Does anyone have any ideas for Read the Room activities during learning center time. I want to have a specific goal when the kids are doing this, I just don't have any ideas. Know of any or where to get them? Thanks
I do Read and Write the Room. Each week (or 2) we do centers based on themes. Sometimes we have Read and Write the room and sometimes we don't. The tasks (or hunts) are based on the theme or some skills that we are learning.
Here are some that we have done:
words that begin with specific sounds (Beginning Sound HUnt)
Words that begin with specific beginning blends
Words that have certain chunks in them (Find and record words that have the "at" chunk)
Hunt for words that end with a certain sound
Hunt for the week's sight words around the room and record it down every time you find it
These are just some of the ones we've done so far. This is my first time doing this center. I've done other versions of this sort of thing but not exactly this.
In Houghton Mifflin we are given a blackline master of each week's High Frequency words written into a little story. I make up chart strips with each of the lines of the story. I cut them up into smaller chunks and the kids must put it together on the chart in the correct order. Then they are encouraged to read it together or one to another.
I have also done this with poems we are working on as well.
I agree with msharkey - we do the same activities in my kdg room and the kids always ask to do the "Read & Write the Room" center!
My kids use "special" glasses (sunglasses with the lenses popped out) and "magic" wands to find special words. Lakeshore Learning Store has some neat sight word pointer sticks - they're kind of expensive though so I just made my own. I used paint stir sticks, glued a wooden star to the top & spray painted them gold. Then I wrote our sight words on the stars. When kids have to look for a specific sight word, I'll give them the sight word stick to use.
My kids also use clip boards to walk around with and write the target words (may be word family words, color words, shape words, sight words, theme-related words, calendar words, "b" words, etc.) Their goal is to write 3-5 words they can read to me. They can draw pictures to illustrate if they want (when applicable) but only after they've written the words & read them to an adult.
I teach kindergarten. Each of my students has a write the room book with a page for every letter. They have to find and write 3 words that start with the letter of the week, and any other 3 words.
Not sure who to give credit for these to but I found these on the internet. If anyone knows where I got them from I would be grateful. Anyway I hope they help.
The children walk around the room finding words that start with that letter or blend. If they get 3 they get the smiley face coloured in and if they get 6 or more they get 2 smiley faces coloured in. I hope that makes sense.
I love your idea on using reader wands in K. I think it is a wonderful idea and I can't wait to try it! I have a question however.....In the beginning of the year to you only put out the sight words you have introduced? Say, you have 5 in a particular group...you would put out five I's, the, it....or whatever your words were for that week and then just leave them there for the year and add(I am not sure this is making sense.) I was thinking in terms of the children finding the word, writing the word on their sheets, and then getting silly stickers to add each additional time they saw that word and read it. What do you think?
Thank you so much for sharing those Read and Write the Room templates. I am now working on making them for the wall words if anyone is interested, I will put them out when they are done. It would be on a K level.
judy - for the sight word wands, yes I only put out the words the children have learned and then add to the collection as the year goes on. I only made two wands per word - usually up to 4 children are doing that activity at one time so two kids look for the new words while the other two look for review words then they swap as the time permits. I was thinking of making more wands so everybody would be looking for the new word, but I'm nervous that some of the children might just piggyback someone else and not actually do the work themselves (since everyone would have the exact same task.) Maybe that would be fine in kdg...but I still want all the kids to think for themselves!
When I first introduce a sight word, I put up extra index cards with the word on it hidden around the room to give the children more chances to find it, read it, and then write it on their recording sheets. When a new word is introduced, the "old" extra cards around the room are taken down to make room for finding the new word.
I love your idea of using silly stickers; the children would enjoy that!
Great post! My kinder kids love to read and write the room! Thanks for the new ideas.
I haven't read all previous posts...if it hasn't been said already, I found the cutest fly-swatters at the Dollar Tree last year that I use for reading and writing the room. They are colorful and have butterflies, flowers, and spiders on the end and the kids love them!
One thing I do for write the room is make word cards associated with the current season/holiday/theme. The word cards include a word and accompany clipart picture. I post these throughout the classroom Then the students are given a sheet of paper, attached to a clipboard. The paper has a the clipart representation for each word I have posted in the room. Students must find the matching picture in the classroom and copy the word onto their paper.
01-28-2008, 06:46 PM
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