Reflecting on Instruction- How we Love to teach Reading

Hope everyone is having a super summer!!  We are definitely enjoying out time off :).

Pictured above are my Boys (1st 2 boys my kiddos and the 2nd 2 my nephews)

and Cristy and her cute fam!!!

We recently reflected on things like pencil sharpeners, behavior management, pouches vs boxes, and how to get the wiggles out, but this post will be on research based instruction. We will try to make it short! Maybe we will just write several posts on instructional likes and dislikes :).

We Love: Cafe, Daily 5 Reading, Multi Sensory Phonics, 6 Traits Writing

The majority of our kiddos really excelled at reading!!!  Why??

We loved using Orton Gillingham Multi sensory methods to teach phonics (letters, sounds, blending, segmenting)!! It was hands on and minds on! It met the needs of diverse learners. We followed the sequence of letters from the book Recipe for Reading.

For the absolute best training on using Orton Gillingham, you should attend the 30 hour training conducted by the Institute of Multi Sensory Education!  It was expensive, but well worth it!! Click the link below to check out their site.

Cafe Rocked! We taught the kiddos strategies so they could be independent readers. They didn't rely on anyone else to help them figure out words!!

We used Science and Social Studies non-fiction texts as well as a variety of fiction texts to teach mini lessons on the strategies. We modeled using the strategies then gave students opportunities to practice using Daily 5!

What's Daily 5???
Read to Self
Read to Someone
Work on Writing
Listen to Reading
Word Work

Daily 5 was an awesome way for the kiddos to practice the strategies we introduced!

Needs: More Training on 6+1  Traits
Our kiddos were pretty great writers, but they really could have been better!! We would love a little more training on 6 +1 Traits writing. Do any of you have any experience with this way to teach writing to kiddos??
Let us know what you use to teach writing.

Fall Fever! Ready to JUMP in!

Wahoo!  I sooooo love FALL!  The weather is already turning. Nights are getting cooler.  Air is crisper! Football season is in FULL swing!  (Goooooo DAWGS...please spank some LSU tigers this weekend!!!) Fires are blazing in the pit outside!  Smores (well---to be honest---peeps in this case!  You know, the Easter blue chicks. Seriously! You would be surprised what I'll resort too when I need a smores fix!!!  Don't knock it until you are ridiculously desperate and can find NOTHING else until you try it!  That sugar caramelizes on the outside and it makes for an interestingly tasty treat!) are being roasted!  FALL--- it's just a beautiful thing!

So...in direct response to MY personal FALL FEVER...we created a pack with the same loving name!  It's 40 pages of goodies that you can use to bring the fall fever right into your classroom.  The pack is in the same spirit as our letter word work packs chocked full of literacy activities that are perfect for small group work, centers, stations, or in our case ---Daily 5 work work!

Click ANY picture to head to our TpT store to grab the pack!

Here's the whole kit and caboodle!

As always, please leave us a comment and let us know what you think.  Anything in particular you like, something we should add, your favorite thing about fall...

We'll choose 2 winners to snag this pack for FREE!

Hope you get the FALL FEVER bug soon---if it hasn't bitten you already! ;)

It's the Little Things that EXCITE us!

OK...so if you think it's a bit sad for a person to get excited about a ONE DOLLAR FLY SWATTER...then I would generally be in agreement!

BUT...people...I found the most stinkin' awesome fly swatters at Wal-mart today for ONE BUCK!  I was happily rolling along with my binders, pocket files, ink...you know...boring stuff...when out of the corner of my eye these babies were screaming at me!

I love the bright colors and knew they would be a hit with my kinder kiddos right off the bat.

NOW---I had to find a REAL reason to get them, other than the fact they were cute and cheap.

So here's my plan of action:

Since they came in 2 colors, I figured we can use these to  play games.  Each player has a different color swatter thus there will be an ORANGE player and a TEAL player.  I am thinking they will need a 3rd kid to be the "caller".

Then the possibilities are WIDE OPEN!

*Lay out sight word cards on the floor.  Caller has a set of matching cards.  They call out a word and the 1st kiddo to hit the correct word, "SPLAT", wins the card.  The kiddo with the most cards, wins the game!

*Make 2 cards...one that says FACT and one that says FICTION.  Read, or make up, a paragraph or even just a sentence that you tell the kiddos.  The first one to hit (SPLAT!) whether it's fact or fiction, wins the card!

*Make 2 cards that say "Sentence" or "NOT a Sentence".  Read, or make up, sentences or phrases.  The first one to SPLAT the correct one wins the card.

*You get the picture...endless possibilities!

*I was thinking I would lay out my number line on the floor.  Then use flash cards to play.  So if I were working on number words I would give the caller a stack of words zero to twenty.  They would show the 2 kiddos the word and the first one to hit the right # gets the card.

*Use it for addition and subtraction.  Show addition equations and they "SPLAT" the answer!

*Tell them a number and they SPLAT the number that is "one more", "one less", "two more"...

*Endless possibilities!

I actually bought 8 swatters so I could have several kiddos playing at once.  I am sure I can think of a way to use ALL of them at  once, but haven't made it that far. :)

Now...do you guys have any more ideas for how we can use these AWESOME "Finds of the Day"?

Also, I was thinking I may create the cards needed to play the games just so I wouldn't have to come up with sentences/phrases or equations...off the top of my head.  Or so I could leave it for a sub to do.

Would you guys be interested in something like this as a product to purchase?  Or totally not necessary?  Would love to get your opinion!

Phonics Boggle! It's Game Time Baby!

Been a little slack this first week of summer!  Page is kickin' it at the beach for the month!  One of us has to do some kind of work, right?  So---while the hubs is mowing grass I am sneaking in here to write a post before I forget how to do it! ;)  Summer---it'll do it to ya!

Here is a game we play with our kiddos!  They like it!  No---they LOVE it!  As in, begging us to play it...all..the...time!  We play this on Thursdays as part of our phonics time for Daily 5!  Trust me, the littles learn their days of the week quick like so they will know EXACTLY when we should be officially playing!  And---they---do---not---like---it---one---bit---if---we---try---to---skip---it!  It's not that we WANT to skip it, it's just that it takes about 12-15 minutes total to play the game, get scores, and crown the champions!  PEOPLE...this is SERIOUS game time!  BUT...there are just some days that we maybe get a teensy weensy bit behind and we try to skip this to get back on track!  Trust me---DO NOT SKIP THIS---if you ever start it.  Nobody wants an angry mob of 5 year olds coming at them all crazy eyed!!!

So...hopefully we have you interested!  What is this amazing game, you ask (you are asking, right?  If not, just pretend and come along for the ride!)?

It's really a very simple game to play, but they think it's the BOMB DIGGITY!  Shhh!  We are NOT gonna let them know that we totally made this up!  They think we are PROFESSIONALS!

Here's how you play!

First you need to gather up some chart paper or other large writing paper...big enough that a group of 4 or 5 kiddos can gather around it and all still see!

Then we divide the smalls into groups.  We try to divide them evenly depending on phonics prowess! ;)

We pick a team captain for each group.  Again, we make sure that all of the team captains are around the same skill level to make it fair!  No one wants to get stomped!  Team captains change EVERY time we play the game.

Then we spread the groups out all over the room.  We set our timer (We have an AWESOME timer that we show on the Activboard so they can see their time counting down.  Not to mention that it has a VERY LOUD timer that goes off and cracks them up because I still jump---every---single---time!) and off we go!  

Teams work to think of words that work on whatever phonics skill we are focusing on that particular week.  Early in the year it's a single letter.  Later it may be a digraph or two.  These pictures are from late in the year and we were working on blends with l.  They are masters of the game now and can handle it!  

The room is SO STINKIN' quiet while they play!  QUIET!  I mean like pin drop quiet!  I know, I know, you probably don't believe me!  But you see, as the kids are calling out words to their team captain, they must WHISPER or risk another team stealing (BOO! HISS!) their word!  SCORE one for the teacher!

(Remind me again why I ever want to SKIP this game???)

After the time runs out (We vary the time between 6-10 minutes depending on their skill level and which skill we are working on that week.) all the groups come back together and we score the teams.

One captain comes up and we call out their list of words.  If ANY other team has the same word, then we ALL cross it off of the lists.  NO points are earned for these words!  If NO OTHER team has the word, then we circle that word and that team earns one point.  We continue to score each team in this way!

Then we list all of the team scores, write greater/less than sentences on the board, and determine our winner!  The winning team picks out of the treasure box (goodies that cost me pennies but they think are as good as GOLD...candy, stickers, necklaces, plastic bugs...)  All the other kiddos get a "consolation prize"!  Mostly because  the consolation prize is CANDY and I LOVE CANDY!  Usually a couple of M&M's or Skittles or something! 

In the beginning of the year, some of their 'words' look crazy...all phonetically spelled.  But we don't really care because we are focusing on hearing the sounds in words, not spelling.  As the year goes on though, the writing gets much more conventional!  That's nice to see too!

And there you have it...PHONICS BOGGLE! Fun, right!

What kind of fun games do you play with your kiddos?  Either link your blog post about one of them below, or give us a little description in your comments!  We'll all be armed with some NEW games to head back to school!