Word Building With Everything

Never let a lack of supplies keep you from trying word work with your students. You can use anything! This year, I let my students generate the ideas, and here's what they came up with:

*clay 

*pattern blocks 

*stencils 

*beans 

*beads 

*scrabble tiles 

*buttons 

*toothpicks 

*pasta 

*pipe cleaners 

*rice

*lego

*paper strips 

*pebbles

*coins

They were so excited to get started because they are generated the list. 

Next, I asked them, "How will we know if you've made your word correctly?"  They decided to 

*have  a partner check their words

*write down words on a list

*record how many buttons/beans/block etc they needed to spell each word. 

This activity is so engaging, and also allows me to differentiate in my multi-age class. On this day, grade ones worked on their five sight words, while the grade twos worked on "ch" words. 

We post a new set of words each week and switch the materials around to keep it fun and fresh.

Early Finishers: Once they were done with spelling, peer-editing and counting, they asked if they could "play" with their materials. So I said, "Of course!" It seemed only fair, right?

I returned to find them independently sorting by color and shapes, writing vocabulary words, and graphing colors. Wonderful! Self-directed learning and very little prep for the teacher!

And then some time to just create!