Common Core Phonics Assessments - 1st Grade!

We have four more days until spring break here in Mass. and it is CRUNCH time!

You may remember I blogged all about my Quick-Check Common Core Assessments last July [click HERE to get a refresher]. These were great at the beginning of the year, but my oh my, I don't think I realized how helpful these would be when I came back from my maternity leave! After being out for 5 full months, there was no way I was going to sit down and re-give every large, long assessment we had, but I did NEED to know my kids better. It was really frustrating to not be able to speak to every.little.thing each of my students could do so far into the school year.

So, voila! I pulled out my quick check assessments since they take about a minute to complete and I got a quick snapshot of where my kids were! I was able to identify my struggling students pretty quickly and we started RTI (response to intervention) immediately.

Now that it is nearing the end of the year (9 more weeks!), I wanted to re-assess my intervention group and see how my struggling students were progressing:

 This little one is clearly still mixing up ch and sh!

 In February, this little lady had gotten EVERY middle vowel wrong... Progress!!

 This little guy got these all right this time!

and now the fun part... going through and making notes. This student has progressed in almost every phonics standard we tested back in February. All except the consonant blends... which means we will be working on that!

I find that these quick checks are great to make small groups and keep me focused through the end of the year! As I mentioned in my July post, I have made a quick check assessments for all the Common Core RF standards and every single math standard!

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Writing Reviews, Accountable Talk, Subtraction and More!

Well, this momma is full swing back into teaching mode! My first graders and I are getting used to one another again and trying to continue our learning without skipping a beat. It is an interesting transition to come back after maternity leave. My classroom was in someone else's hands for longer than I had them, so in many ways this is her classroom that I am sort of "stealing" back. I am so grateful my sub kept my students safe, made a fun learning environment for them, and helped my students build their knowledge so I can come in and pick up where she left off! Now, it's my turn to grab the reigns and get my kids to where they need to be by the end of the year!

I wanted to share a little of what we have been up to in our cozy classroom.

In math, we have been finishing up subtraction and number bonds before we head into some geometry:

I will admit, I did miss making anchor charts!

A little number bond review thanks to Kelley Dolling's freebie: HERE

After we reviewed number bonds, we worked on missing addends in a number bond and completed my solve the room activity from Leprechaun Math.

In reader's workshop we spent the week reading Dr. Seuss books and practicing our fluency through partner reading and reader's theater! We have also been focusing A LOT on our accountable talk:

my little first graders need lots of help learning to be respectful listeners and we have been having great discussions through these sentence stems. Plus, it's pretty adorable to hear my littles speaking like such kind, mature adults.

In phonics, we are focusing on vowel teams! 

"igh" was on the agenda this week and it is a tricky one! We used my phonics poetms and real or nonsense sheets to help us decode and become more fluent with igh words. We are slowly building up our poetry journals that my students love to read during reader's workshop!

Writing has been all about reviews! We are learning to express out opinions through writing reviews and I have to say, I am impressed. These are the four parts of a review from my Writing Reviews Unit:

 We focus on one part each day, add it to our shared writing, and then I challenge my kids to add it to their individual reviews.

 Teacher modeling/shared writing

"Are you looking for something to eat? Well, not anymore! You could try Fridays!"

A catchy lead?! I think he nailed it! I love writer's workshop!

Well, that's just a little peek into my room as of late. I will go more into depth with some lessons and units we are working on soon :)

Happy weekend!

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Phonics Fun in 1st Grade!

We have been hit by a snowstorm here on the east coast! A good ole 26 inches of snow hit us here in Salem, which meant that it was Theo's first real snowfall!

He was already apprehensive...

and... he was not a fan! He didn't cry... but just sat in the snow with that face for a minute or two lol

While we have been snowed in for the past two days, I thought I would re-do some of my oldest units for some updated phonics fun!

Cover Up game for digraphs! My digraph unit has games, centers, search and find printables for all the following digraphs:

Read and Draw! My long vowels unit has short stories, sorts, and plenty of small group games for all 5 long vowels and their different spelling patterns.

Click above to see more closely what is in the unit!

BINGO! What's more fun that some ole' fashioned bingo! I made game boards for short vowels. long vowels, and blends/digraphs. I love using these on "fun Friday" or during centers. The best part is, students can play themselves without me.

and lastly, I updated my consonant blends unit:

My blends unit also has games, printables, and short stories for students to decode and find s blends, r blends, and l blends.

If you already own any of these or my word work bundle which includes all these units - please go to "my purchases" and re-download.

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Phonics Poetry for Grades K-2!

Do your young learners have poetry journals?! Mine do and we love them. 

The main question I have been asked in the past is what I put inside my journals and I created a resource to help answer that question. Most of the poems in our poetry journals are phonics poems, but I also am sure to include plenty of seasonal and holiday poems throughout the year.

I always had trouble finding poems that were appropriate for my first graders to decode on their own throughout the year, so I used to make up a few of my own. I decided this past year to make lots more, type them up, add some clipart and borders and voila! Here is my newest unit, Phonics Poetry for Grade K-2!

If you want to see how I set up my poetry journals in the class, click the picture below to read my previous post on Blog Hoppin' AND snag one of the poems for free!

Inside my phonics poetry pack, there are 27 different phonics poems that focus on common word families and phonemes taught in Kinder, 1st grade, and the beginning of 2nd grade. Each word family or phoneme has a short, simple poem written by me, a practice page for students to record their words and sort real vs. nonsense words, and there is also a visualization sheet. 

Here is a close up of each:

Poem: the above poem focuses on long vowel e, spelled /ee/. The set up of my poems are very similar so students can get used to them. Students read the poem many different times and ways and then glue it into their poetry journal and color in the picture.

Visualization Page: I find that poetry is the perfect time to teach visualization! Sometimes instead of the full-sized sheets, I will substitute the poem for that week with a visualization sheet. We still read the poem numerous ways and identify the words with the word family or phoneme we are learning that week. Instead of simply coloring in the clip art on the page, I have my students draw what the poem is about! It is a great way for me to see who can actually decode the poem and understand it.

Practice page: This is the page we complete after we read and illustrate our poems. It allows students to record some of the words they found in the poem as well as decode real and nonsense words with that word family/phoneme.

I also included a few sheets on how and when I use these sheets in my classroom:

My kids really love collecting these poems in their journal throughout the year and I allow plenty of time for students to read through their poetry journal. It also makes for quite the keepsake when they leave my classroom in June!

To see more, head over to view my Phonics Poetry unit on TPT and download the preview!

It is also on SALE through tomorrow night!

PS - as the year progresses I plan to add a few more phonemes, word families, and consonant blends to this unit. Feel free to let me know if there are ones you would like added! I just ask that you please be patient with me as THIS is what's going on in my life right about now:

...now THREE more days...

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Cheap n' Easy Phonics Center - Onset and Rime Activity

This is a little glimpse into the past couple days:

Alphabet cards: Primary Classroom Decor Set

Foam blocks: Dollar Spot @ Target

Primary colored buckets: Dollar Spot @ Target

Magnetic letters: Dollar Spot @ Target

Printing, laminating, cutting, buying, preparing, organizing. You know how it goes!

As I was shopping and preparing, I found those counting blocks which I knew could have many, many uses. I was thinking back to last year and what my students needed lots of extra help with. BLENDING!

Onsets + Rimes

It is a skill that takes my 1st graders a longgggg time to perfect, so I thought I would get a head start on the year and create this cheap and easy center!

All you need is two bags of these foam block sets from the Target Dollar Spot. There are 18 blocks and I used each side making 36 different onsets and 36 different rimes.... and all for $2!

I then created this simple recording page for students to record the real and nonsense words they make:

*I created these onsets/rimes with 1st graders in mind so I wrote lots of beginning blends, digraphs, ending blends, and long vowels. I was sure to add some simple CVC options as well. You could, of course, do all CVC options, all digraphs, or all blends if you want to use them in small groups.

The best part about these blocks is that they already come with storage:

I just slapped a few labels on the original bags they came in and re-zipped 'em!

Easy and cheap. My favorite!

I put all these printables together as a freebie for you in case you want to snag up these blocks yourself!

Just click below:

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Quick Common Core Assessments for 1st Grade!

DATA!

Data. Data. Data.

 I love data. That's probably really nerdy, but it's true. I like to assess and re-assess my students. I like pre-tests, post-tests, formative assessments and summative assessments. I like making charts, keeping track, moving students from group to group and tier to tier. I like to SEE it all in front of me.

My dilemma?

I don't like the act of actually giving my students these tests all the time. I absolutely don't want to feel like I am testing them all day every day because if I feel like that, can you only imagine what my poor 6 year olds feel like?!

While there are certain diagnostic and end-of-year tests I have to give, those tend to be quite lengthy. If I want to collect some data quickly, I don't want to give my student a longggggg test. Especially when I just want to see if a student has made progress on one skill.

To help solve some of my testing problems, I created Quick Checks!

I made each assessment a maximum of 3 questions because I wanted them to be QUICK! I don't want my students bogged down in lengthy tests. I always think of my students who are struggling when I think about the length of tests. Do I really need to see them struggle on a 20 question test to know that they need more help or can I see that right away?!

Same goes for my higher students, if they get it... they get it! I don't need to have them sit in their chairs for another 15 minutes doing something redundant when they can be learning something new!

Here are two math quick checks and two phonics quick checks:

 1.RF.2c and 1.RF.2d

1.OA.8 and 1.MD. 4

I have created two different types of checklists that I like to use in my classroom. The first is just a mastery checklist. I use this one to mark when my class has mastered a certain skill. It allows me to quickly look at which standards my class might not have mastered yet. It also lets me group students quickly.

The other data tracker is a progress sheet. This one is for each individual student and allows me to track their pre and post data along with the dates I administered the quick check. These sheets have a place for me to take notes and a place for me to record a student's score if they needed to be re-assessed.

This unit includes all of the Common Core PHONICS standards (RF.1.2 and RF.1.3 with all the subsets under those) and all the Common Core MATH standards (OA, NBT, MD, and G).

**If the past two sentences look like another language to you than click on my product and you can see a more detailed description of each standard that is assessed.**

There are, of course, some Common Core standards that are not addressed in this unit such as all the writing standards and reading standards. I use my guided reading groups to assess all reading standards and writing rubrics to assess the writing standards. Basically, the phonics and math standards are the only ones that made sense for me to turn into "quick checks."

If you think these will work for your classroom, go ahead and click on the cover below to see more!

Happy Sunday! :)

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Free Consonant Blends Game!

After a little phonics screening this past week, I realized a good chunk of my kiddos were STUCK on blends. They were having trouble reading both beginning and ending consonant blends. I created a fun little game which I introduced on Friday and my kids loved it!

Here it is in action:

The premise:

Each student receives a blends spinner. They take turns spinning and their job is to create a real word using their blend and a word ending from the game board. When they find one, they cover it with their color cube! Once all the boxes are covered (which takes quite a while), students count their cubes up and see who has the most! While they are trying to find a real word, they are practicing a bunch of nonsense blend words along the way!

I uploaded the file to googledocs so I thought I would share it for free!

Just click below to grab it:

I am also prepping a bunch of activities from my Tricky Sticky Blends pack to help my struggling readers this week!

Hoping everyone has a great weekend :) I am enjoying this 40 degree weather here in Boston, which believe it or not, feels really, really warm!

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