Word Tiles Game for Fluency

Yesterday I introduced a new game to my class using buckets of word tiles (Tub O' Words from Lakeshore- you could also write the words on paper, beads, etc).

I cannot believe how much my students love this game! And moreso, how much they say the words and talk about phonics when playing!

"Aw you got their- that was my word!"

"Look- you have was and saw- that's backwards."

"cute fat cat" making phrases out of the words or reading all of the tiles they have. 

The tiles have a mix of sight words, short vowels and long vowels. It is great practice for students who are still working on identifying long vowels. Ex: if a student got cute but said cut, I could say, "well, there's an 'e' on the end so it's....." and the student would say "cute!"

Check out the video to learn how to play!


Basics:
1. If you say the word correctly, you keep the word
2. If you get an underlined word, put all of your tiles back *Forgot to mention that I also swapped an orange for a green in each bin- if you get that tile it means that you get an extra turn. You could also circle the word to indicate that you get to go again.

Practice: Adding Tens

This video shows a fun way to practice adding tens using playing cards. I use this game as a math center, or also as a task students can do when they finish early.

The video highlights three strategies to solve to find the sum:
1) Skip Counting by 10's 
2) Adding On with 10's 
3) Using Ones to add 10's

This game is closely related to Tens War. To play Tens War, each partner needs a stack of cards. Simultaneously, the two partners draw 2 cards. Each student determines the sum of her cards. Whoever has the higher sum gets to keep all 4 cards. 

The Best Part of Me Project

My first graders worked extremely hard on these poems based on the beloved book, The Best Part of Me: Children Talk About their Bodies in Pictures and in Words by Wendy Ewald. I want to share the process that helped students create such masterpieces.

First, I read two poems to the students, stopping each time to ask what they liked about the poem. After the third poem, I got out some paper to start recording what we liked. I knew that we would use this later for inspiration. I read a total of about five during this session. 

The next day I worked with half the class at a time. I reviewed the chart then read two more poems to the students, again asking them what they liked about each poem. Next, I told the students that it was their turn to write their own 'Best Part of Me' poem. 

Once students had chosen what they intended to write about, I handed out the graphic organizers (click here). I helped the students fill in the bubbles by going through each technique on the list one at a time. Ex: I asked the students if the body part that they had chosen reminded them of anyone in their family.

Later that day, I returned the graphic organizers to students whole class and explained how to transform the bubbles into sentences that would form a poem. I worked with a small group who needed extra help.

The next day I had students copy their poems onto 8x10 papers- encouraging them to write with a margin by drawing a pencil line for them to always start writing at. Last, they traced over their letters with sharpies. I later erased pencil marks and mounted each child's photograph and poem together.

This was a long process, and it was well worth the time and energy!