ch/, /sh/, /th/ and /wh/, and pictures ending with the digraps: /ch/, /sh/ and /th/ (found on this post).

 

Pictures that begin with /ch/ and pictures that end with /ch/.  Have students write the letters - c and h using the sponge paint.  Next, have students cut out the pictures and sort them according to where they hear the /ch/ sound - the beginning or ending of the picture/word. The pictures are: cheese, chef, chips, chick, lunch, peach, inch and beach.

Repeat activity for the digraph /sh/. The pictures are shell, sheep, ship, shoe, brush, fish, dish and bush.  A student example is below.

Repeat activity for the digraph /th/.  The pictures are mouth, fourth, bath, math, think, thread, three and thunder.

Since there are no words ending in /wh/, have students sort pictures according to the pictures/words that begin with /wh/ and those that do not.  The pictures are whale, whisk, through, chalk, whistle and wheel.

Student examples

 

How Many Pumpkins?

Reading, Writing and Math Activities with Pumpkins

One little pumpkin was left sitting on a chair!

Below is the activity completed in the classroom.

There were 21 little pumpkins sitting on a chair.

Three pumpkins fell off the chair.  How many pumpkins were left sitting on a chair? 

 

 Eighteen  little pumpkins were sitting on a chair.

Three pumpkins fell down and then another!  How many pumpkins were left sitting on a chair?

 

14 little pumpkins were sitting on a chair.

Four fell down and two more followed. How many  pumpkins were left sitting on a chair?

Eight little pumpkins were left sitting on a chair.

Seven fell down. How many pumpkins were sitting on a chair?

 

One little pumpkin was left sitting all alone on a chair.

 

 Then there were none as the little pumpkin found a home!

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Writing - Community Jobs!

This Reading/Writing lesson  began with a Brainstorming Activity - Listing and Categorizing Community Jobs.   Then we determined the nine jobs we wanted to write about: mechanic, construction worker. chef, pilot, firefighter, baker, grocer, doctor and teacher!

 

Brainstorming Activity

Below are three pages of community workers followed by a pocket chart activity and nine printable writing pages (one for each type of job)

Pocket Chart Activity and Student Practice Page Below

 

Writing Templates