Literacy with the Littles: May 2018

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Ultimate Long Vowels Bundle

Are your little ones working on long vowels? This bundle is filled with over 500 pages of engaging games and activities that they are sure to love. Mastering long vowels takes a lot of practice. There are so many different spelling patterns to learn. This bundle focuses on most of the common long vowel spelling patterns. It will give them a chance to really focus on decoding these words while supporting them with wonderful picture clues.

Clip Cards

Clip cards are an easy, engaging reading activity. Not only do they give you a chance to quickly assess a readers ability to decode correctly, but they also work on fine motor skills. They are also great for your struggling readers, because they allow them to work on decoding without overwhelming them with an entire page of words. I love how these can be a short and sweet warm up to guided reading groups, a literacy center, an early finisher activity, or an activity that is already prepped and ready for parent volunteers.

Board Games

Kids love games! Why not let them play while practicing long vowel words? This bundle comes with 17 different board games. Each one focuses on its own long vowel spelling pattern.

Spot it & Dot it

Time to break out the mini erasers or paint dabbers. This activity can be laminated and used over and over again with mini erasers. Students search for the pictures of the words listed at the bottom. Each sheet focuses on a specific long vowel spelling pattern.

Word Family Booklets

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ultimate-Long-Vowels-Bundle-Engaging-phonics-games-activities-bundlebonanza-3700045

I absolutely love the benefits of working with word families. They help students become familiar with common spelling patterns and this gives them to ability to use those chunks in decoding. Rather than sounding each letter out individually. Each long vowel comes with its own booklet of different word families. You can fill it out by brainstorming as a class. There is also a page at the back for students to use the words in a sentence.

Also included for each long vowel:

Long Vowel Puzzles

For extra hands on learning, each vowel comes with a variety of picture to word puzzles. For durability I recommend laminating these.

Long vs. Short Vowel Picture Sort

I love using word and picture sorts for phonics practice. These sorts help students identify and differentiate between long and short vowels. They cut and paste the words into the correct column. This also helps work on fine motor skills (added bonus).

Spy and Spell Whole Group Activity

This activity is similar to a read and write the room. You hang the picture cards up around the room. The students have to find the picture that matches their recording sheet and correctly write the word on the writing lines provided. I love that this lets readers get up and out of their seat, as well as letting them move and write at their own pace.

Unique Small Group Game

Each vowel comes with a simple, and engaging small group game. This game allows students to really focus on the spelling patterns and decode the words without the picture clues. Each game comes with some silly rules to keep it entertaining for your little learners. I love to use them for guided reading warm ups, fast finishers, or as an activity with parent volunteers.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ultimate-Long-Vowels-Bundle-Engaging-phonics-games-activities-3700045

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Color Safari {Free Color Recognition Activity for Preschoolers}

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Color-Safari-Freebie-3804148

Are you looking for a fun, FREE activity to help your little ones recognize colors and color words? With this Color Safari activity little ones will be able to get up and explore their surroundings while searching for the hidden Color Safari Creatures. The recording sheet is has a black and white version of each creature just waiting to be colored. Once they find an animal, they color their recording sheet to match. Under each animal the color word is written to help young readers begin to recognize the printed color word. For added excitement, make your own colorful binoculars for the safari.

What you will need:

Bright paper cut into strips

Empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls

glue

ribbon or string

crayons

Packing tape or hot glue to connect binoculars

tape to hang your colorful creatures around the room (I like to use painters tape for easy removal)

Binoculars:

My preschooler loved having binoculars for his safari. Not only were they fun during the activity, but we turned creating them into a learning activity. He wanted his binoculars to be the colors of the rainbow, in order. As he wrapped the colored strips around his binoculars he sang the colors of the rainbow song to help him keep the correct order. We also discussed repeating patterns as we got to purple and still needed to add more to cover the cardboard roll.

You can make your binoculars colorful in many ways. We chose to cut colored strips of Astrobrights and wrap the glued strips around the tubes. I think this is a great opportunity to teach patterns or the order of the rainbow. After securing the paper strips I used packing tape to add the ribbon and stick the tubes together. Hot glue would probably also work for this.

Setting up the safari:

Once you have created your binoculars, you are ready to set up your safari. Hang the creature cards throughout the room for your little ones to find. You can choose the difficulty of your hiding places. I like to keep them all visible, but at varying heights and on different pieces of furniture. Then print out the number of recording sheets you will need. Each explorer will need their own recording sheet. This activity works in a classroom with many kids or at home with only 1 explorer.

During the activity:

You can scaffold for increased learning throughout the safari by asking questions. For example: for a child who is just learning to identify colors you can ask them to tell you the color of the animal they found. For a little one who knows all of their colors, you can ask them to read the printed color words.