Kindergarten students used Pom Poms to fill in letter pictures to help make associations between letter names and sounds. You can try this too, click here! 

2nd graders are working on vowel pairs, so we made our own and used our problem solving skills to work together to communicate about where each vowel should go to make a "real" vowel pair. 

The next day, we made vowel pairs/teams with wiki sticks! See, they're great for ALL grade levels and ANY task. 

Here we are in the Vowel Pairs Parking Lot!  As a review, we parked our cars on various vowel pairs that "say" a specific sound.

We used wiki sticks to make all the letters we learned this week! We've spotted these at Carls, but there's always the ole' Amazon Prime. A perfect reusable, tactile way to get kids engaged in letters. Can you tell what letters Maia has made?

Sure, we get that nonsense words feel like nonsense sometimes, but when kids can decode nonsesne words, it really builds a foundation for success when those words become multi-syllabic, big and scary.  With the ability to decode nonsense words, those larger animals become less intimidating. Here we are playing nonsense word bingo....blackout style. 

Some 2nd grade groups went hunting for vowel teams today in their book about Sleds! Use highlighter tape at home or at school to locate some of those sound spelling patterns you practice in your classroom :) 

Here is a fun way to practice letters and sounds at home or at school. Grab 4-6 solo cups and some sticky notes. Write the letters you are practicing, one on each sticky note and then place one on each cup. Have your child close their eyes and hide an object under one of the cups. Have them name a letter on the cup, then lift the cup to see if they can find the object! Keep trying until you find the object. Then, play again (with a new object under the cup!) You can try it with high frequency words too! 

Concentrating hard on our digraphs with Bingo Dotters! These fun paint markers can really make any ordinary task, more interesting and fun. We love switching colors mid way through! :) 

We designed our own pointers and trackers to help us keep track of our reading in the Reading Room.. It was a blast creating these and the kids love using them because they can claim them as their own :) The added flair certainly helps. 

Check out this Word Study choice board for some great ideas for word work. If your child or student needs extra support with spelling or other word work, send this home and try some of these strategies. A fun way to structure word study in your classroom for the week too. Or just pick one and give it a try!