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Showing posts with label compound words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compound words. Show all posts

Friday, July 19, 2024

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for SPIRALED LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULA!



Way back in 1960, Jerome Bruner advanced the theory of The Spiral Curriculum. His hypothesis was that "any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development*." The key tenets of his theory are:
1. "The student revisits a topic, theme, or subject several times throughout their school career;
2. The complexity of the topic or theme increases with each revisit;
3. New learning has a relationship with old learning and is put in context with the old information."* 

As a proponent of his theory, I believe that a spiraled curriculum improves student performance on tests, and more importantly, in life.  Any experienced teacher or parent will readily agree that students can lose 2-3 months of academic skills over the summer. Indeed, the first 6-8 weeks of a new school term are spent reviewing (a.k.a. relearning) the skills taught in the previous grade. The same could be true of curricula introduced, practiced, and then considered "mastered" during the academic year; especially in this era of outcome driven instruction. I believe that young learners simply need frequent, repeated practice with the skills they are acquiring.

Bruner postulates that employing a spiraled curriculum creates these benefits:
1. "The information is reinforced and solidified each time the student revisits the subject matter; 
2. The spiral curriculum also allows a logical progression from simplistic ideas to complicated ideas; 
3. Students are encouraged to apply the early knowledge to later course objectives."*                                                                                                                                             *https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED538282

So how do you employ a spiraled curriculum in elementary education, especially in an era where textbooks are often eschewed in favor of authentic learning? Quite often we employ hands-on, multisensory, learning centers. These centers are a rung on the ladder toward project based learning, which, in turn is the next rung to authentic learning.


Learning centers are wildly popular in elementary schools. Planning for these centers can be labor intensive and oh, so time consuming.  Add on the intention to include a spiraling curriculum, and - phew! - IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS!  Your time and energy are precious and limited.  So, please, allow me to help.  

I have bundled learning centers that focus on the same skill. A bundle of compound words centers, for instance, will afford you the opportunity to give your students multisensory practice with a skill that is spiraled throughout the year.  Compound words can be linked to holidays, thematic units, content language, and simple skill reinforcement.

Take a peek:


Each product in this bundle is offered in print and digitally on TPT Easel.  Nine products provide a review for each month of the academic year.

Sight word practice certainly merits repeated experience. 



The resources in this bundle provide seasonal themes to captivate your learners.

Syllabication is addressed at every elementary level of the CCSS.  To that end, I invite you to try: 



Several of these products are offered digitally on TPT Easel, as well as in print.

Phonics skills are an obvious area deserving spiraled review:



All of these resources are also available on TPT Easel.

Give your learners continuing practice with antonyms, synonyms, and homophones with this grammar bundle:

Included are hands-on literacy centers and digital learning activities.

Check back soon for more spiraled curricula bundles.  Coming up are math resources and critical thinking activities.









































Monday, August 21, 2023

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for COWBOY CURRICULA!


Saddle up for some fun, cowboy themed curricula. I adore teaching with a theme and cowboys are one of my favorite themes. My Wild West collection has something for every primary classroom.

Start with a FREEBIE:


This COWPOKE GLYPH is a fun craftivity that incorporates data collection and writing. 

Extend the data collection learning with a graphing, math center.  COWBOY SPIN-TALLY-GRAPH provides easy differentiation by including 3 levels of difficulty.


TANGRAMS are always fun and these Wild West themed tangrams deliver another math center that is differentiated and engaging.


Work on counting order with these WILD WEST NUMBER PUZZLES.  The puzzles progress from 5 pieces to 8 pieces and are also available digitally on TPT Easel.


COWBOY NUMBER SENSE PUZZLES exercise subitizing as students construct the 4 pieces of the puzzle representing the same number. This math center is also available digitally on TPT Easel.


Continue working on number sense with these WANTED POSTERS.  This open-ended activity requires students to express numbers in a variety of ways.  I love to use this activity weekly, providing spiraled practice that reflects their current learning in the curriculum.


SUDOKU for primary students?? YES!  BUCKAROO SUDOKU puzzles begin with easy, 4x4 grids that are perfect for early learners.  The puzzles progress to 6x6 puzzles before employing the traditional 9x9 arrays.  Hence, this differentiated, critical thinking activity can span all elementary classrooms.  

While you're working on critical thinking, introduce these COWPOKE SQUARE PUZZLERS. These brain teasers are also differentiated, increasing in difficulty from 2x2 puzzles to 4x4 puzzles.  The challenge is to make the images match on each interior side.  This activity also exercises flexibility and perseverance.  

Students capable of addition and/or subtraction within 100 will love these MATH COMPUTATION WITH COWBOY RIDDLES task cards.  The task even extends to basic multiplication.  My classes enjoy doing riddles around the room.  This resource is also provided digitally on TPT Easel.

Incorporate all things western by including ELA resources.

A great way to introduce cowboys to your young learners is with this emergent reader.  Drawing on my training and experience in Reading RecoveryTM, I created this text to explore things a cowboy needs while building on high frequency words, 1-1 correspondence, picture cues, word work, and inflections.  Suggestions and techniques for teaching these skills are included in the product description.


Understanding syllable counts and the rules for dividing words into syllables are crucial to learning to read and write.  As you introduce these skills, incorporate these western themed anchor charts.

Practice syllable counts with SYLLABES ROUNDUP.  This brand new, literacy center, available in print and digitially on TPT Easel, asks students to sort the picture/word cards by the number of syllables they hear (1-3 syllables).

COWPOKE COMPOUND WORDS is a literacy center that challenges learners to match the 2 halves of the covered wagons to make compound words.  The center is self-checking and available digitally on TPT Easel.  Some of the vocabulary may be challenging to young learners so be selective in the cards you place at the center.


You'll roundup a lot of learning with this ALPHABETICAL ORDER literacy center.  You determine how many word/picture cards to have your learners manipulate.  The words can be sorted by 1st - 6th letter, giving you the opportunity to differentiate with ease.







You may also like:


Wednesday, June 28, 2023

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR THE 4TH OF JULY!


Let's celebrate America's independence with a patriotic FREEBIE! SCRATTLE combines word fluency with computation; individual effort with competition. It's easily differentiated for any elementary grade level. Your learners will quickly learn to eschew easy words in order to win the "battle." They may even beg to play again!




These patriotic resources are on sale this week.













Thursday, February 9, 2023

It's About Time for Presidents Day!


I reached into the archives to pull out this craftivity.  It's a fun way to make a Presidents' Day display.  



For every student you will need 1 sheet each of red, white and blue construction paper.  I used 8" x 8" square sheets, but you can avoid a lot of cutting by using 9" x 12". You will also need cardboard patterns of Washington & Lincoln.  I found silhouettes online, printed them, and then traced them on cardboard.  Cut them out and your resources are ready.

Since paper weaving has been around forever, I'm assuming you know how to create the woven background.  After each student has chosen which 2 colors to use for the weaving part, ask them to exchange 1 of those sheets for about 6 - 8 pre-cut strips of the same color.  I supply the 1" strips.

When the weaving is completed, each child should borrow the silhouette pattern of their choice to trace on their remaining sheet of paper. 

The beauty of this project is that by encouraging your students to choose 2 colors of their choice for the background, saving the 3rd for the silhouette, you will give your classroom a burst of color without having all 20+ projects look the same. 

Following are some resources for Presidents' Day that I think you will love:









These products are not specifically for Presidents' Day, but rather for any patriotic holiday.






This one is FREE!