Possessive Pronouns

This week our Open Court Imagine It program has us teaching and assessing our little first graders on identifying and using singular possesive pronouns. (5 of the 20 assessment questions ask students to identify which of the four sentences listed has the possessive pronoun underlined.) "Yikes!" 

So, I scanned over the student support materials and realized there were only 6 practice sentences in our Skills Workbook. Double YIKES! Then, I pulled out the other support materials and realized that  if I wanted to copy pages, there were an additional 2 sentences in the Challenge Book and 4 more in the English Learner Support book. However, not one of the practice pages had the students identifying the possessive pronoun in a sentence! Triple YIKES!!!

The words singular possessive pronoun alone are enough to scare any 6 year old.  

 So, what did I do? Why, I headed over to my favorite online support site - TPT. However, when I did a search for possessive pronouns for grades 1-2 I basically came up with NOTHING! So, I figured it was time to get to work and create more practice activites for my little ones to prep them for the end of week test.

I am sure that I could have created even more materials, but time was of the essence! So I put together a 20 page western-themed possessive pronouns pack for the primary grades that includes pocket chart sized phrases and sentences that have students practicing the following skills: finding the possessive pronouns, replacing nouns with possessive pronouns, filling in the sentence frames with possessive pronouns, and using possessive pronouns in sentences and then illustrating.

It also includes cards with each of the possessive pronouns, headings for each of the tasks listed above, and cards for plural pronouns, and singular pronouns which could be used for a sort. There is also a worksheet that asks students to circle all of the pronouns that could be used to finish the sentence frame.

Lots of great practice for working with possessive pronouns.

These activites are definitely doing the trick and filling a void left in our program.  Hopefully this pack will help out any of you who find yourself in the same boat in the near future.

My Possessive Pronouns for the Primary Grades pack is available now in my TPT store.

A freebie page is included below.

Vowel Dipthongs: OI and OY

This week our language arts program
introduces the vowel dipthongs OI and OY. So, just like last week, I decide to create a week's worth of activities to reinforce the skills covered in the curriculum.

What I ended up with was a 25-page file that includes games and word work activities.

The entire pack which is available now in my TPT store includes 4 word games, 48 word cards, OI and OY word sorting mats with recording sheet and answer key, a syllable sort and recording sheet, parts of speech sort and recording sheet, a read and write the room recording sheet, 2 word searches, and a write and illustrate page.

My kiddos love playing these games and doing the sorts, and of course they absolutely love the word searches.

I have included one of them as a FREEBIE. 

Silly Syllables Under the Sea

Over the weekend I created Silly Syllables Under the Sea: a nonsense word game designed to practice decoding using the rules for open and closed syllables and to help students break apart and sound out those multisyllabic words.

My students love this game and it has improved their decoding skills tremendously. Even my own children (a 3rd and 5th grader) love to play it.
If you haven't yet tried decoding nonsense words with your students - I higly recommend you consider doing so... The students really learn their phonics rules.

On Monday, I began by placing one of the cards under the document camera so we could all see it on the screen. Then, we located the vowels. Next, we decided how many consonants between the vowels.

If 2 consonants fell between the vowels, we learned that you usually divide the word into syllables between the consonants. If only one consonant, then you usually divide after the vowel.

Finally, I taught them that syllables ending in a vowel are called "OPEN" and usually have a long vowel sound. Syllables with a consonant after the vowel are "CLOSED" and are pronounced with a short vowel sound.

When we play the game... we play as if these rules always apply! (Even though we know that there are always exceptions to the rules!)

After I introduced these two rules, I divided the class into 2 teams and they competed against each other. Every child was expected to figure out what the nonsense word was and then confirm whether the child who drew the card and had to read it for their team was correct or not.   I simply tallied each correct answer for the teams to determine the winner.  Every child was engaged!

The next day we played again, same teams, but this time a correct answer sent you to first base (a corner in the room), and the following players advanced you around the bases until you scored a run when you hit home plate. Of course, 3 strikes and your team is out! Another fun activity... and the students' decoding skills... well... All I can say is WOW!!!

Also... now that my students have the basics down, I have a new game to add to my literacy centers. In the small group version of the game, players try to collect as many cards as possible to win. Cards are earned by correctly decoding the words. 6 Shark Attack cards are also included - and if drawn, require the player to return all of their cards to the pile. Just like BAM!

If you are interested, Silly Syllables Under the Sea is available now in my TPT Store. The file includes (90) 2-syllable nonsense words using both the VC-CV and V-CV patterns. A second copy of all 90 cards is included with syllable breaks (example: zip-zot, hi-nog)

Vowel Dipthongs AU and AW

This week our language arts program introduces the vowel dipthongs AU and AW. So, I decide to create a week's worth of activities to reinforce the skills covered in the curriculum.

What I ended up with was a 23-page file that includes games and word work activities using the graphic themes of Astronauts and Space Launch for AU and a western Outlaw vs the Law theme for AW.

The entire pack which is available now in my TPT store includes 4 word games, 40 word cards, AU and AW word sorting mats with recording sheet and answer key, a syllable sort and recording sheet, parts of speech sort and recording sheet, a read and write the room recording sheet, 2 word searches, and a write and illustrate page.

My kiddos love playing these games and doing the sorts, and of course they absolutely love the word searches.

I have included one of them below as a FREEBIE. 

Grab your sample FREEBIE page HERE.