Play Dough!

I spent some time this morning making play dough for my class. It turned out great! I've had varying degrees of success with this but I really think this time was the best!

It's very soft and pliable but not at all sticky! (The play dough is for first graders but the snail is compliments of my resident fifth grader who did a lot of the work!)

I think the big difference this time was I didn't freak out when it looked too runny and just kept cooking it. In the space of just a few minutes it went from a runny pancake batter to a slightly sticky play dough. I kept cooking and it really firmed up. Then I cooked about two minutes more--after I  thought it was done.

The other difference was that didn't use my usual liquid food coloring. I had recently bought some gel coloring from Michael's and it worked great! It didn't add any water to the play dough so the consistency stayed nice and firm!

So, here's the recipe I used

I mixed together in a pot:

2 cups of flour

2 cups of warm water

1 cup of salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of cream of tartar

Turn the heat on and stir! Stir continuously until it comes away from the pot and has a play dough consistency. Stir for two more minutes! Remove the dough from the pot and let it cool for about ten minutes before adding the food coloring.

I wanted a lot of colors so I divided mine first. 

We use play dough almost every day in my classroom. Usually it's for word work. The students roll it out and write sentences or words in it. They poke the letters in using dots made with the tip of a pencil. We do have a bunch of play dough tools but those are for Friday! Dough extruders are such great tools for strengthening fine motor skills. 

Throughout the week my kids have the chance to earn tickets and on Fridays we trade them in for coupons. One of the coupons is play dough! They get to keep a tray with play dough and tools near their desk and whenever they are finished with their work they can play. I suspect that with all these new colors, there will be a run on the play dough coupons!

Word Walls!

Wow, this isn't my post but over at Dragonflies in First there is a fantastic piece on using interactive word walls. I have a word wall and I use it but it's not nearly as effective as I think it could be. I'm so excited to try these ideas. Check it out!

You can find it here:
http://www.dragonfliesinfirst.com/2014/03/interactive-word-wallbright-idea.html

Enjoy!

Sight Word Sampler!

So, I decided to create a sampler of the activities in my Super Sight Word Packet and offer the sampler as a freebie. This way teachers can get a feel for the packet and see if it works for them before buying the whole packet. You can get your copy of the sampler here:

I have to admit, I LOVE sight words! At the beginning of the year we have a literacy night with the parents of the kindergartners and first graders. I know I always go overboard when we talk about sight words but I feel like if I can get across to the parents the importance of learning these words the rest of the year is soooo much easier! As a parent (and, yes, sometimes as a teacher!) the first thing we tend to say when a new reader is struggling is "sound it out". There's nothing wrong with sounding a word out but I tell the parents that it's such a labor intensive strategy that we try to save it for when it's really needed.

One of the ways I show them is I put up on the board a page of a book we read in November. It has about 25 words on the page and it looks pretty overwhelming. We go over how hard it would be to sound out every word on that page and how little you would remember by the end of each sentence, never mind the whole page!

The next slide I show is the same page but this time all the sight words we've already learned have been whited out. There are now only two words on the page and one is easily figured out with a picture cue. Every year the parents say "Ohhhhh"! It really brings to the forefront the importance of learning high frequency words!

We use Houghton Mifflin reading and I really do like it. It introduces 6-9 new sight words every week. Each week builds on the week before and the learning is very incremental. We use the Sight Word Packet activities as centers or homework throughout the week and it really helps reinforce these words. In the packet I've labeled each page with what theme/week it corresponds to in Houghton Mifflin so T8W1 is theme 8, week 1. Having said that, you don't need to use Houghton Mifflin to use the sheets! These sight words are all on the Dolch and Fry lists and are words every reader needs to know!

Enjoy!