Recently I shared all about what spelling looks like in my classroom from day to day. If you missed that post, click here to read all about it. Today I’m back to share more about what you might see for Word Work during my Daily 5 time.
Students are allowed to choose their own Daily 5 tasks. However, I can remember a year that I had my kids on assigned rotations because it was just one of those groups (you know what I’m talking about). So one of my choices is Word Work. I should start by explaining that all spelling tasks must be completed before going to a Daily 5 choice and yes, I do have students who think they can fool me. They do learn quickly (most of them, anyways).
I have a lot of open-ended Word Work activities. Some are tailored to practice our spelling words, but most of them are simply activities that get my students working with a variety of words and language. Here are some of the activities I have for my students:
You know I love low-prep games that can be used over and over again. These Roll & Cover games for word work are no exception! They can be used for 1 or 2 students during word work, but I can use them with up to 6 students during small group time. The games cover 5 skills (bossy r, l-blends, r-blends, short vowels, and long vowels). I keep two boards in one sheet protector so the kids have more than one game to choose from. The kids love them because they get to “play”. I love them because they are constantly practicing.
Roll & Cover Gameboards
Our district provided us with sight word lists several years ago. I’m not sure why we didn’t just go with lists that already exist, but I digress…I decided to turn the lists into quick and easy fluency practice. I used these lists every day for months with my lowest readers and saw great results! For word work, kids grab the list they are practicing. They roll one die and practice reading the list as quickly as possible. Having a partner keeps students accountable for accuracy.
Another thing I did was invest some money into word work games that would last and could be used throughout the year. Most of these games I purchased from Really Good Stuff, but I don’t know if they still sell them. These are great for review!
Sometimes I know we will either spend 2-3 weeks on a skill, or review it throughout the year. I tend to make games, worksheets, and other supplemental resources to help keep my students engaged and learning. I have put two of these resources on TpT for other teachers:
You can read more about how another teacher used Take Two: Contractions in her classroom here.
I also LOVE using word sorts for different spelling rules/patterns. Here are two sorts I have for free on TpT:
I will also pull word sort activities from these resource books:
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