Read the Room - Venn Diagrams

“Read the Room” has been one of my most popular centers this year.  The center basically had students roam the room with a clipboard and a “fancy” pointer (dollar magic wands and fly swatters) and record words that they recognized.  It was great for students who were trying to learn new words and needed additional support in that sense.  I felt that some of my students needed this to be more challenging, so I made these organizers that has them think about the words they are recording a little more critically.  We talk a lot about multiple meaning words and how many words can be more than one part of speech.  They are always up for a challenge and we use the venn-diagram sometimes to try to organize our understanding of this concept.  It has been a great tool for discussion and students have really enjoyed adding the activity to their center choices.  I also included one that has them locate words with long and short vowels, and words with long and short vowels.  I will try to post some samples soon, but let me know if you have any questions.  Click on the title to download.

Read the Room - Challenge Activity

~Abby

Clipart by Scrappin Doodles and fonts by Kevin and Amanda.

Scrabble Spelling

My kiddos seem to be almost as obsessed with word making games as I am.  Words with Friends and Scramble ensure that I am NEVER bored.  When I saw these Scrabble crackers at the grocery store, I immediately got excited. 

Adding the food factor to the already popular trend in my class was no doubt a hit.  Here are the recording sheets I made.  We used them initially as a whole group activity, but I plan to bring them out for center time every once and a while.  Click on the title to download.

Scrabble Spelling

Scrabble Pad

Speech and Conversation Bubbles

This is a writing center that we currently use in my classroom.  We were given the idea from our county resources, but I wanted to make a version without the handwriting lines.  Students are able to choose stickers or magazine cutouts to create a speech or thought bubble conversation.  Students cut out the bubble(s) that work(s) with their picture and they glue it on a piece of construction paper.  Easy to maintain and the kids are obsessed with it.  :)  Click on the title to download.

Speech and Conversation Bubbles

Sparkly Sentences

My students are always dying to write with anything BUT a pencil.    One of the centers I added this week was “Sparkly Sentences.”  It’s super simple and requires very few materials.  I post a different picture each week and students write one asking and one telling sentence about the picture.  The goal is to make them “sparkle” by adding details and checking for capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.  Students write the sentence in pencil first and after proofreading are allowed to make it “sparkle” by tracing over it with the gel and glitter pens.  Click the title of the documents below to download.

Sparkly Sentences

Sparkly Sentences Worksheet