Word Detective Pack

One of my kids favorite centers is write the room! I have made some Word Detective sheets for them to use. They have a "case file" with certain clues they have to look for. For example, write words that have the letter s, write words that have 4 letters, etc: Here's one of the sheets from the pack.
Word Detective case file

You can make more on your own or you can download the entire pack along with the word dectective poster shown above from TPT for $4.


Word Detective Word Work Pack

I use the Stretchy the Word Snake mat during my Guided Reading Groups.  We build words in the boxes and use the little cars (look closely under the letter m and you will see one) to drive slowly as we say each sound.  They we drive our cars faster as we blend the word together.  The kids love this activity.  Note:  if you are building a word like ship...the digraph /sh/ goes in one box because it makes one sound. 

Once we've done this lesson several times I place the materials in our word work center so that the kids can do it on their own.

You can download a version of this in both color and black and white. 

Stretchy Snake

The kids also love this center for Popcorn Word review.  They get to be word detectives.  They use a magnifying glass to read and record their popcorn words.  Laminate the sheets with the popcorn words on them and then have the kids use a magnifying glass to read the words and record them on their recording sheet.   

Word Detective 

Test using Google Docs

I'm not a very "techie" person so the only way  for me to learn how to do certain things is just by playing around with it and hoping I don't mess something up and create a big 'ole mess in the process!  I'm trying to figure out how to start including some of my activities in my posts so that you can download them and use them in your classroom.  So I'm attempting to use google docs to see if it works..... fingers crossed!  If it works then I will upload some of the activities we do for word work this weekend.  :)  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Christmas preview with graph

Thanksgiving Fun!

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you feel like you haven't accomplished a lot? 
Well.. this has been one of those weeks for me!  We've been so busy practicing for our Gingerbread Man play that we haven't had time to do a lot of the things I had planned.  But we are having fun!!

Here are some of the things we've done so far.
We read,  If I Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 .  We are charting some of the things we are learning on our Mayflower Voyage tree map.  I hope to finish it tomorrow.

The kids made their own Mayflower and unscrambled a sentence.

                                                                    
                                                                    Turkey Glyphs!

Since this was posted this Turkey Glyph has been reworked and it now includes recording sheets, patterns and a much cuter turkey.  You can view the materials by clicking on the pictures below.

         We did a fun family project.  Each family was given a turkey to disguise so that he wouldn't be eaten on Thanksgiving Day!  Here are a few of the turkeys.  So adorable!                                                

 Each year around Halloween we read, Pumpkin Jack.

Then, we carve a pumpkin and place him on top of soil and watch him decompose just like he does in the story.  EWWWW!  Yes, it is kind of gross...but it is also really cool!   This is how Pumpkin Jack looked on November 2nd.

This was Pumpkin Jack last week.   You can see he is getting a little moldy and shrinking.

Turkey Strut Math fact books. 

I will post more pictures Friday.

Have a great week!

P.S. The Gingerbread Man Unit was posted tonight.  If you're interested here's the link.

Gingerbread Man Math and Literacy Fun

Sneak Peak!

I just finished my Christmas unit and uploaded it to Teachers Pay Teachers.  Here are a few pictures from the unit. 

 An original story that I wrote.  The story can be printed out and used for Shared Reading or you can use it on your Smartboard or projector. 

Santa craft and two writing activities...create a list for Santa or write him a letter.

Decorate a Christmas tree and then count, graph and record what is on the tree.

Here's the description from Teachers Pay Teachers:

This is one of my favorite units. It includes an original story for shared reading, a rhyming words center and recording sheet, a Santa art project which includes two writing projects: a Santa list and a Santa letter. It also includes an elf number words center, a Christmas Tree project and math recording sheet, 3 graphing activities and manipulatives, a what matters most bulletin board display and lots more! 49 pages total

This unit is on sale for $7 until December 1st.  After that it will be $10

click on the link below if you're interested. 

Christmas Math and Literacy Fun!

Happy Veteran's Day!

This is my son in law, Curtis on the day he returned home from Afghanistan. 

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13. Thank you to all men and women who have served and defended our country.   We are so thankful that our soldier returned home safely. Prayers for the families of the soldiers who weren't able to return home to them. God Bless.

Fun with Owls!

The kids had so much fun learning about owls this week.  Their excitement was so contagious that when I was observed this week (we don't know ahead of time when our administrators are coming they just pop in and do our formal observations unnanounced) my assistant principal didn't want to leave!  The kids were teaching him lots of cool facts about owls! 
Here are two of our charts that we made this week.  They say... Owls have....   and  Owls are.... we also made one that said Owls can...   We used shared writing to record the information we learned on the charts. 

The kids made their own Owl Tree Maps based on the information we learned.  There were lots of resources around the room to use.  The most helpful resource of course were our huge owl charts.  :)

This is our owl poem that we did this week. 

       The kids were given a mixed up version of the poem and they put it in the correct order and glued it to     paper.

Our book for Shared Reading was a book I wrote called, Go To Sleep Owl  we read it on the smartboard each day and did lots of word work.  I printed out a few copies of the book and word and picture cards so that the kids could rebuild the story during literacy centers.

This is our adorable owl book we made this week.  Each day I gave them a scrambled sentence which related to something we had learned the day before.  They unscrambled the sentence, glued it in their book and illustrated it.  Using scrambled sentences is a great way to discuss sentence structure... a sentence starts with a capital, has spaces between the words and ends with punctuation.  They can use these clues  along with getting their mouth ready to say the first sound to help them figure out the order of the words in the sentence.

 This sentence says, Owls are excellent hunters.  The illustration shows all of the characteristics that owls possess that help them hunt.  Sharp tallons, great eyesight, etc:

A few examples from our Morning Messages.

Dissecting owl pellets to see what the Barn owls ate.  The kids LOVED this Scientific investigation.

   Poor Ollie!  I don't think he enjoyed hearing us talk about some of the types of animals owls eat.  He was a little nervous when he found out he was on the list.  :)

We used owl manipulatives and work mats to find out how many different ways we could make five.

One of our math journals.

My entire owl unit is posted on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

Click on the picture to view the unit.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Owls-Math-and-Literacy-Activities

Have a Great Week!

Deanna