I Eat Meat

Spelling display hint: meet or meat?

Hear

Simple and clever!

Spell 'few'

How to spell "FEW"!

An island is land.

What a very clever way to remember the spelling of "island"! (island clipart found here).

How To Spell 'PIECE'

"PIECE" - such a tricky word for youngster to spell!

Display this poster and repeat the slogan to help students remember how to spell 'piece' correctly. Works every time!

Literacy Groups

 

Literacy Groups is an integral part of my English timetable: we undertake tasks three - four times weekly.

Groups are differentiated and run according to a schedule so that I can read with each weekly, and at other times, students work in small groups or individually.

Over the years I have made many games, but found Teach This to have the most valuable pre-made variety of games. 

Games can include:

• Word Attack: spelling and reading
• Charades
• CVC
• Phonics/Sounds
• Sentence writing
•  Grammar games
• Sound hunts
• Book hunts
• Scrabble
• Boggle
• Up Words
• Scategorries
• Bingo
• Rhyming games
• Sight words
• Spelling games
• Writing
• Magnetic lettering/words

 

Upon benchmarking each term, I formulate groups and have these displayed on posters for student's reference. Names are blu-tacked to laminated posters so that they can be moved around as the focus changes or as they move up the levels.

Grouping is flexible and dependent on the reading level/benchmark of the students, or the lesson's focus. I make tubs or boxes for each group and colour-code to match groups. Games, readers and worksheets are rotated on a weekly basis.










Readers are filed according to level and accessible for students for homework. They are allowed to swap as they need.

 

Have Fun Teaching

FYI -
This is a great resource site, with fantastic songs for kids:

Have Fun Teaching

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia grammar lessons can be fun when students have to create artwork to demonstrate their new understanding:

Writing Names

Use toothpicks and lollies to create your name! This is a fabulous way for youngsters to learn alphabet recognition and formation of both upper and lower-case letters.

 

Ice Cream Sundae Procedure Writing Task

Using food to develop concepts always ignites the interests of my students.....

Here we created ice cream sundaes to refine our procedure/recipe writing skills......

Mr Men and Little Miss

Roger Hargrave's Mr Men and Little Miss books are rich in language and entertain students from preschool through to primary.

Many of the stories have lessons and morals applicable to school-age children.

To make the book more meaningful, create a comprehension task (see sample below) for students to complete.

All About Me Bunting

Cute idea for back to school: have students complete one of these and display across a wall or on string for visitors to admire!

Comprehension Clips

Pixar has made some amazing short films that can aid in teaching students about making inferences.

Here are just a few of our favourites in Year 2:

One Man Band is a cute clip about two buskers vying for the meager funds of a little kid and receiving nothing as a result.

Lifted is the story of a trainee alien attempting to abduct a sleeping man, and failing miserably.

Pigeon Impossible is the story of a special agent and a pesky pigeon who almost destroys a nation in the quest for a bagel.

Cloud and his bird friend bond despite Cloud's unintentional upsetting of bird.

Day and Night shows the relationship of the two cycles and the fun that can be had during both.

 

For the Birds has an anti-bullying theme that sends a strong message about bullies and those that stand by and do nothing.

 

Big Buck Bunny; a story of bullying and resilience.

 

Presto: a message of teamwork.

For a list of different Pixar movies on Youtube, click here.

Mr Darcy - Rich Text

 
This is such a beautiful story of friendship that can be incorporated into Morals/Values and Bounce Back lessons for all primary-aged students.


It has a deep meaning and rich language for deconstructing for older children, and so many literacy activities can be used with this one book, including the following comprehension and writing tasks I used with my Year 2 students:

Teacher Resource Website

 

K-3 Teacher Resources offers hundreds of beautiful classroom resources including display charts, literacy, numeracy, science and HSIE printables.

Here is my Parts of Speech word wall, courtesy of K-3 teacher resources:

The Elves and the Shoemaker

Read (or watch) the story and complete the following activities:

 

These worksheets are most suitable for Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students:

 

Tiddalik

Tiddalik the Frog is an excellent story to use when learning about water conservation. It is also a great Dreamtime story to read to students when teaching them about Aboriginal culture.

There are a couple of different versions, and you can watch one of them here on youtube: 

 

A fun activity Kindergarten undertook after learning about Tiddalik, was this craft activity:

 

Students were provided a frog template photocopied on green cardboard (I found this one in a google search). Then, using a single hole puncher, they punched holes around the outline of the frog. Afterwards, students weaved colourful string in and out of the holes. To add further decoration, they threaded beads onto the string.

Literacy Videos

These are some of my student's favourite education youtube videos that help to consolidate grammar and writing concepts in the classroom:

Vowel Bat

When Two Vowels Go Walking

 

Elements of a Narrative

 

 Letter Sounds Song

 

Syllables

 

Literacy Work Generators

The following are some links to some of my favourite worksheet generators online:


Newspaper Clipping Generator

EduBakery

Wacky Web Tales

Phonograms

Show these flashcards daily as part of student phonemic awareness building to assist with reading and spelling independently.