Magic E lesson and ideas...

We have been working on the vce word pattern in our room since before Christmas.  I had seen a few ideas on Pinterest about ways to use paint sample cards for literacy...hey a little elbow grease and a trip to Wal-Mart and I have new manipulatives to play with...I'm in!  So that's what I did.  I made a trip to Wal-Mart and picked up all different kinds of sample cards...solid squares, rectangles with graduating degrees of a certain shade, and these really cool Better Homes and Gardens ones that have a hole to punch out.  I'm assuming that you are to try to match paint or coordinate, but being a teacher I saw a word family slide waiting to be born!  Here is a picture of the final project, along with the ideas that it inspired (sorry it's sideways...I always forget to turn the phone I use to take the pics!)

To make this slide, simply punch out the hole in two Better Homes and Gardens sample cards (save the pop-out circle for later use).  Turn the two cards back to back and tape together.  I just used scotch tape, which we all know won't last 30 seconds with a group of first graders...wait, what am I thinking...they won't even make it two seconds!  So when I make them for my class I plan on getting some of that cool, decorative duct tape to bind the edges together.  Anywho...once they are taped, simply write your favorite word family to the right of each hole.  Then take one of the graduated tint sample card and write a different consonant in each box.  *Word to the Wise* Slide the strip into the card and write the consonants through the punch out...this way you guarantee the letters will be the right size.  Instant word practice.  Kids can make their own, or you can send them home for practice...who cares if they come back...they are free and take about a minute and a half to make!

*Sidenote-you will notice in the picture that I have also made a set to use for Magic E practice...that has been part of our New Year review this week, and I decided to make one at the same time.

This idea started those creative juices flowing and I thought..."Hmmmmm, what could I use those circles for?"  Well, we made glittery Magic E's on index cards today and the plan is to have them use their Magic E cards to find words around the room that they could try to add the E to and make a new word.  So, I finally found a way to use those foam snowflakes I bought.  I put the short vowel words that we had written down from the book "Hop on Pop" onto address labels and stuck them on the snowflakes which I posted around the room...but our Magic E's were too large.  :(  Then WHAMO!  I have all those little circles and popsicle sticks...what if I make Mini Magic E's on popsicle sticks?  Excellent!  So I got out all my stuff and started putting them together.  Then I thought, but what if I want to use these on book print?  LIGHTBULB!  I have all these little round dot labels that someone donated and I thought, "Eeny Meeny E on the other end would be great!  Multi-tasking manipulatives...love it!"  Here is a picture of how they turned out.

My class will be using the Magic E Wands and the words posted around the room to do a whole group word sort.  I am going to give them a recording sheet to write down which words can make a new word with Magic E and which words can't. 





Here is a picture...if you would like me to send you the master, leave a comment in the box with your email address and I will send it to you.

We will check back in on the carpet to compare notes before doing our next rotation.  Happy teaching this week everyone! 

From Christmas Comes Winter-Manipulatives That Is!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  Mine is soon to be over...we go back to school on Wednesday, but...good news!  I was so excited to get a message that I have my first follower!  Thank you! I hope you are the first of many to come! 

After creating my lesson plans this week I started to plan for my centers.  I have to admit I think my brain is still on vacation, because I couldn't think of one thing that I thought my kids would just be over the moon about, so what did I do?  I went shopping!  That's right! I loaded the whole family up and went to Wal-Mart...nothing like a little grocery shopping to stimulate the creative juices!  As soon as we entered the building, the boys (husband included) ran to the toy section to check out the newest Legos that Santa hadn't been able to fit in his sack.  I however went to see what was left of the clearance holiday stuff.  Boy did I hit the jackpot!  Most of their holiday items were 50% off.  I found some snowmen ornaments that I will use in my Working With Words center after adding letters to their bellies.  I think I will do a Words in Words pocket chart activity using the words New Year...maybe I'll add Happy, if there's not enough letters to make at least 10 words.

This inspired me to make a new version of our BAM! game.  I'm going to call it "Oh Snow!".  I have painted craft sticks white and put a sight word on each one.  I wrote "Oh, Snow!" on just a few.  For the activity, students can pull a stick out of the container and try to read the word.  If they read the word correctly, they get to keep it.  If they pull out the "Oh, Snow!" stick they have to put all their sticks back.

I made thegame storage out of an empty sugar free drink mix container.  I peeled off the shrink-wrap ad used a permanent marker to draw in the face.  I took an old snowman sock and pushed the toe up inside of itself and glued it to the edge of the lid.  I made it into a hat by tying a piece of yarn around the open end of the sock to make the bobble at the top.  I used left over pieces of foam stickers from the kits below to decorate the container.

Another great find were foam ornament sets that I will save for my class to make next year.  They didn't have a price on them, so I went to scan them and whoa baby...they were 75% off!  Can we say awesome!  I soon found out that all their Christmas craft kits were 75% off. 

I found these packages of 36 snowflakes for $1.24 per package. 

I am going to put a piece of packing tape in the middle of each so I can make a re-usable word sort using our Treasures spelling rule each week in January.

Why packing tape?  You can write on it with a permanent marker, then when you want to erase it, just use a white board marker to scribble over it, then wipe off!

I also found these foam stickers for the same price...$1.24.  I bought some Christmas and some winter.  The winter ones came with mini-snowmen that I will use with these big snowman ornament crafts for matching activities...again, using packing tape to make them changeable each week to match our focus each week.  They came with little hats too.  I haven't figured out what to use them for yet, but I'm sure I'll find a way.

This week we will be matching nouns written on the small snowmen to the big snowmen labeled person, place, thing, plural, and singular.  Next week we will be matching verbs to their tense-        present, past or future.

Last but not least, I found a super-awesome new crown to wear during small groups.  During the beginning of the year I wear a crown and talk about letter land and queen I who always gets her way...so when I wear my crown I can't be interrupted.  Great visual for the kids during small group time.  I know I look a little crazy, but my son was taking the picture while laughing which of course made me laugh...and then I couldn't stop.  Anywho!  Have a great week back!