Word Work for Primary Grades

Hi Everyone!  It's Taryn from Taryn's Unique Learning.  It's the first sunny day in Ohio in about a week and I'm getting ready to head out into the sunshine for a bit. But I wanted to post this for you before the weekend ends.

I'm no longer in the classroom but am an intervention teacher for K-4. I still L-O-V-E to squeeze this activity in whenever possible. But when I taught in the classroom, this was one of our FAVORITES! We did this at least twice per month. It is perfect for differentiating within your own class or among the grade levels.

Below you can see what is included in the packet.  This is a sample from a larger pack but thought you might like to try it out and see for yourself the benefits of using such an activity in your room. In the last picture you can see my magnetic letters posted.  This was not created to be an activity that kids use at their seats. It's important to have the students up and moving as you guide them to make grade appropriate words.  I invite students to my gathering area with their recording sheet, a clipboard, and a pencil. I print the recording sheet with the second sheet back to back as my kids can do this activity FOREVER!  We all make words together and record them as a group!

So are you are wondering what skills to incorporate in this lesson?  Kindergartners may simply copy and make words off the word wall if the letters are available on the board.  First graders may start with sight words but then may move to CVC words.  When stuck, you can suggest changing the first letter.  You can also work on changing out the vowel or ending consonant.  Older kids may work on multi-syllabic words, adding prefixes and suffixes, or any other skill you choose.

After completing this activity whole group, it is perfect for putting in a word work center, having your students review with a parent volunteer, and in your absence, your sub will thank you for leaving such an engaging activity!  Once your kids know the routine, it wouldn't be unheard of for them to work on this for 45 minutes!

And after doing this for several years, I added a new twist and often will have students go back to color lightly over the word boxes based on word families!  For example, in this particular activity, the students may come up with many words including:  cat, mat, bat, sat, hat, plus many other words. I encourage the kids to color the boxes with the -at words in one single color so they can visually see how they are the same. Words such as wool, cool, tool would be another color.  Make sense?

So you can see the versatility with this activity I'm sure!  For your free download, just follow the link below to my TPT store. And as always, I would love to hear back from you with some TPT love and a rating!  It truly helps when creating new products.

Until Next Time,
Taryn

Magnetic Letter Move Around- Back to School Freebie

P.S.  Sorry for the Thanksgiving sample. This was the only one I had a picture of currently.  But you can see my favorite magnetic letters here.  I love the red vowels and blue consonants. Students can really see the patterns in words, especially at the lower levels with this.  I used a clip art/font that mimics these letters so it is reinforced as well on the colored pages.