Daily Five Minilesson idea on ch with a freebie...

Hey everyone!  I'm gearing up for a new week and I thought I would share one of my Daily 5 ideas with you.  My district uses the Treasures Reading Program, and this next week we will be studying ch and tch spelling patterns.  Now, I don't know about your class, but in my class there are always students who confuse the sh and ch (tch) sounds during spelling.  I thought I would create a poster to help my class remember the look and sound of ch.  Well, my ten year old son always goes around the house singing this song he made up about french fries.  LIGHTBULB!  My class needs fluency practice and our rule is ch and tch...why not use my son's song and create a song (poem) poster for my class to learn. 

Click here if you would like to download a free copy from my TPT store.

Then I had another idea...create a word practice or word sort game for my Working with Words area. 

 I think I am going to go with a word sort using three fry boxes...one marked sh, one marked ch and one marked tch.  I will write the words I want to put in the word sort on yellow popsicle sticks that can be sorted.  I am going to be creating a printable with the words on paper for those that need a quick printable activity as well as a self-check chart.  I will get those uploaded as quickly as I can get them made...

If you would like to download a free copy of the poem you can get it here from my TPT store.  The printables to go along with it will be part of a kit, that will be available for purchase later this week.  I hope everyone has a great week!

That was a short week? Surely not!

We had a great time back together this week in class.  We shared what we got for Christmas...how we celebrated New Year...it was awesome! 

We are working on descriptive writing next week, so I thought I would re-visit the idea of mental images by having the class make Five Senses poems about New Year.  It worked great!  At one point one of my little monkeys had me laughing so hard I had tears down my cheek.  She couldn't come up with a line for "Smells like..." and she came to me to help her get some ideas.  I asked her, "Where were you at?" "Gramma's", she replied.  So I talked to her about how when I visit certain places I notice that they smell differently...(is it only me, or does anyone else love the way all Hallmarks smell).  I explained that because we all use different smelling candles, soaps, cleaners, etc. we get used to our own house and sometimes when we enter someone else's house we notice a floral, fruity, etc. type of scent.  So then I ask (and boy did I walk into this one!) "What does Gramma's house smell like?"  I expected the response of flowers or cookies, but her prompt reply was "Dog!".  I immediately started laughing, as did she, and we decided to simply write "Smells like Gramma's house." and let the reader create their own imagined Gramma's house scent.

On a different note, I am making some new posters and things for around my room.  I know I looked every where on the web for a set of cards for my Daily Five Pocket Chart Choice Cards, but I couldn't find any that I absolutely loved, so I made some.  I thought I would share for those of you that want them too, so here they are!  Click here to be taken to my TPT store for the free download.