Vowels & Word Work

Well it’s been a while, but we’re back with some activiteis and a freebie that we thought we’d share with you all! 

Recently we’ve been working on understanding long and short vowels.  Our kiddos have really been doing a great job of using strategies when decoding words containing vowels.  We created this vowel book to work on in our small reading groups.  To find out more about how we do small groups and literacy centers you can go {HERE}.

The vowel book can be copied full page and stapeld into a booklet, or cut and stapled in half sheets. We added two cover page options so you can choose what works best for you.  When new sounds and words are introduced in our reading program we add them in our vowel books.   Our kids are very familiar with short vowels, and now that long vowels are being introduced, this is a great way to practice writing and reading words with long vowels.  
Just click the {Here} or pic below for a copy!

We’ve also been listening to a few vowel videos. 

Here’s one about two vowels walking side by side.  
Our kids just love it!

Here’s another favorite about silent e:

Word work is one of our centers during our small group/literacy center time.  We’re always looking for fun and engaging word work ideas.  We like to change them up a bit from week to week to keep our kiddos engaged.  Here’s a fun guessing game we found and changed up a bit for our first graders.  We can’t seem to remember where we found it, so if you know the original source please let us know and we’ll add a link!

Here’s how our kiddos play it:

First a student chooses a partener who is also at the word work center.  If they are there alone, they can ask a child from another center if they’d like to play with them.  Then they grab a plastic baggie that contains 10 counting bears (you can use anything small) and 3-4 cups, which each have the current week's sight words written on them.  One player is in charge of placing the bears under the cups and the other player guesses where the bear is.  The players sit side by side.  The game begins by player 2 turning around while player one places a bear under a cup.  Player 2 turns back around and says the sight word on the cup that he/she thinks the bear is under.  If player 2 is correct he/she gets to keep the bear.  If player 2 is not correct, player 1 gets to keep the bear.  This continues until all 10 bears have been used.  The player with the most bear wins.  Then they can play again, but switch roles.  They just LOVE this game, and we LOVE that they’re practicing their sight words!

  We’re always in need of new word work ideas, so if you’ve got any please comment below!  We’re sure there’s others that would also like to hear about some new ideas too!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!