A fun start to a new year!

A new year with some new and old games.  The first few weeks of school are all about getting back into routines and learning new procedures. What does it mean you can have some fun! In language arts the class is reviewing sounds and spelling. To reinforce these skills, in reading groups, there was a station where the children wrote their heart words in shaving cream. This isn’t a new activity, but it’s tried and true. Not just any shaving cream, but some that smelled like bananas! It was bright yellow too. Anytime you can incorporate a hands on way on learning it benefits the students. Being able to see, feel, smell, and hear the sound/spelling simultaneously better solidifies that skill in there brain. I’m so excited to add more kinesthetic activities for the children to use while learning. The sand boxes will be coming out soon!

A new game that the kids and I played in reading groups was See It - Sound It. I gathered 10 objects from around class and I hid them in a box. One at a time the students pulled an item from the box and sounded out the word then told the initial and final sound of the word. Being able to break words down to the phoenomes enables the student to decode with more ease and improve spelling skills. They had so much fun playing this game. The anticipation of pulling their item out had everyone giggling.

We are off to a fantastic start! I am so excited to teach this group of children this year! Here are some more pictures of the kids work while in various small groups.