Happy February! We're in the middle of two short weeks. Please pray for me! Short weeks seem to last twice as long. So two in a row? It's going to feel like a lifetime! This past week will be especially short because there's no school on Friday (PD), and our Festival of Friendship (school dance) and Valentine's Day celebration is Thursday. Basically, I had a 3-day instructional week. Instead of introducing new spelling words and vocabulary for word study, we're going wrap up our current vocabulary unit, and I'm going to introduce several new vocabulary activities. I'm sure they'll be happy to have some new Word Work activities.
Our first Flocabulary unit went relatively well. Some of my ELLs did not do quite as well as I'd like. I met with our head ESOL teacher, and she suggested some modifications to the unit assessment to better support those students. I'm going to provide a word bank for them for their next unit assessment. When possible, I am going to add visuals to vocabulary cards as well. Hopefully, they will do much better.
I am revamping the activities for my Word Work center. In addition to Shades of Meaning, I'm introducing 2 new vocabulary activities over the next 3 weeks. I happened across a wonderful bundle of word work activities for big kids by Chalk and Apples. The activities focus on developing word meanings. It includes 15 activities so far. Since it's pretty late in the year, I've picked 6 activities for my kiddos: Bubble Words, 5 Clues, Vocabulary Sort, Word Break Down, Picture Dictionary, and Link It. I'm introducing Bubble Words and 5 Clues first. Since I want to focus on learning how to do the centers, I am going to use last unit's vocabulary words. That way, they won't be so focused on learning new words and learning new activities. I've plotted on an awesome way to store my vocabulary words for the week. Look for pictures and a brief explanation in my next post.
And without further adieu, a peek into my room.
