Crayon Sight Words

               

Crayons!!

    Last year I saw these cute Dutch Boy paint chip swatches at a hardware store and I could note resist taking a whole range of colors.  At the time I was not sure what I would do with them, but I just had to have them.  My husband cringes when I walk into the paint department. I always walk out with a handful of paint chips.

  Thank you Dutch Boy Paints for these adorable crayons! They are very cute!
 

               My students have been making learning game activities for their 1st grade buddies.  These would be perfect for their sight word recognition. 

    A sheet of label stickers came out and were applied to the crayons. 

       I gave three of my girls this list of Dolch Pre-Primer sight vocabulary words and the rest was history.   My 5th grade girls just  love to do projects for our first grade friends. 

          These wonderful young ladies made a matching game from the list of sight words. I will give them an opportunity this week to work with some 1st graders using the game that they made. A learning experience for both 5th and 1st grade students.

     Do you have your students work with younger students in your building?
I would love to hear about it.

    Please leave a comment.  I would love to read your ideas.

Enjoy the day! 

I saw this crocus popping out of the ground in Alabama.

 Spring should be right around the corner.

  I linked up with Forever in Fifth Grade. Please use this link to see the wonderful ideas teachers have found. 
www.foreverinfifthgrade.blogspot.com
 

Beti    

Extra Plastic Eggs and Reading

READING  EGGS

        Before Easter my fifth graders make Easter baskets for a local food pantry. 120 Easter baskets filled with candy, toys, books, school supplies, toothpaste and brushes , and lots of plastic eggs will be donated.  The supply of plastic eggs was overwhelming.  So, needless to say, eggs were left over.  

       What do you do with left over plastic eggs?  I say, make a learning activity for the younger students in our school.  I saw this posted on Pinterest several times and thought this would be perfect.

          We played a game called " Are  you smarter than a 1st grader?"
        I made a list of basic word endings such as at, am, it, eg, ing, ank, etc. The list had at more that 30 word parts. All the 1st grade teachers know what they are.

     Each of my 5th graders chose a word part and made as many words to make a word family.  The students had to print their words because the 1st graders would need to be able to read the words.

    The next step was to print the word ending on a little piece of a sticker and place it on the right side of the egg.  The beginning letters were printed on other little stickers and placed on the left side of the egg.

     The final step was to paint a coat of modge podge over the stickers so they would adhere to the plastic eggs. Some eggs needed more than one coat of modge podge to make sure the stickers were on very well. 

     

       We took a left over Easter basket and filled it with all the eggs.

     

         My students had to realize that their letters had to be printed neatly enough for our 1st grade friends to read.  

         A few extra minutes of time can be spent on a project for someone else.  Now my students can grab an egg and use their spelling skills to help a younger child. 

         When the student in our school reach 7th and 8th grade they have the opportunity to become a tutor in our NJHS ( National Junior Honor Society) tutoring program.  These eggs will be used while tutoring. Kids love to play games and these eggs will do the trick.

     I linked up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today.

      

www.doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com

Please leave a comment if you have a spare minute in your busy day. 

   

   I hope you have a wonderful day.

Beti 

Matchbook Summaries

  

  Matchbook

Summaries 

 

  I was reading Melissa's blog, "Got to Teach".  She had posted a fantastic idea, Matchbook Summaries.  You should check out her blogpost on Matchbook Chapter Summaries for Novel Studies...
www.gottoteach.com

     Thank you, Melissa, for sharing your idea.

    I used Melissa's idea in my Social Studies class as an end of the chapter wrap up.  We just finished a chapter on early exploration.  So I thought this would be perfect. 

     I started explaining the project with a mock up and a rubric.  Melissa had a rubric which I edited to meet the needs of my unit. Instead of chapter summaries, I had the students write short four sentence summaries of each section in the chapter.

      My kiddos took off running full speed ahead. Each student took four index cards to begin with.  We did some paper folding so the matchbooks would be the same basic size. The section numbers titles were written on the small flap of each index card. They began writing their section summaries on folded index cards. I suggested that all the summaries be completed before they started doing the matchbook cover illustrations. At the end of our first work session, every student got an envelope to store the index cards.  The envelopes were stored in class so nothing would get lost.  I am happy to say we had no tears due to lost work. 
    At the beginning of the next class, each student would retrieve their envelope, get more index cards if needed( 14 matchbooks in all) and continue working.

     The second step was to work on the illustrations for each matchbook cover.
The art work had to represent the information written in the summary.

 

    The  final step was to work on the cover of the file folder. The students decided if the illustration would be horizontal, vertical, or split in half depending on the layout of the folder and matchbooks.

       The children were very interested in the project that was completed in school by the majority of my 88 students. I was extremely impressed at all the hard work my students put in completing their matchbook summaries.  One girl ask if we were going to make one from every chapter. 

     Hi kids, do you see any of your work? You did a great job!

     Thank you again, Melissa, for sharing this super project. My 5th graders loved it! 

   Please leave a short comment if you have a minute.  I would love to hear from you. 
  

Beti

Cuadros- Art Work from Women of Peru

         Guest Blogger -- Judi Odmark

          Judi's 3rd graders use a basal reader from Scholastic  LITERACY PLACE.

    
  If you look closely at the cover you will notice beautiful artwork.

    The artwork is actually a piece of hand-sewing called a cuadros.  Each color is a different patch of material or stitches in a variety of colors of thread.  Now you look at it from a different perspective.   The women in Peru make and sell the cuadros.  
    This is the story selection.

    A wonderful woman named Sister Theresa would come to school and help out in the 3rd grade working with the students during Reading.  She read the story selection in the basal reading book.  One of her friends named Barbara went to Peru to help local women become self-sufficient. 

  
       These are the cuadros that Sister Theresa gave to the teachers at St. Michael School.

This is a close up detail section.  You can see the different kinds of cloth used.

I love the snake and the flowers.

Each person has their own instrument.

The woman on the left is holding a woven basket.

      

   

  

    These hand made examples of the cuadros really make the story selection come alive for our 3rd graders.    

     Thank you Sister Theresa.  And many thanks to your friend Barbara, too.
    
          I hope my pictures do justice to the beautiful needle work these women of Peru have done.

Please leave a comment.  I enjoy hearing from people who read my blog.