Here's a question for you? Do you start the year with your room decorated and all things hanging? Or do you hang things after the year begins? This post shares how Megan changed her thinking about what should be on the walls from the beginning of the year!
Palm Tree Word Families
In the past Megan and I wanted to have everything hanging up in our rooms for the first day of school. But, this year, Megan is slowing that down a little. Her plan is to hang them as she introduces them! She made her word families on palm trees to match her jungle theme. Each week we introduce a different word family, and will hang the tree up as they are introduced. I think that will give the kids ownership to the items on the walls. We are hoping this means they will use these resources more for their writing. Good idea, Megan!
Here's what we did:
- First, cover all of the onsets with one color of post it notes and the rime with another color of post it notes. We used orange for the onset and blue for the rime.
- Then, give each child a word family notebook. Invite them to write “---at” at the top of their page.
- Remove the orange post it note from the first onset and had the children write that in their book.
- Then, remove the blue post it note from the rime.
- As you do more of the words, talk about the pattern and encouraged the children to use that pattern to figure out what might be under the blue post it notes.
- It was the first time, so they were a little slow getting started, but by the end of the lesson they were catching on.
Revealing Onset and Rime Under Post It Notes
This is a great idea! Those boys are so stinkin' cute.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing,
Andi
Thanks for sharing this great idea!
ReplyDeleteΡΌ Alessia
Mrs. Albanese’s Kindergarten Class
I am a big fan of your blog. This is my second year in kindergarten and everything is pretty new for me still. I see that you are doing word families right now. Do your kids come in with a pretty strong background in their letters or does that come to them through these activities? I'm lucky if my kids know the first letter of their name. I hold pretty high expectations and push them pretty hard but I'm still not sure if the way I do it is effective enough. Should I be doing things like this? It is so cute and I want to be sure I'm doing the right thing.
ReplyDeleteAmber...Megan has a big mixture of ability! When we do word families some children don't get it. Be sure that they are working on auditory rhyming. She doesn't expect her kids to leave the group reading those words or even knowing the onset and rime. She is planting seeds. Each week she does a new word family and along the way, through the year, they get it. The important thing now is to be sure they are hearing it--they hear the rhyme. Don't worry girl...it's better to slow down if in doubt. I am sure you are doing great.
ReplyDeleteThanks. That helps me a lot! You are amazing :)
ReplyDelete