Hidden Partners- Sight Word Style!



My class loved playing our Hidden Partners game to help reinforce math facts... SO

I thought why not make a game for sight words? So... I did.  It's so easy and the kids had a ball with it.  All you need are some 3x5 cards and a marker.  It doesn't get much easier than that.



Make as many cards as you have students.  If you have 20 students, make 10 sets of two letter words, or 6 sets of three letter words, and one two letter word. (I bet you figured that out all by yourself!) Anyway,   I made one set with two letter sight words, and another set with three letter words,and one four letter word. (OK- that sounds bad... but don't worry, it's a nice four letter word!)



As you can see, I wrote the word on top of the card and one of the letters for the word on the card.  That way, if a child has an "o," he/she knows if it goes with to, go, do, so,  no, or on! 

I gave everyone a card and told them they could not look at it until I said, "Go."  (They were really good about that, actually!)  Then, I had them spread out anywhere in the room.  When I said, "GO," they had to find their Hidden Partner to make their word.  Once they found their partner, they sat down together where they were as quickly as they could, so we could see who had made a word.



We checked together as a class to see that each group made its word.  When we got to a group, that group stood up together, said, and spelled the word.  We clapped if it was right.

We played it a few times in the morning, and they already can't wait to play it again- so I thought I would pass it on.  I can never have enough different ways to practice those sight words!


This is just one of the many activities Dr. Jean and I put together in our book, Dr. Jean's Reading Recipes!  We wanted to share our favorite activities (with lots of different adaptations!) that help children learn, while having fun doing it! 



Thanks for stopping by!

Bond, Number Bond

Last year we had a half-day conference day to talk about math vocabulary Pre-K to 2nd grade, to be sure we were all using the same language.  I got stuck on some of the vocabulary - especially number bonds and hidden partners.

My nephew always LOVED James Bond, and I still get happy when I hear the music from the James Bond games my own kids used to play with my husband probably on Game Cube, at the time.  We were never big video game players, but we did have those, and it was so much fun to hear everyone laughing when they played it together. (I was never very good at it... )

Anyway, as the meeting went on, I kept doodling- thinking what if the numbers "007" were twisted just a little to make a Number Bond, Secret Agent?! The kids could solve the mystery!

Yes. Those are the kind of notes I take at meetings.  

I sent my friend Dan (Rocking Dan, Teaching Man) the picture and said it would make a great song. And... he MADE IT!   What a great guy!  Our friend Susanna from Whimsy Workshop gave the little secret agent his wonderful looks, and Dan made him come to life and gave him a mission- to solve some number bonds.  I can't wait to show my class.  What a fun way to reinforce and understand what number bonds are!
               

Dan has so many great teaching songs on his Youtube channel.  His Friends of 10 Song is great to use for math facts, too! You can go check them out and subscribe here!

I also came up with a Hidden Partners game that my kids LOVED last year. It's so easy and a really fun way to reinforce those math facts.

All you need is 3x5 cards and a marker.  It doesn't get much easier than that! 

Basically, Hidden Partners means there are different ways to make a number. 

We make charts about Ways to Make... numbers 2-5.  

I made 3x5 cards with numbers on them that added up to our target number.  I have 17 students, so I made 9 sets of cards- for example, for "5"  I made 0,5; 1,4; 2,3; 3,2; 4,1; 5,0, 3,2; 4,1; 5,0.  So I would also play the game since there are 18 cards.

I had the children spread out, and gave each child a card with a number.  They could not show their number to anyone until I said, "Go!"

Once I said, "Go!" the each child had to walk around and find a "Hidden Partner" to go with his/her number to make 5. 

 Can you tell we played this on St. Patrick's Day?

Once they found their Hidden Partner, that team of two had to sit down on the floor so everyone knew they were paired up and done. 

The kids loved this game!  We had so much fun.   We also played it with the number four.

I made sets of numbers for 3, 4, and 5.  I just used different color markers for each set  in case they get mixed up.  You could go all the way up to ten!  

No matter what some of the Common Core may do to teachers-

 Remember this...

 

 Have a wonderful day! Thanks for stopping by!

Five for Friday October 24

Happy Friday! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey!

 

We had so much fun reading Humbug Witch this week!  It's a sweet little book with LOTS of adjectives if you're looking for good descriptive words.  I posted a few free Listening Activities that I like to use with my class, if you'd like to use them.  Just click on the pictures! 

The kids are working on sight words like a BOSS!  We use any magnetic space we can find  to build words.

Then, they write them...

We made our own Hex-bugs to help us remember Hexagons this week. Last year, I cut out lots and lots of different size hexagons and had the kids decorate those.  This year, I made one colorful hexagon on this paper and they decorated that.  I printed them on cardstock.  The kids had so much fun.  It was handy that bugs have 6 legs and hexagons have 6 sides!   If you would like a copy of the paper, just click HERE.

Last Saturday, some of us from school went on a Wine Tour.  We had SO much fun.  About an hour from where I live, near Ithaca, NY, we have some fabulous, fun wineries. We went to six of them. My sweet, sweet husband drove us all there.  What a trooper.  He's a great one! 

(The bottom middle picture looks like we needed to be cut off, BUT we were just imitating our friend Leslie's attempts at selfie poses.  She's a riot when she tries...)

My husband heard this TED Talk the other day by Sir Ken Robinson, and showed it to me. It's old, so maybe you have seen it, but I hadn't.  I loved it.  It's titled "How Schools Kill Creativity."

                           

The talk is about 20 minutes, and worth every one of them, but if you don't have that kind of time, here are my favorite parts:

3:38- Drawing God

8:35-10 - Hierachy of subjects and the purpose of education (to produce University Professors...)

and my FAVORITE is at 15 minutes in (if you only have a couple minutes, watch this!) This is the  story of Jillian Lynne's experience in school. She went on to be the producer of the musical, Cats.   I won't give it away, because it's a story worth hearing, and one I will always remember.  But I will tell you that the line I will remember forever as a teacher is, "She's not sick.  She's a dancer."

Sometimes I am heartbroken seeing the way kids are expected to sit and do "paperwork" for so long. I can tell at five years old the children who have a real interest in mechanics and taking things apart, or art, or science.  I have a little guy this year who takes EVERYTHING apart that he can get his hands on.  He is so interested in how everything works, but I find I am spending most of the day calling him back to what we are doing (and putting back together what he's taken apart...). He has a hard time with letter recognition and writing, and gets frustrated easily, but could work with gears and little manipulatives all day long. I just wish I had more time to let him explore and foster his interests- and then, that those interests could be continued throughout the years. Instead, I'm afraid he will get so frustrated with some of the academics of school and not feel successful.   I think I like this video so much because it's just refreshing to watch someone who "gets it."  

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!  Thanks for stopping by!



Humbug Witch and Big Green Monster!

We had a lot of fun reading Humbug Witch by Lorna Balian.

I'm linking up with Mrs. Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday. Thank you for hosting, Deanna! I always love seeing great book ideas.

Humbug Witch  has been around for a while, but  it's still available at Amazon. It is a sweet story about a little witch who doesn't have any luck with things witches are supposed to be able to do. The books is fabulous for descriptions.  It would be an awesome study for adjectives.  Here are some sample pages to show you:

 Finally, she gives up, and takes everything off, one thing at a time...

The first few pages of this book would be wonderful to read to the children, without having them see the pictures, having them listen and illustrate using the descriptive words from the text.  This is a great introduction for children to realize that they can picture illustrations in their own minds, without seeing pictures, just by using descriptive words that are written in the book.  

Go Away Big Green Monster is another book that lends itself very well to this.  I read this book one time without the children seeing the pictures and have them illustrate their big, green monster using the descriptive words I read.  Then, I read the story (usually over and over and over) on the rug so they can see the pictures. Finally, the children share and show the monster they drew. The great thing about this share is that there is always at least one fabulous part of each drawing- the big yellow eyes or the long bluish, greenish nose... It's a great way to have the children start noticing good things about each other's work.

Here is an animated version from Youtube:

Here is a little freebie if you'd like to do your own listening activity with these books. Just click the picture below to get a copy of the paper.

Have fun! Thanks for stopping by!