Twister-Boggle,maybe?

I am not sure what we should call it but with a "spin-off" from Boggle, the word game, my para-pro aka co-teacher and I used the letters from this week's selected sight word list to make a grid on the floor. After using contact paper to adhere them to the floor I decided to give it a try. While I was hopping and stepping from letter to letter to spell a word, a little girl walked up and said "Or you could just do this...." as she stepped on two letters and tagged a third one with her hand. " You know, like Twister!" she said. Uh huh... I thought. So, there you have it.. Once again we follow the lead of our students! Love it when that happens! However they choose to use it, I am excited to have another way to practice recognizing and spelling sight words. (Although the bubble letters are cute and attractive, we really should have used lowercase letters...a definite change for next week!).

Colorful Learning

Paint chips seem to be the new fad for crafts and classroom learning tools. I spotted some at Lowes' that have a window. We used these with craft sticks we already had in the room and "ta-da" a quick activity for word family practice. So easy to adapt this idea to final consonants, blends, numerals to number words, etc. The best part about this activity /center.... it was free! How do you use paint chips in your room? Please share!

In a predicament!

As part of our shadows and light activities this week we took a twist on a graph and incorporated prediction. Usually we just predict if we think the groundhog will or will not see his shadow. I am all about challanges this year. So, after discussing the grand performance of  Mr. Groundhog coming out of his burrow, the students had to decide if they wanted sunny or cloudy weather on February 2. The conversation among them was most interesting as they began to think about their prediction of having to choose unpopular weather, their explanations, and how it led to inductive reasoning with cause and effect. I know the children will be full of excitement tomorrow...( Its raining here tonight!)

Me and my shadow....

With groundhog day approaching what better science objective to teach this week than observing the changes in the day and night sky? We enjoyed "following" the sun this week as we noted the various positions during the day. Fortunately, we  had beautiful South Georgia weather this week and the children found much delight in watching their shadows. This was a great way to reinforce positions, length(we made long and short shadows) light and darkness, and of course welcome the new month of February with the anticipation of Ground Hog day. Hope you get a chance to enjoy sunny days soon too!

I lost my mittens!

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the acitivites and centers that take the least preparation are among the students' favorite? Following our reading of The Mitten, a  simple, narrowly planned activity for the art center included tracing a mitten pattern( it was interesting to watch as they realized they had to manipulate the patterns to make a left AND a right mitten) cutting it out, and decorating it with ribbon, lace, or trim remnants of their choice. I was again pleased to see the logic as they created various patterns and repeated them on their matching mitten. Not really sure what we should do for a display or just send them home, they begin to pile up on the counter nearby. Hummm, I wonder if they might like to find the matching sets especially since most mittens had no name on them! I displayed them on the wall and much to my surprise the students began to identify thier mittens adding descriptive detail such as "Mine are blue, with green stripes." Ah-ha, I thought, lets add some writing here! Cloze sentence frames provided opportunity for students to use descriptive words as their peers searched to find the mittens, then add a description for thier own. Again, I found affirmation that following the lead of my students created extended open ending learning. 

How many parts?

Clapping the parts of words is a fun way for children to hear syllables, segment, and chunk word families. This week in our literacy center students used gloves( Helps with the noise, and it's fun!) to clap the name of the pictures on the cards, then sort by the number of syllables or word parts. Students then record their answers by writing the words or drawing pictures on a graph that corresponds with the number.

(oops, one of the cards is on the wrong row...Can you find it?)

You might be a penny if.....

We began our money unit in Math this week. The children love working with money.. Who doesn't? Although we practiced identifying coins daily as part of our morning meeting, we extend the skill during our math lessons/centers. Today as we focused on the penny and it's value, we played " You might be a penny if..." Each child took a coin from the money bag. After time for observation and think-pair-share with their peers, each child sorted their coin into the correct sorting ring. ( I love sorting rings..soooo many ways to use them!)The choices were: is a penny, is not a penny Before the coin was placed in the ring, each child told somethat that justified their choice. I wrote the responses on sentence strips and the student placed it next to the chosen sorting ring. I was most impressed with their responses. With minimal preparation, we now have a student made money center for later practice!