Tuesday, December 6, 2011

How's Your Word Workin'

Did you ever find yourself surrounded by magnetic letters and say, "I should know what to do with all of these?"


Well, that was me a few days ago.  I found myself in one of my cupboards at school and before I knew it the cupboard was emptied all over my carpet and I discovered a scary reality. I had tubs upon tubs of magnetic letters with very little purpose. I did the logical thing, packed them up in a crate and put them in the back of my car. Ah, no longer a problem in my cupboard, but what was I going to do with them??
I have long been attempting to get really good with "word work." You know, get it all organized, have a bunch of awesome activities at my finger tips. Well, I can now happily say I am one activity closer. I spent my Monday evening finishing up what I started on Sunday, a magnetic letter sorting marathon. Isn't it beautiful? I even ended up with a huge tub of, "to donate" letters and some empty containers. Now my letters will be workin' for me!
On an additional note, here are the word work activities I have started this year as well as a small list of what I plan to get going soon. I started small and I really think that my word work skills are growing. I have also included a few sites that will likely overwhelm the "word work" newcomer, but they have really good ideas. Just tackle a few and get started!


I began by assigning a word work activity to each day of the week. Lately I have been doing two to three to differentiate for student needs. I hope to get to a point where more activities are open and students can choose their form of word work, take their word list, and get busy!
Here is my starter list:

Play dough words--Make snakes into letters or make a pancake and write on it with a pointy object--golf tee is one of the best ideas I have seen.
Watercolor Words--Write words with yellow or white crayon, wash over them with watercolor paint for a wax resist piece of word work art.
Connect Four--Fill an 8X8 or 16X16 grid with words students have learned. Taking turns with a partner, students read a word and cross it out, then color in a set of four when they "connect four."
Word Puzzles--Write letters of a word on small square pieces of card stock. Write the word on an envelope and place the squares inside. Students put the word together then write it down; I start with names.
Dry Erase or Chalk Boards (I also got some neat black dry erase boards this year for something different).

What I hope to start soon:
My new and improved word boxes! I have white boards that I have divided with tape into three columns. One column is for a word card--read the word, the second column is for making the word with letters, then the final column is a spot to write the word with a dry erase marker. I think my little word sort boxes will work nicely with those divided boards.
I also bought some pebble style fish gravel that I am going to have students use to do "pebble spelling." I have mats with the word already written down. Students can cover the letters with pebbles forming the word. I would like to get some other objects to use like shells or flat glass pebbles.
Here are some great website resources too!




7 comments:

elsie said...

That's a lot of magnet letters! Sounds like you are on a good track to make use of these tools. Good luck! I'm glad the paper didn't report woman found crushed by magnet letters. :)

Linda B said...

If only people knew how much time and energy teachers spend. It looks like you're on your way, and all because you were cleaning out some things. I wish I had time to do that in my own basement! Thanks for the activities; I can pass them on to my primary teachers.

Lori Van Hoesen said...

Betsy, these are great ideas!

jim said...

Really like your board idea; so obvious I feel like bashing myself with the box of magnetic letters we have!

Champion stuff.

Jim

Robin said...

Awesome ideas! I know someone who would take those extra letters off your hands! I absolutely love the white board idea...wish I had thought of that sooner!

Diana Martin said...

Your title hooked me in. These are great ideas!I love the idea of dividing the white board into 3 columns and the word boxes. Excellent links.

Loralee said...

Great ideas! Thank you!

I love reading through your older entries! Such treasures!