Go Fish

Like I've said before I think I live on teacherspayteachers. This is the most wonderful thing they could have ever come up with. I've been working with a girl that can teach me how to make my own materials. This might save me some money too!

I remember growing up and loving to play Go Fish. Well, I came across this game just like when I found Old Maid. It was the same concept as the original game, but it was using sight words.

The Go Fish game started with pre-primar and went up from there to 3rd grade I believe. I didn't want to print them in color, because it would use a lot of ink. So, I printed them out in black and white then made copies of them using different colored paper so I knew which levels were what. My students love playing the game! It's really wonderful to help the students work on sight words along with those students who just need to bre refreshed.

 

Each student get's five cards and the rest go in the middle all mixed up. When they are given the cards the go through and see how many matches they can make first.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

Fundamentals of Writing

I have students in my classroom that at all different levels. I went to this workshop when I first moved to Minnesota. It's a Kanasa Learning Strategy. I really love this writing program. It starts out basic and then moves into more challening sentences. Everyday, it reviews subjects, verbs, capital letters and end punctuation.

Somedays this is a very hard concept for my students and somedays they are being able to answer all the questions right away. In each level there are what they call, "Cue Cards." These cards have information on them and reminders for students on what they need to do. There are also practice worksheets for the students. They are labeled A-H. In front of them they have a number that matches with the lesson we are on. There are also worksheets that has them writing their own sentences using the materials we have learned. The way the worksheets work is that the student has to get a certain percentage on the lesson before they can move on. You normally start out with the paper that says B on it, because you do the A paper together. If they do not reach the percentage on the first try you go over the sentences and then have them try it again.

When we started this out, I would just write the sentences on a white board. I was always erasing them to write a new sentence and that took time. I decided to then use the Smartboard. Before the students came, I would type the sentences into the notebook. This way when we worked on the sentences I would just turn on the Smartboard and we were able to make the corrections. Once they were done I would close it out and not save it. This way when we would go back and review, we always had the sentences without the answers.

Here is some pictures of what the folders look like, the progress charts I made, what the lesson worksheets look like and the students working on correcting the lessons.

 

I always make notes on the progress sheets if they needed help and if they struggled with it.

 

 

 

My Wonderful Students

So, this post is not showing an activity that we complete in the classroom, but the wonderful students that brighten my day. These are only my morning groups. In the afternoon I have preschool and kindergarten. Throughout the day in my room I have students that come in and out and stay awhile to complete work at their own level. We all know that special education can be stressful at times with the paperwork, deadlines and being monitored by the state. I look forward to the students in my room that make me laugh which is all of them and make me forget the times that are hard. I just wanted to share some pictures that I have took!

 

Getting some Ipad time!

 

One of my awesome paraprofessionals that help me cut out my laminating. I love to go onto teacherspayteachers.com and find the wonderful education games.

Working with blocks. Each block has a letter of the alphabet. We are working on the letters of the alphabet. He loves tracing the letters and then building towers with the blocks.

My students loves to erase the smartboard after we get done doing our writing. This little girl is very tiny and small. She was cracking me up by trying to erase the board. She kept jumping up and down. I finally had to take pictures of her trying. Some of them are a little blury from when she was jumping.

 

Getting some air off the ground! LOL

 

Hope you enjoyed!

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building Sentences

We have been working on how to build a sentence that includes a subject and a verb. We've also been working on making sure the sentence makes sense, has a capital letter and has an end punctuation mark at the end. The biggest trouble I find with my students is that they struggle with making sure the sentence makes sense. Currently, I'm using a program called, "Fundamentals of Writing." It's a Kanasa Strategy Instruction Model program. I really like how it starts out easy and contiues to build harder. I also like to have games that are fun, build team work and another way of learning about sentences. I have a couple different boxes that have cards in it that you can build sentences with. The first box, which is what we started out with has pictures along with words. This is the one I will be showing you today. There are 250 cards in the box. I took them all out and layed them upside down on the floor. Each student took 2 cards and moved to the carpet. They worked together to form a sentence. The trick with this is, they sentence had to start with a capital letter, but if they had more then one capital letter that they picked, it could not be used for the middle of the sentence. This make it tricky, because it may have not made sense to use it at the beginning, but may have made sense to use it in the middle of the sentence. They could use the picture cards anywhere in the sentence and not just at the end of the sentence.

Once they did have a sentence together, which they did not have to use all the cards, I would count up how many cards they used and we would write the number on the board. Besides having to form correct sentences we also kept track of points. With this game, you could form teams to see who could make the longest sentence.

Laying out their cards to see what everyone had.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

Sight Word Bowling

Here is a fun game for any student. It brings the sport of bowling and learning all at the same time. You are not actually bowling, but the picture are of a bowling ball, the scoring sheets are an actual score sheet you would see at a bowling alley. There are different levels of this game, so if you have students at different levels they do not feel hesitant when having to practice saying a word. This game also includes math. The object of this game is to get the most points at the end of the game. Each time you pull out a bowling ball, you say the word. If you get it correct, you count the points on the bowling ball. If you are unable to say the word you would score a 0 also known as a "gutter ball."

The way I set this game, is with different containers that have the different level of sight words. I also clipped the bag I stored to cards to the inside of the container so that way the students can see which level it is. Also, after they are done with the card they are to put that card back in the correct container.

With the worksheets, each worksheet has different amount of players along with how many innings they want to play. My students enjoy this game and it's one of the first games they pick when they are moving from one activity to another and have a little down time.

 

You can see in this picture the numbers in the corner of the letters. The squares remind me of playing scrabble.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery Message Math!

I'm always looking for things fun that still work on different types of skills when the students are in between activities or if they have some down time. I came across these worksheets on teacherspayteachers.com that are math worksheets that include, addition, subtraction, place value, division and multiplication. On the worksheet there are two columns broken down into the problem, answer and then ?. Once you have solved the problems, you then have to find the letter that associates with that answer. When you are done with that, at the bottom of the page is a place for you to put the letters in place to build a saying.

Happy Learning!

Shannon

 

Math Scavenger Hunt

I'm always looking for new ways to get my students up and moving around the classroom. I have found that the more you get the students up and having fun, the more they seem to learn. I'm a huge supporter of teacherspayteachers.com (my husband would agree). They have awesome things that are free and for a small price. We have been working on money and came across this awesome scavenger hunt. There are different sets of cards that are different colors. Each set has 6 cards along with a riddle sheet. I hide them around the room and then give each student a set of cards to go serach for. Once they have all their cards, they bring them back to the table and with this one it was a money one. They start to count the change on the card and then find that amount on the sheet. On each card, there is a word that is part of the riddle. They write that word under the amount. Once they are done, it will answer the riddle. The students sure get a kick out of the riddle and the answers.

She loves to have her picture taken! LOL

Working hard!

 

Go and check out teacherspayteachers.com! You will be surprised at the awesome things you will find on there! Also, there is a spot that if you can't find what you are looking for to request materials and someone will contact you that is interested in helping you by making it.

 

Happy Learning!

Shannon