We Scare Hunger and SMART board freebies

      Yesterday we went on our We Scare Hunger walk to collect food for our local food shelter.  The kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes and we went "trick or treating" for canned goods.  They had such a blast!  My class just had once block to collect from and we came back with a heaping wagon full of food to donate.  They felt so proud that we were able to help others.

      Unfortunately, my camera battery died almost as soon as we left so I only got a few pics of their costumes before we ventured out.

Our "nice smiles" before we left.  Look at my wonderful aide in her cute red riding hood costume!

Our silly faces

        As a school, we collected over 600 cans/food items to donate to our local food bank!  Please leave a comment if you participated in We Scare Hunger and let me know how it went.

        Before I go, I wanted to share a few freebies with you.  As I've mentioned before, my school uses the Words Their Way program for word study.  See my previous post for more info.   Each week, I introduce our new word sort/word study focus for the week on the SMART board.  I have not been able to find any Words Their Way resources for the SMART board, so I started creating the sorts myself in the Notebook software.  You can click on any of the pictures below to download the files for free to use with your class.

This sort helps students notice the difference in long and short a words (how they sound and how they look)

Long/short i sort

Long/short o sort 

Long/short u sort

    To introduce a new sort, first we read each word together and discuss meanings when necessary.  This is important and allows all students to be actively involved even if they wouldn't have been able to read some of the words on their own.  I usually point out homophones and have students practice using those words correctly in sentences.  Then, I model thinking aloud about the first few words and how I decide where they go.  I say the word slowly and then say the picture heading slowly to see if the middle sounds match (i.e. job, sock....job, bone.  I hear o in job like on sock).  After modeling the first few words, I invite students to help sort the rest, making sure they explain why they put a word where they do.

    Finally, we read each word in a column to double check and make sure they sound right.  Then we check to see if they look right (all follow the same pattern like CVCe).  

   After using the SMART board sort for an introduction, the following day I give students a paper copy of the sort, and they cut it out and sort it on their desk.  We store them in envelopes to re-use throughout the week.

   I hope you can use these sorts, too!  Happy Friday tomorrow!

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