Five For Friday

Hey teacher friends, I still have 3 weeks to go in school, but it feels good knowing that ALL testing is complete!  Now we can step up the crafts and cleaning in the classroom!

My teacher tip of the week was about taking inventory for the end of the year. I always like to see what I have so that I can ask for donations at the beginning of next year and be ready.  I try to make the a theme to my donations for when I display them at Meet the Teacher Day and Back to School Night.  In the fall I will be putting out these cute cupcakes and this "sweet" sign.

This week's Phonics rule was a-u and a-w make the /aw/ sound.  The students worked on their word sorts and phonics books.  Here is the link to my teacher phonic's books to help reinforce the vowel team sounds.

These are my summer review books that I give to my students at the end of the year to help prevent the summer slide.  I posted them a few weeks ago, but they have been a big seller in my store wanted to thank those of you who purchased them for your support!  If you haven't seen them yet, they are a great deal and easy to put together.

This is what the rest of our month looks like.  We are going to be very busy the last week of school.  I also just LOVE these calendar cards that go along with my Black and Bright Color theme.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!

Five For Friday

This week was a lot less eventful.  We finished reading tests last week and next week, we will start our EOY math tests.  It was a nice change of pace to have a week that was "normal" this close to the end of the year.

My countdown till the end of school.  We have 24 days left.  I am so jealous of the teachers who are already finished with school for the year.  But it does feel so good erasing the number at the end of each day and writing a new number.

o-a and o-w make the O sound was our phonics rules this week.  My students did a nice job with their sorts and spelling.

Look at all the phonics rules my students have learned so far this year.  We are still learning new rules each week, but it is amazing to look at all the rules there are and see the students using these when they are writing!  It makes my heart so happy.

My Teacher Tip Tuesday this week was about organizing and planning end-of-the-year reading data.  My school makes us give the DRA2 for the end-of-the-year reading assessment.  I made this FREEBIE to complete 27 students/46 tests in less than 2 weeks!  It worked great and I can't wait to use it again next year.  It made testing a breeze!

Our 3rd grade reading buddies starting SOL testing this week and we made this good luck poster for them.  They did a great job on their first BIG test.  We also made them good luck cards and treats!  My students LOVED making the minions.  You can get them here.

Phonics Posters

These are the phonics posters that I hang up in my room after learning the phonics rule.  Each week we learn a new rule and each week we add to the phonics wall. My students use these posters in reading when they come to a blend or a digraph they don't know.  They also use these posters a lot when writing. There are 42 posters with 42 different phonics rules.  I teach the rules as we are working with them with out weekly word sort.  I use Words Their Way to teach this portion on Language Arts.  These posters are in addition to the sorts and the daily activities that my students also do to learn and implement the phonics rules.

R Blend Phonics Books

I use these phonics books that I created with my word work for the week.  Each week, my students get a new phonics rule within their word sort that they need to follow in order to complete the sort. I use these books to reinforce the rule and then we usually do a journal activity along with it to take it a step further.  I have found that reinforcing the same rule through multiple ways has really helped my students grasp it and apply it into their spelling, writing, and reading.

These books are my R-blends that include books for cr-, dr-, fr-, pr-, and tr-. 

L Blend Phonics Books

These are my new addition to my store!  The L-blend phonics book pack includes 4 new books for cl-, fl-, pl-, and sl-.  They are each 8 pages long which includes a cover, 6 example pages, and a review page.

Here is a preview of some of the pages from the pack.
These books are so helpful to my students when trying to teach them the phonics rules.  The repetitiveness really helps the students grasp the concept and can apply it later in their reading and writing.

Word Sort Journal Set Up

At the beginning of the school year, one of the things on my "to do list" is to organize the student's journals.  The students have 4 journals that we use throughout the year.  One is a spiral journal that I provide for them. It gets a label with the student's number on it.  Their math, language arts, and word sort journal all get a colored label that I tape onto the spine of a composition notebook.  This helps the students know what notebook to use for what subject.

In their word sort notebook I also attach a zip lock baggie to the inside cover for them to place their sorts in each week. You can see my word sort schedule here, as to why they need a baggie, but basically they get 2of the same word sorts within a week. One gets glued into their journal and the other one, they use all week and glue it to a check-in form and turn it in for a grade. They use the baggie to hold their sort words until Friday when they turn it in to be graded

-ck, qu-, and tw- phonic books

These books for -ck, qu-, and tw- are free in my store!  Check them out and use them for teaching the sounds they make.  I use these with my first graders to help restate the letters and the sounds they make, along with an example of a word that follows the rule.

I read the book first to my students and then I have them read it as a class. Restating the rule, really helps them with remembering it when it comes time to read in small groups.  

Silent e Phonics Books

As a part of my reading block, I have my students work on a word sort each week and then they also have a phonics activity each day that goes along with the word sort.  I created these books to reinforce their word sort rule.  These are the silent e books wich include a_e, i_e, o_e, and u_e.  There are 4 books total and I will only use 1 a week, so this pack would last me 4 weeks on planning in my room.

This pack includes a book for each silent e vowel listed above.  Each book comes with a title page, 8 picture pages, and a finishing page with all the pictures and the phonics rule.  You can get them here.

Vowel Team Phonics Books

I have recently published my vowel team books to TPT.  You can pick them up in my store.  This pack includes books with vowel teams making the same sound (ex: ai and ay both make the long a sound)

This pack includes books for ai, ay, oa, ow, ee, ea, oi, oy, ue, and ew.  I made these so that my students could see that there are different ways of making the same sound.  In the books, it says that ai and ay make the a sound.

When reading these with my class I have them tell me where it is at in the word, so they see the pattern that most of them have.  ai is in the middle of a word and ay is at the end of the words.  This is not the case for all of these, but it is nice when you can point it out and the students can use it in their writing when they make the connection to spelling, reading, and writing.

short vowel sound books

I created these short vowel sound books to help my students with their short vowel sounds.  I use these with their weekly word sorts.  Each week they will have a new "rule" to follow and learn about. I use these to help support the rule each week.

This pack includes 5 books to print and put together containing the short vowel sounds of a, e, i, o, and u.  Each book has a cover that states the rule, picture pages with the rule and an example, and an ending page that restates the rule and has a picture of each short vowel word.

Phonics Journal Rules

I use these phonics journal pages along with weekly word work for the students to put in their reading journal.  It allows them to compare the rules to other rules they know, and to come up with their own words that follow the rules.  This also allows students to spell the words correctly in their journal and reference the words later during writing.

These phonic rule journal pages go along with our weekly word work and Words Their Way word sorts. You can get them on my TPT page.

S Blend Books

I created these S-Blend books to go along with out phonics lesson for the next few weeks.  The phonics going along with their word sorts (Words Their Way) and I decided to make these books for the students to practics reading and remember the rule of s-blend words.  There are 7 books in this set (sp, sk, sl, sm, sn, st, sw) that will take up 3 weeks to cover.  Like with the digraphs, I introduce the rules on day 1, on day 3 I read the book to the students and then the students read it back to me, on day 4 we reread the book and the students write some of the words in their journal to apply the rule, and on day 5 we have a spelling test with 3 of the "phonics rule" words.

Digraph books

I created these digraph books to go along with our phonics lesson for the next few weeks.  The phonics goes along with their word sorts (words their way) and I decided to make these books for the students to practice reading and remember the rule with digraphs.  There are 5 in this set (sh, ch, th, ph, wh) that will take us 4 weeks to cover.  I introduce the rule with some examples on day 1.  On day 3 I read the book to the students and then the students read the book to me.  On day 4 we reread the book all together and the students have to write 4 words from the book in their journals.  On day 5, we have our spelling test, which is made up of their homework words for the week and 3 words from the book using the phonics rule and previous rules we have learned.

These books are very repetitive, but help the students memorize the rule and apply it to reading and writing.