I was a fourth grade teacher for five years, and last year I switched to second grade. It has been a GREAT transition. One area I've always struggled with, though, was word work. I could create spelling activities, but coming up with the making and changing words activities on the fly was a big challenge for me. I felt like I was always making my word work too easy for my second graders.
Then, I thought about my close reading and my read aloud time. In the beginning of my career I thought I could come up with text-based questions in the spur of the moment. When I started to re-evaluate my close reading and read aloud time, I realized that my questions weren't always text-dependent. I started jotting down some questions ahead of time on a Post It and saw great results. So, I applied that same strategy to my word work!
I spent my February vacation generating 267 Making and Changing words lists, organized by text level, to implement during my Daily 5 time as a partner activity with whiteboards AND for my own use during small skills groups. I am super duper excited about this addition to my classroom and I think it will be SO motivating for the kiddos!! I mean, come on, kids love whiteboard time! (And if they do a nice job following directions during Making and Changing words activities, I usually give them 30 seconds of doodle time. They LIVE for that!)
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