What Does the Fox Say? Phoneme Blending Fun

At the beginning of the year, primary teachers feel very frustrated get lots of laughs when we work with students on blending sounds together to say a word. When we say the sounds /f/ /r/ /o/ /g/ students are supposed to hear and blend those sounds together and say frog...not MONKEY! Ha! I wrote about that here. :)

Students LOVE the song What Does the Fox Say? and I love having fun visitors come visit our room to help add a little engagement to our lessons. So, we had a visit from Mr. Fox. He brought us a package with several games to help us be successful at blending sounds together to read. Mr. Fox wrote us a letter explaining what he wanted us to learn.

Our first job was to practice just hearing sounds and blending them together. We practiced this skill playing Fox Talk Bingo. Students were given a game board and had to listen as I said the sounds in my mystery word. Students blended the sounds they heard together and covered the matching picture.

Our next activity was to practice blending the sounds in the sound boxes together. With these cards students pointed and said the sounds in each box and then used the arrow to help them quickly blend the sounds together to read the word. For kiddos that needed a little bit more support, I added the dots to some of the cards. After they read the word, they find the matching picture. :)

You can see Mr. Fox helping us. :)

Mr. Fox is also fast and wanted us to practice blending sounds together quickly. Students use a toy car to drive under the sounds. The students then drive the car faster as they blend the sounds together to say the word.

Another way we practiced blending sounds together was using these cards as transitions or time fillers. There are a variety of cards ranging from words with 3 phonemes up to words with 6 phonemes. Just say the sounds on the cards and the kiddos will tell you what the word is. :)

To see how well the kiddos have developed this skill, Mr. Fox made 2 different ways this skill can be assessed.

Click above for a *freebie*.

And of course we have to dance to the song at the end of these activities..several times! 

Tons of fun learning What Does the Fox Say? You can grab it from my store here.

From My Heart to Yours,

Heather

Magic Snowball Fun with Tens and Ones

Hello again Sweet Peeps. I am working really hard to blog more consistently this new year. I really do love it and have missed it. This is a fun little activity we did a couple of years ago but I never blogged about it.

Several years ago we started following the Envisions textbook scope and sequence pretty consistently. This meant not really digging deep into place value until much later in the year than I like. For some of my struggling sweet and lows, this makes understanding place value and tens and ones more difficult.

I am sure you have had a student or two who will count a stack of Unifix cubes even though you've told them there will ALWAYS be 10 in the stack. These are the same students that often count to be sure there are still 5 fingers on each hand. Because of this, I knew I wanted to create a hands-on way for them to understand to value of a ten rod....so, we needed to use some Magic Snowballs to help us. :)

The first step is to make the Magic Snowballs using small white pom pom balls, spray glue, and white glitter. All you need to do is spray the pom pom balls with the glue and sprinkle them with the white glitter.

After that, we receive a package from a friendly snowman containing the Magic Snowballs, craft sticks, number cards, and a poem. We also received a cute snowman bag to hold everything in.

Here is a closer look at the poem.

Students then help make the 10 rods we will be using to build numbers. Students glued 10 Magic Snowballs onto each craft stick.

I had my struggling students help create and build several 10 rods so we could talk about how many they had as they were building them. This really helped them to be able to know and understand that 3 rods=30 Magic Snowballs.

Here is a peek at the cards. I included all of the teen numbers because those are often tricky for some of my kiddos.

After making a huge set of 10 rods, students were able to start building numbers.

Since we made a lot, I sent home some snowball tens and ones so my struggling students could practice at home.

You can grab the cards and poem by clicking on the picture below. :)

I hope your kiddos enjoy this activity as much as my kiddos do. :)

From My Heart to Yours,

The Rotten Apple Hunt: A CVC Reading Adventure

I LOVE creating engaging learning experiences for my kiddos. One of my favorite ways to do that is to have "special visitors" come by our classroom. Little kiddos have hearts that are so open to believing in magical people and animals. Whether it be Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, or Clifford the Big Red Dog, little kids believe in them.

In September, we get a visit from the Crazy Apple Bunch Friends. This is a group of apples that want to get children reading and thinking. They try and trick kiddos by seeing if they can find the Rotten Apple words...words that are non-sense and silly! After stopping by our classroom to leave us a letter explaining our mission, we head off to find this crazy bunch!

Their apple words have placed words all around our school AND the Crazy Apple Bunch Friends have words written on THEM!!!

Do you see those round, red balls by these Crazy guys??? That is APPLE POOP!!! 

And the kiddos get to eat the apple poop!

Shhhhh...It is really cherry sour candy.

After collecting all of the apples in a basket, we must sort those crazy guys by whether they are yummy apples (real words) or rotten apples (non-sense words).

The Crazy Apple Bunch also leave us several activities that we can use in our Daily 5 Word Work. These activities help us work on rhyming, sorting words by their short vowel sound, and more practice reading CVC words. Take a peek. :)

I think this activity might be one of my favorite adventures because it was so easy to set-up. All I had to do was hot glue some googly eyes on the apples and write CVC words on them with a Sharpie. The apple poop just added to the excitement and engagement. My kiddos just went crazy nuts over this adventure and I know your kiddos will too!

Happy September sweet friends.

From My Heart to Yours,

The Great Paw Print Hunt with Pete the Cat

Hi Sweet Friends. Since I never blogged about this last year, I knew I wanted to share it with y'all now. If you have ever read my blog, you know that we LOVE to have special visitors come to our classroom.

These special visitors are usually an animal like Stretchy Snake or something seasonal like The Pumpkin Snatchers and Lucky the Leprechaun...and those are just a few of the visitors that have stopped by our room. There are tons more.

These special visitors are a great way to engage the kiddos and get them excited about the lesson. The visitors usually have us "hunting" and looking for things around the school. I usually just put the things we are hunting for down the hall/path we will take to go to Music/PE. This way we can quickly gather them without spending class and learning time hunting for them. Plus, this helps the kiddos be quiet in the line because I'll call on quiet friends to hold the things we find. :)

These lessons usually start with a letter.

After receiving this letter, we start hunting for paw prints. Before starting the hunt, we talk about and make predictions about who the paw prints might belong to. You always hear some interesting predictions. :)

When we are hunting for things in the hall, the kiddos know to stop the line and quietly point to what we are hunting for. There is LOTS of very enthusiastic pointing!

I always set the hunt up before school and then pretend when the kiddos see the things in the morning that I have no idea how they got there. :)

When the kiddos see the paw prints, most still don't make the connection that these are Pete the Cats paw prints...and I don't tell them. :)

Beside each paw print is a clue. The clues tell the students about a favorite treat of the author of the letter. Remember, the letter is signed as a Groovy Friend. 

When we finish finding all 6 clues, we head back to the room. When we get back to the room (This will usually be AFTER PE/Music), there is a package and a cat food bowl full of letters on my table.

We talk about all 6 clues and read the letter on the bag that tells us we need to use our schema and infer what could be inside the bag. We practice using sentence stems to help us talk about our inference.

We open the package to check our inference. We find strawberries and our paw print letter hunt cards.

Along with the strawberries and word study activity, the Groovy Friend also left us one of his books.

The reason there were paw prints around the school was he lost his shoes because they were covered in strawberries! :)

My kiddos seriously loved this activity. I was able to use the cards in Word Work and in my reading/RtI groups. If you are interested in grabbing it, click on the link below.

Click on the picture to grab a *freebie*!

Have a groovy day!

From My Heart to Yours,

A Visit from The Pumpkin Snatchers

On Tuesday, my kiddos were beyond excited before they even got to our classroom. All around the school, children were seeing candy corns EVERYWHERE! As soon as my kiddos got to our classroom, they found a letter from the Pumpkin Snatchers.

The Pumpkin Snatchers told us that they love to eat certain letters. We needed to go and hunt for them around the school by following the candy corn trail they always leave behind. Before the hunt, we sang the song the Pumpkin Snatchers left us...my kiddos love to sing even though their teacher cannot carry a tune AT ALL!!! :)

When we got back to the classroom, we saw that the Pumpkin Snatchers had come by and left us some goodies. We had the Pumpkin Snatchers game, several little pumpkins, and the recipe to make Pumpkin Slime.

We read the letter from the Pumpkin Snatchers again to help us remember that they only love to eat the letters in the word PUMPKINS. We sorted the letters they like and the ones that they dislike. After sorting the letter cards, we used the letters in the word PUMPKINS to spell different words. I am always amazed and the things my kiddos notice when we do different word study activities.

(sorry for the glare)

We practiced playing the game and investigating the letters the Pumpkin Snatchers ate. In the pumpkin container are the cards and the magnetic letters needed to spell the words. This game is great practice for isolating beginning, medial, and final ending sounds. My kiddos are dying to play this during Daily 5! :)

Finally, we made Pumpkin Slime using the recipe the Pumpkin Snatchers left us. Add some food coloring and some pumpkin pie spice and your kiddos will go crazy for this! :) 

We made several batches and they all turned out a little different but still oodles of fun! I didn't get a picture of the slime actually dripping from their hands but here is just a peek at what we did.

I think the Pumpkin Snatchers may be one of our favorite visitors this year! Hop over to my store to check it out!

Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy. I'll choose a winner tomorrow morning. :)

From My Heart to Yours,

Cooking Pizza with Chef Ad J. Tive

When we did this lesson last year, my kiddos were crazy about it. I knew Chef Ad J. Tive would have to make a visit again. =)

When we came back from lunch on Friday, we had a letter waiting for us.

We also had 4 bags with mystery ingredients inside.

Chef Ad J. Tive told us to listen for the adjectives in each riddle because they would help us infer the ingredients we would be using.

We recorded the adjectives using interactive writing on a chart. Please keep in mind that I am NOT at all creative when it comes to making crafts. My chef hat is quite sad looking but my kiddos did not care. =)

This is the recording sheet my kiddos recorded the adjectives on.

After we inferred that we would be using strawberries, kiwi, blueberries, and a cookie, it was time for my little chefs to start cooking. They LOVED investigating the kiwi and got a kick out of this hairy fruit. We also got in some discussions about fractions and part-part-whole math.

Here are 2 of our adjective pizza creations.

Now, it was time for a craftivity. After seeing Cara's amazing and cutie patootie Compound Word Cooks, we turned them into Adjective Chefs.

They designed the pizza to look like the adjective pizza they made. They then wrote adjectives about the pizza around the plate. Here is a closer look. =)

Hop over to my TPT store to grab this fun *freebie*. =)

I would LOVE for you to leave me a heart note and let me know what you think. =)

From My Heart to Yours,

Bunny Treats: An Adjective Adventure with Plants

We love to get packages. We also go crazy for special visitors. On Wednesday morning we found this letter in the classroom.

We learned that a Mystery Friend sent us the letter. The letter told us to find some Easter eggs around the school. Hidden inside each egg was an adjective clue that would help us infer who sent the letter.

After finding all of the eggs, we came back to the classroom to read the clues.

Then, we inferred who sent us the letter. We also identified and colored the adjectives from the clues. We had some wonderful discussions about our inferences. One little one did think a camel sent us the letter. I worried at first that the Easter eggs would make them think that the Easter Bunny sent us the letter but the clue about brown fur kept them from inferring that. =)

After lunch, we came back to the classroom and found the TOP SECRET envelope and a package. Inside the envelope were 12 riddles about treats a bunny would like to eat and some that a bunny would not like to eat.

Here is an example of one of the riddles.

The kiddos LOVED reading these riddles and trying to solve which ones would be the bunny treats. I loved seeing the way they worked together. After we sorted the cards by which ones would be bunny treats, we talked about the things rabbits eat....PLANTS!!!

We just started learning about plants this week so this was a great way to continue our discussion about the parts of the plant. We talked about the parts of a plant and how we eat plants ALL OF THE TIME! They thought this was too cool. =)

We opened the package and found HUGE Easter eggs that were full of plant parts.

We then made our own plant! =)

sunflower seeds

carrots for the roots

celery for the stem

spinach for the leaves

broccoli for the flower

strawberries for the fruit

Click on the pictures to go check it out in my store.

You can also do the activities in this packet AFTER Easter.

It is on sale and so is everything in my store. =)

I am soooooo sorry for not getting around to share the winner of my giveaway.

Barbara Balius...check your email. =)

Thank you to everyone who entered. I loved reading about all of your blessings. Thank you to each one of you for being such a HUGE blessing to me.

I would love to hear what you think about this packet. Leave a comment with your email and I'll pick 2 people to win it later this weekend. =)

From My Heart to Yours,