Saturday, March 23, 2013

My Lie & New Unit!

This week I linked up with Latoya for her Lets Get Acquainted Linky.  I can't wait to see what next weeks has in store for us, but this week was 2 truths and a lie.  Nobody guessed my lie!

Yes- I did change my major 3 times.  I'm not one of those "Always knew I was gonna be a teacher" people, but I am definitely one of those "meant to be a teacher" people!

Yes- My coach told me she knew the hit was bad when she saw me cry.  I can't even count the number of times I got hit playing field hockey, ones that weren't so bad, and ones that were really bad and I NEVER cried... but this one particular hit just got me in the right place.  I think I was having a bad day to top it off- so, yeah, coach knew!

No- I am not a crazy crafter.  I WISH I was a crazy crafter but can never seem to manage the time or getting the materials to do all the cute things I find.  One day!

Onto my newest unit...


My district uses Words Their Way for our word study program.  I can't really quite figure out how to get it to work the way I want it to.  Basically, it's just driving me crazy!  When I was thinking about my inability struggle to teach using Words their Way (Hey we all have an "area" right?) , and my struggling spellers, I knew I could not let them fall even farther behind.  I talked to a few people and one handed me a list of the most common Rhyme patterns and suggested using "Keywords" to help students recognize, read, and spell many other words.  I thought the idea was brilliant but didn't want to lose sight of the "sort" theory so I made my own program for them.  Therefore, comes the creation of Word Work for your Struggling Spellers!

The basic idea is to study short and long vowel sounds made by working with the Rhymes.  I've split it up into studying short, then studying long- but you could do it anyway that best fit you
In this unit, you will find:

  • 19 weeks worth of word study
  • An Introduction Letter to families explaining the program & homework



  • Homework Activities
  • A general teacher plan
  • Student weekly plan poster
  • Sorts for each week (2 keywords per week)

  • Spelling Dictionary using rhyme patterns





This year, I chose to use this spelling dictionary organized by Short/Long vowel sounds for each vowel and alphabetically.  Next year, I think I'll try using my "regular" Spelling dictionary that my other kiddos use so that they can put their high frequency words in there, and can practice using a dictionary. All in All, our studies are going well and my kiddos are definitely growing.  I don't just focus on the Rhyme pattern, but the vowel sound in relation to magic e, dipthongs, etc.  I also incorporate blends into our discussions.  

Well- if you'd like this unit, you can pick it up from my TPT store.. here

I'm off to IKEA- One of the coolest places known to man to do furniture shopping! Yippee!


P.S. Can somebody help me?  I want custom Pinterest & TPT Buttons that match my blog instead of those ugly generic plain ones.  But I cannot figure out how to do it! Anybody know of any tutorials?  I can't even figure out how to make a circle from part of a box.  Rawr.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Ashley. I'm jealous you're already on break. Four more days for me! I just figured out how to add custom buttons to my blog. I just made the buttons in powerpoint, saved them as images, and uploaded them to photobucket. Then I used the code found here: http://www.underthegoldenappletree.com/2012/03/html-placing-images-or-buttons-side-by.html
    to place them on my blog using "Add Html," just like you do for your button. Hope that helps...if any of it doesn't make sense, feel free to email. Good luck!

    Danielle
    Carolina Teacher


    danielle.faerber@gmail.com

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