Phonics Tubs

This is Jessica here, from Hanging Out in First!  I haven't been with you in a while but I am back with a big announcement.  I am moving to Kindergarten this year.

As a result, I am spending my summer reworking a lot of my lessons, centers, etc.  I have not taught Kindergarten before, so this will be a new experience for me!

One of my biggest summer projects is Phonics Tubs.  My phonics tubs are starting with letter sounds, but I may eventually branch out to word families, digraphs, short/long vowel sounds, etc.

I have seen many versions of these that you can purchase on TPT or on sites like Lakeshore but they have their downfalls.  Lakeshore is crazy expensive and TPT (as much as I love them) are going to be flat pictures.  I want something tactile!  So after much research, I settled on making my own.

I started at the Dollar Tree.  I picked up these little containers - 4 for a dollar.  Heck yeah!  That is in my price range.  While I was there, I perused the toy aisle for a bit.  I found lots of options for items to put in my bins, but decided to only pick up a few things because I still wasn't entirely sure what I wanted it to look like.  I needed to do a little more planning first.

I went home and made a list of possible items that I could put into each tub.  I was making 26 tubs for each of the 26 letters.  Some letters were pretty easy to brainstorm; others, not so much.

Then I headed into Michaels....just to see what they had.  I knew they had all of those little animal figures (animals are an obvious choice to start with) but I wasn't sure of the price.  What I did find, was even more amazing than I imagined!  BUTTONS!  Michaels has all of these little packs of buttons that are "themed."  I love that I didn't have to buy a bag of 12 soccer ball buttons to get one soccer ball.  I was able to pick up a bag of sports themed buttons and get a soccer ball, a football, a baseball, a bat, etc, all for $2.  I also got some animal buttons, food buttons, girly buttons, etc.

I totally forgot to take a picture before ripping into all of these lovelies in my excitement, but here is a picture of a couple of them out of the package.  Aren't they cute??

While I was there, I also found these adorbs letter stickers for only $2!  Beats having to make my own.  They were perfect for the front of my tubs. Great shopping!

Next, I cleaned out my kids' toy box.  Man they have so much junk many potential phonics tub toys and treasure box toys.  I found cars, trucks, flags, balls, lizards, dinosaurs, legos, blocks, and more!  (I have three boys. Can you tell?)

Last stop, Party City.  They have an entire aisle of party favors that are perfect for this!  You can get them individually for 30 cents a piece (so again, you can buy the one that you need without having to spend a dollar on 5).   Look at all of these little trinkets I picked up.  Only $20!

My tubs are nearly complete now.  I just have to find some items for those hard letters (x, y, z, q).  For those, I may have to resort to some printed pictures, but that's okay.

 (You can see I have even started gathering a few items for digraph tubs!)

So how will I use these fancy schmancy tubs you ask?  I have so many ideas for them!  The most obvious is at a center, the students can dump two tubs and then sort them by sound.  But I am also thinking that I can use them for quick phonemic awareness lessons, like I pull one from a tub and if it makes the sound we are learning, the students give me a thumbs up/thumbs down.  I can use them during guided reading groups for letter sounds.  I can use them during guided writing or dictation by having students pull an item and write the letter that makes that sound.  It could even be in writing center, where students have to pull an item and write about it.  I think these are going to be a great addition to our classroom learning!

Join Us for Book Study!

Do you ever wonder how to help the students in your classroom who are able to decode words but have difficulty comprehending their meaning?

Adventures in Literacy Land is hosting a book study to explore ways to help word callers grow their comprehension skills.  Learn how to identify the word callers in your classroom and help them flex their thinking.  

Plan to join us July 20-24 as we read and discuss our Ah-ha moments from Word Callers by Kelly Cartwright.  Borrow or buy your copy of the book today.  :)

Happy Reading!

Fun Ways to Incorporate Literacy into your Summertime Activites

Hi everyone! I know some of you teachers have been on summer vacation for weeks or even a month, but my last day of school was just over a week ago! I have been thinking about ways you can incorporate literacy during your summer and keeping it fun for your kids. And literacy is more than reading, but reading is the backbone of it - don't forget about things like writing, rhyming, phonics and poetry as part of summer literacy! Here are some ways I think you could keep literacy in your summer and keep it  fun!

Jokes!

Kids love jokes- even bad ones! Grab some joke books or even read the silly jokes that are on popsicle sticks. If your kids already know a lot of jokes, a summer activity could be making their own joke book. 

Here are a couple books that might tickle your kids' fancy! 

Laugh out loud jokes for Kids by Rob Elliot and The Everything  Kids Giant Book of Jokes, Riddles and Brain Teasers (click to learn more)

                

Restaurant Menus and Placemats!
Many kids' menus have fun facts, word searches and other literacy activities. Your menus may also be great for reading and learning. For example, a restaurant I was at the other day had some interesting facts. It was in a building from the 1800s and was originally the city’s first gas utility building.  Gas from the building would be used to light the gas lamps. 

The License Plate Game
What a fun game for traveling! You can do it while taking long (or short) car rides. You can play it informally, you can keep a notebook in the back seat for your kids to record what they see, or use a formal game product like the one below by Melissa and Doug. You can also look for vanity plates and a fun challenge- trying to figure out what the license plates say when they are missing letters!

Melissa and Doug's License Plate Game (click for more info)

Find a Pen Pal
Kids love pen pal - both for handwritten letters and e-mails. International Pen Friends helps hook kids and adults up with pen pals from more than 150 countries. Click here and of course, supervising your kid's communication might be wise! Also this website, called Great Kids! has a fun pen pal project. Learn more here.

Scavenger Hunts
The possibilities for scavenger hunts are endless. Kids can write the list of items or you can. The things to find or do can also include writing or reading!

Funny Stories
I still use Mad Libs with my class. They love them! If you can't get your hands on Mad Libs, you and your kids can make your own, or make up your own silly stories! Type them, write them, or video them!

Sight Word Hopscotch

At home, or when you travel, try some sight word hopscotch. Draw a hopscotch frame and instead of numbers, write sight words and hop away!

Record Your Own Audio Book or Book on Video
Either your kids or you can read a book and make an audio recording (there are plenty of apps that can help) or try reading a book and recording a video of it! Kids love being on camera! A twist on this is to make your own reader's theater version of a play and record it. My mom used to make little plays from scratch with my brother and I. We'd make props of cardboard, aluminum foil and whatever we had around. It was so fun!

Writing with Word Magnets
Grab some word magnets and make sentences or short stories. You can also make your own by writing on magnetic tape.

Here's some you might like!

    

Imaginary Play
Kids love to do imaginary play right? Well, there are ways to incorporate literacy in that play! If they are playing store or restaurant, they can make a menu or a “catalog”. Kids  can write receipts or checks for their sibling's or friend's purchases.

Museums or Zoos
There is a lot of possible reading and learning when you visit a museum or a zoo!

Make Your own Word Search
My second graders love to do this on graph paper or you can have them pick the words and you can make them. You can also use free online websites that will make the word searches (or crosswords, word scrambles, etc) for you!

Travel Journal or Scrapbook

Help your children make  a travel journal if you’re traveling! Simple and involves reading and writing!

Read and Sing!
There are lots of books that are also songs or easy to sing. Check out some of these rhyming books you can sing! Click on any to learn more.

Miss Mary Mack and other Other Children’s Street Rhymes by Joanna Cole and Five Little Monkeys by Eileen Christelow 

                

Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Jar by Rozanne Williams and Rain Rain Go Away by Caroline Church  

              

You are my Sunshine by Caroline Church

Also, you may like to check out my previous post, Keep Kids Active and Engaged while Learning Reading Skills! I originally wrote it for teachers but parents can definitely do some of the activities at home this summer. Click here to check it out!

Guiding Reading: 3 Things I Did Wrong

Summer is in full force for me but the lines between summer vacation and school are very blurred.  Anyone else find this to be true?  My brain is filled with reflection, summer reading, and preparations for the upcoming year.  I am currently reading Creating Cultures of Thinking, Reading Reflex, Summer Reading, and Small Group Reading Instruction (by Beverly Tyner).   All of these books are bringing about some new learning for me and helping me to reflect on old and current practices.
As I read Beverly Tyner's book on a differentiated teaching model for small group, I started thinking how different my current reading groups are to the ones I conducted when I first started teaching.  This reflection led me to realize that there were quite a number of things I did THEN that I would not do NOW.

1. Timing
I remember my small group phonics lessons lasted FOREVER! The efficient, quick, systematic lesson would be all planned out.  Materials would be ready.  And the kids just did not master the skill to the level I thought they should.  So what would I do?  Spend more time on it.  And where did this time come?  It would get stolen from the actual reading of book.  This was not time well spent.  They needed to be reading.
My solution: I started setting a timer for myself.  The phonics lesson would end when the timer went off and we would just revisit the skill the next day.

2. Book levels
There have been a few years in my career where I was very unclear about the books that I needed to use in my guided reading groups.  We have had some basal reader books and I have had some intervention program books.  But looking back, I know these books did not always match the reading level of the student. I now know that these are tools within my toolbox but the need of my student must come before the resources in front of me. 
My solution: I search for the instructional level text that will continue to push that group of learners.  Sometimes this is a book from the leveled book room, a basal guided reading book, a decodable reader, a passage, or a poem.

3. Sight Words
The districts that I have worked in have never had a set group of sight words that need to be mastered by each grade level; therefore, I used the words from the basal program or intervention program that were recommended.  This did not work out well for me.  The gaps were clear and students were at such varying levels of sight word mastery.
My solution:  My building created a document combining many sight words lists.  We can pre-assess our students and support them on a more individual basis.  No more gaps (hopefully).

As I have come to understand reading, learning to read, and the little young brains that I work with, my practices have changed and evolved.  I like the routine that I have right now.  But Ron Ritchhart explains that, "...some might argue that understanding can never be fully complete and absolute."  I know for certain that my routine and practices will change as my understanding continues to grow.

Teaching Split Digraphs

Hello everyone! 

It's Pixie Anne from Growing Little Learners here today to share a short post with you on my favourite activity when teaching split digraphs in the classroom.

It's a short post because we still have 17 more teaching days left over here in the UK and I know you can all appreciate that overwhelming feeling of wondering how on earth you are going to fit in all that learning that still needs to be done; squeeze in all the other crazy one off activities that seem to crop up at this time of year; trying to prepare the class for the new school year and pack up your classroom at the same time!

While there doesn't seem to be enough time left for all of those things, time is strangely going oh so slowly too... I've enjoyed my class a lot this year but I am ready for the term to end!

My little learners have done so well with their reading this year. I have seen HUGE improvements from every single child and am so proud of them all. I can honestly say that (apart from the several new arrivals I have had in the last month) my whole class have a pretty solid understanding of their letters and sounds which is very different from previous years!

One of our favourite activities in class this year when teaching split digraphs (or magic/silent 'e' if you prefer) has been this one:

Build the Word!

I hand out letter cards to at least half the class then ask them to come up to the front to build a word such as 'tie'. I make sure the children I have given the 'i' and 'e' too are friends so they won't mind holding hands to show that we know that those 2 letters together make the long vowel sound. 

I then ask for a different word such as 'tide' to be made. Chances are, if it our first encounter, the child holding the 'd' will place themselves at the end of the word. We discuss this and I thank the child for making such a brilliant mistake which we can all learn from and we move them to the correct position.

 It is really powerful for those two children holding the 'i' and 'e' to still hold hands as they make space for the 'd' so we can see that while they are apart now, they still make the same sound!

I ask other children if they are able to come up and make new words or call out specific words I would like built. We repeat with a different starting word such as lie, die or pie.

It's great to get the kids up and to use them as a resource rather than just using the interactive whiteboard or magnetic letters. It is a lot more engaging and memorable for them. It's easy to prep (handwritten on paper works just as well as fancy cards) and generates a lot of discussion and peer assessment - are they in the correct place? Thumbs up or down!

I have made a freebie for you based on the split digraph i-e so you can try it out (if you haven't used this idea before) in your classroom.

I'd love to hear how you teach split digraphs in your classroom so do please leave a comment below.

Thank for stopping by today!

Crafting Sentences Video and Freebie

 One year I was working with a group of first graders who were struggling with writing a complete sentence.  They were very good at using a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and ending punctuation at the end of the sentence.  However, the middle part of the sentence was a little fuzzy for them.  The question I asked myself was, "How do I teach writing a complete thought to first graders?"

Instead of typing everything I did, I created a screen cast showing you the Smart Board Notebook I created to go with this lesson.  Click the video below for the lesson.  I also put up my Notebook file on SMART Exchange, and you can check out the file by clicking HERE.  Disclaimer:  I know that this doesn't work for every type of sentence, but it was great beginning for us to start writing complete thoughts.

To get the sentence graphic organizer and lesson plan I used with the lesson, click the image below.

I hope everyone is having a fabulous summer!

Ways to Teach Phonemic Awarenss

Aloha from Hawaii Virginia, or should I say, "Howdy Partners?"  It is Carla from Comprehension Connection here again to get the Summer Blog Party Linky up and going on Lit Land. Since we had two topics basically this week, it seemed fitting to blog about one here and the other over on my blog.

If phonics fits your students' needs more, you can read all about Word Study tips [here] and if phonemic awareness hits your level of students, then let's get this round up rollin'.

Here at Literacy Land, we have had a few posts focused on phonemic awareness that are rootin' and tootin and ready for you. The first was [THIS POST] by Wendy at Read with Me ABC.  She explained what phonemic awareness was and how it differs from phonics. She explained how it's developed with children and shared a few resources that could be used. It was an excellent post.

Tara from Looney's Lit Blog wrote up a second to share how she addresses phonological awareness with her students who begin a little bit behind. You can check out her post [HERE] to see a few activity types in action.

Post number three came on Monday with Jennifer's Move! Groove! Read! post. If you missed it, be sure to head back and check it out. It brought back memories of childhood for me with all the little jingles she shared. Who knew that chants and jump rope jingles could lead to beginning reading skills. 

So what else can we do to make phonemic awareness learning fun? After all, it is our very youngest learners who need these lessons, so it should show them how all learning is fun. The answer...word play, music, poetry, and rhymes. Phonemic awareness includes rhyming, identifying orally beginning sounds, endings, and syllables, and blending/segmenting sounds.  Phonemic awareness activities often include pictures or other manipulatives.

Oh what fun, rhyming is, and there are many great ways to work on it. First of all, reading to your students is a great way to model rhyme and so many other skills for that matter.  Below, you'll find great books to use throughout the year.

In addition to these great books, you might also give these websites a try.

BrainPOP Jr.

Sprout Online

PBS Kids

Turtle Diary

There are so many options for teaching ideas in the classroom too.  You might consider rhyming baskets with objects that rhyme (.plastic bats, cats, and mini hats say) that your students can sort. Matching pictures of rhyming words in a pocket chart or better yet, lay the pictures on the floor and have students play Twister with them (small # of students and controlled of course) or "Hop on the Word that Rhymes with ??" Children also love playing "Odd One Out" with pictures or orally.  

Young students need to recognize that sounds come together to form words, and the best way to help develop that recognition is with adding and subtracting sounds orally through word play. For blending, you might try the following.

Guess the Word

Place a poster of a playground slide in front of the students and run your finger down the slide as you stretch the sounds of words our orally. Have your students copy you, and then, have them say the word ssssstttttaaaaammmmppppp. Together:  Stamp!

Push and Say

I love push and say because the strategy can be used later with phonics when we add letters. For Push and Say, students use poker chips or counters as sounds are made to put them together and segment them. Teachers can use the idea above with the chips or have students place chips in Elkonin boxes for segmenting. With both, I emphasize what is happening in the mouth.  

Songs and Movement

Using common tunes such as Ring Around the Rosie or London Bridges makes phoneme blending light and fun. Here's an example to London Bridges...

Do you know the word I make?

Word I make?

Word I make?

Do you know the word I make?

Share it now.

SSSSSNNNNNNAAAAAKKKKKKK (snack or snake)

Book Choices You Might Explore

For more ideas on phonemic awareness development, check out all of the great PA posts from this week's linky, and come back next week to hear about new books to Fire Up Your Readers!