Just a Little Irish Making Words Freebie!

Hello, Teaching Friends!

Title explanation: I'm just a little Irish - isn't everyone in March? Actually, I'm even less than many people. My grandchildren are a tiny fraction Irish - does that count? Does it flip back from the next generation to us? ;)  ☘️

The other meaning of the title, of course, is that I have a little seasonal freebie for you! Making words activities are so fun for kids, and as they manipulate the letters to make words, our students are also gaining skills with recognizing and using spelling patterns, inflectional endings, prefixes, and suffixes.

This activity has two levels of difficulty. The first level has students make words from the letters in "leprechauns". The second level is the same, but your students aren't given the word leprechauns and must discover it by rearranging all of the letter cards.

There are recording sheets for both levels. Just to save you a few moments of time, your free download also includes a list of many of the words that can be made with "leprechauns"!

Click here to get your copy!

Looking for a little more green? Here's a set of word cards, sentences, and pointers for your pocket chart center. See it here at TPT!



Happy Teaching!

Making Words with RESOLUTION ... a New Year Freebie!

Most teachers spend a little time at the beginning of the new year on the idea of making a fresh start. It's a great time to review, look ahead, and make promises for change. It's also a great time to introduce your little guys to the great big word "RESOLUTION"! Here's a making words activity freebie to help you out!

Little kids love using big words, like my two-year-old grandson who walks around the house in his bright yellow hard hat, plastic hammer in hand, doing "conduckshin"!  When I was teaching, I called those big words "high school words", and my first graders loved to show off how they could use them. "Look, Mrs. Nelson, I can tell there's more coming after this word because of the ellipsis!" {Did that $10 word give any of you just a brief pause? Here's a silly clue. It's a  ... } And how about all those dinosaur names that they all seem to arrive at school knowing?  If the interest and exposure are there, there's no problem with young children taking on Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary!

So, I'm not going to talk about the vocabulary aspect of the word "resolution", because the mountains of craftivities and writing ideas on Pinterest have that pretty well covered. Instead, let's do some word work using this making words activity.

"Resolution" is a perfect choice for some work with prefixes and suffixes. How about a Team Race? Students work in pairs or small groups and race the clock to write lists of words that begin with "re-" . Then lists are read aloud one at a time and any word duplicated on the list of another team is crossed out. The team with the most unique words left after all lists have been read is the winner.
Try this also with "-tion" words.

For the younger kids, here's a differentiated making words set. At the first level, students cut apart the letters in "resolution", make words, and list them. At the second level, they're given the letters but not told that the target word  (the one that uses all the letters) is "resolution".

Click here or on the image above to download your freebie!


Love to use making words activities? Click to see these!

      St. Patrick's Day Making Words
      Springtime Making Words
      Gingerbread Making Words
      Playground Making Words

Happy Teaching!

Thanksgiving: Hardship, Cooperation, & Gratitude

Dear Teaching Friends,

I've been thinking a lot this week about how Thanksgiving will be very different this year for those who are dealing with the results of Hurricane Sandy. I find myself so uplifted by many of the survivors' stories, both those from during the storm and after. They are stories of human triumph, of individuals reaching out to answer the needs of strangers, and of the mercy of God.

This is real life.  These people have been through devastation and many will continue to deal with years of hardship. They are now experiencing an outpouring of generosity from others who are coming alongside them with support, like food, clothing, and shelter, but who are also working cooperatively side-by-side to rebuild. Many express their gratitude, not just for the help they are receiving or for the opportunity to help those less fortunate, but for the fact that they survived the storm.

How closely this parallels the story of the first Thanksgiving! The Pilgrims went through the terrible hardships of illness, hunger, and an extreme winter. Their survival came largely through the support, cooperation, and compassion of the Wampanoag people. They came together to celebrate with a feast to express their gratitude to God for bringing them through the winter. 

Yes, our understanding of other facets of this experience may have changed somewhat in recent years, but the basic concepts of hardship, cooperation, and gratitude endure.

Could these themes of hardship, cooperation, and gratitude be used to deepen your students' understanding of Thanksgiving? Perhaps drawing connections to current happenings in our world or right in your own community can be a way to help your students better understand the Pilgrims' experience.




Now, beyond these deep thoughts, those of you who are regular readers know that I always try to squeeze in some cross-curricular teaching and a freebie for you! "Hardship", "Cooperation", and "Gratitude" are great Tier 2 vocabulary, so here's a making words activity to reinforce the words and remind your students of the concepts.

If you are searching for more Thanksgiving and fall activities for your class, click to visit my Autumn Learning Pinterest board!

Happy Teaching!

Monday Morning - Great Time for a Spring Making Words Freebie!

Hope you all had a great weekend, and that you're enjoying glorious spring weather like we are here in NJ!

Do you use making words activities with your students? I LOVE them! They're an awesome way to draw your students' attention to spelling patterns, prefixes, suffixes, and endings like -es, -ed, and -ing.

Here's an example.

Take a word like PESTERING. Miserable example, sorry, but stay with me on this.

You want to lead by modeling in these activities. Start with some large letter cards with magnets on a chalkboard, or with moveable letter boxes on your interactive board. 

Show your students how to take away the P in PEST and replace it with the R to make REST.  Yep, onset - rime principle.

Could they do the same with RING? Guide them to substitute various initial consonants, hopefully eventually making SING, and ... do you see any others?

Teach them to look for endings and take them off to find root words.

Show them how an S in a word is a particularly great find! It turns RING to RINGS, TIP to TIPS, etc.

Do you see the power of teaching with making words activities!?!

Here's a quick freebie for you, since we'll officially celebrate the first day of spring this week. It's a little Making Words activity, but with a bit of a twist. The first page supplies your students with the goal word, "Springtime". The second page doesn't give the word. Instead, "Springtime" is the mystery word that your students are challenged to figure out by manipulating the letters. (Nothing like the word "Mystery" to get those little brains working harder!) And the third page is a word sort by spelling patterns, using the words they made from the letters.

 

I like adding the word sort page to Making Words when the children are doing this independently or with a partner. First of all, it echoes the activities we do in whole class Making Words. Second, it challenges the students to go back and try harder to make more words. Finally, I like the underlining because it really helps the strugglers to focus on chunks in words.

Click here or on the cover to download yours!

Have a great week - back with another spring freebie very soon!