Monster Mash!

This year our spelling list has changed from last year..... our new patterns follow the word family patterns! I love that this has changed for us! I absolutely l.o.v.e. word families. I created a couple things to use in my classroom as a word work station.  I had some cute monster clip art and decided to create some word family sorts and a partner board game.  Each of the games has a recording sheet.

I also included a cvc and cvce matching game. I had introduced the "Sneaky e" to my students. I always tell them that "Sneaky e" likes to pinch the vowel ahead of him, makes the vowel say its name, then stays quiet because he doesn't want to get caught.  My kids love searching for the "sneaky e's" in their reading and writing. This little matching game can be done as a concentration partner game or a matching game in a pocket chart. 

This Monster Mash packet can be found at my TPT store. :)!

Wild Christmas Reindeer!!

I know this is a little late since we are all out for the break, but I wanted to share the idea anyways.  My class read the Wild Christmas Reindeer last week. {I ADORE this story!!} We read it each day of the week and discussed it. We created a large class story map, adding to it each day. The map included Setting (Where & When), Characters, Problem, Solution, and writing 3 events from the story in order. I chunked each section with a different color to help visually organize the information more for my students. Then at the end of the week my students filled in their own story map on their own. I made their individual story maps match our class map as well.  As my students finished their map, they created one of the reindeer from the story. they used a precut reindeer head, puff ball of their color choice as the nose, googly eyes, and precut pipe cleaners for antlers. They turned out so cute! 

Jan Brett is such an amazing author! She also uses some great "interesting words".  We had another sheet where we recorded these words and put them on our interesting word wall in our class.  I also love how she puts other side stories on the sides of her pages. This is such a great story to share with a great lesson to be learned. :) maybe you can keep this in your mind for next year! Here is the story map for the students. Feel free to download if you'd like to keep in your files. :) :)

Wild Christmas Reindeer Story Map