Activities for Teaching the oa/ow/oe Digraphs

When teaching a phonics skill it’s often helpful to use a key word and picture to help the students remember the sound to the letter combinations. For the oa/ow/oe phonics bundle, my fabulous artist created these “bubble” themed borders and game boards and they turned out absolutely adorable! I just love them! This phonics bundle contains 11 hands-on activities for teaching and practicing the oa/ow/oe digraphs. The activities are great for either small group instruction or for activities within your independent literacy centers. Here’s a quick peek at several of the activities in this bundle. Of course, when teaching a skill, it’s always helpful to have a word list on hand.  Providing your students with a white board and then giving them

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CVC Word Building Activity

As students are learning the letters and sounds of the alphabet it is important that they use the letters to read and write words. They need to understand that letters represent sounds and that the sounds combine to make words. At this stage in reading instruction we introduce CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. CVC word building cards are helpful in teaching students that simple words can be created with 2 learned consonants and a vowel.  It’s really exciting when our young readers begin to realize that they can actually sound out words! These CVC Build A Word cards are ideal for either small group instruction or as an activity for your independent centers. I like to use these magnets from Banks School Supply because

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Even More Resources for Teaching Magic e

Shortly after learning the letters and sounds of the alphabet, students learn that the vowel sounds have both a long and short sound. One way to make the vowel say its name (long vowel) is to have the “magic e” at the end of the word. An “e” at the end of a short word jumps over the consonant and changes the short vowel sound to a long vowel sound. We often teach that the “e” has magical powers at the end of a word. Students will need to learn phonics rules such as the magic e to become proficient readers and writers. They will need to be directly taught the rules and then offered opportunities to practice reading and writing

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It’s a Back To School Sale!

Oh my goodness! Is it that time again? The annual Teachers Pay Teachers Back to School Sale . This year the sale runs from Monday to Tuesday (that’s the 1st and 2nd). It’s a great time to stock up on all those activities that have been hanging around in your shopping cart. You get the biggest bang for your buck with the bundles so let me make a few suggestions: Of course, the cookie sheet activities are always a hit with the kiddos. There are three different bundles: Cookie Sheet Activities for Pre K, Cookie Sheet Activities for First Grade Set 1 and Cookie Sheet Activities for First Grade Set 2.  Each bundle contains hands-on activities for learning targeted literacy and math skills. The

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File Folder Sight Word Activities!

The Dolch Sight Word list is a list of 220 words that make up between 50-70% of the words we encounter in text. Most of these words are “service words” that must be quickly recognized in order to read fluently. Many of the Dolch sight words cannot be “sounded out” and they need to learned by “sight”. Because recognizing these words is so important during reading, using a variety of activities to teach, practice and memorize the words is critical in teaching children to read. I’m such a believer in a hands-on approach to learning. Using hands-on activities (aka multi-sensory activities) children have a better chance of  recognizing the word when reading and knowing how to spell the word during

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File Folder Phonics Bundled!

These file folder activities have been super helpful in providing added practice with targeted phonics skills. They are perfect for independent centers! There’s a little bit of assembly required, but once laminated the file folders will last for years and years! To keep the file folders organized I picked up these handy file folder storage units at our local Office Max. They store all the file folders so nicely and fit easily on a shelf. It’s quick and easy to find the file folder activity you want! There are quite a few word cards for each activity so it’s pretty important to keep the cards with the correct folder. To help with the organization I color-coded the borders of the

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Teaching Long and Short Vowel Sounds

Shortly after students master the letters and sounds of the alphabet we teach that several letters actually make two sounds. The vowels (a, e, i, o and u) can make a short sound, as the sound /a/ in the word “cat”, or a long sound as in the word “train”. Before teaching the spelling patterns of the long vowels it is important that our young readers and writers hear the differences between the long and short vowels. Sorting activities are perfect for teaching this skill. My fabulous artist, Kyle, created these adorable puppies to emphasize the concept of short and long vowels. When you download this file you will receive the puppies along with 90 colorful picture cards for sorting. This

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Teaching Long Vowel Spelling Patterns

Those tricky vowel sounds! Shortly after students learn the letters and sounds of the alphabet we introduce the concept that some letters, when placed together (vowel digraph), make the long vowel sound. For example, when the letters “ai” appear together, they make the long a sound as in the word “snail”. “ay” also makes the long a sound. These are the two most common vowel digraphs that make the long a sound and are often introduced first. When children are learning to spell words it’s important for them to know the most common placement of the digraphs in the words. The “ay” is most often used at the end of a word and the “ai” in the middle.  Just a

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Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Cupcake FREEBIE!

Ever in need of a quick little activity to support learning CVC words? This cupcake match activity might just do the trick. It’s super simple to assemble. Just print the cupcakes and the recording form. Have your students match the beginning consonant to the word family to see how many words they can make! Fun activity for independent literacy centers. Enjoy! The Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Cupcake Match can be downloaded for FREE from my TpT store.  

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Activities for Teaching the au/aw Digraphs

When teaching a phonics skill it’s often helpful to use a key word and picture to help the students remember the sound to the letter combinations. For the au/aw phonics bundle, my fabulous artist created “paw” themed borders and game boards and they turned out absolutely adorable! I just love them! This phonics bundle contains 11 hands-on activities for teaching and practicing the au/aw digraphs. The activities are great for either small group instruction or for activities within your independent literacy centers. Here’s a quick peek at several of the activities in this bundle. Of course, when teaching a skill, it’s always helpful to have a word list on hand.  Providing your students with a white board and then giving

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