Inside our Interactive Phonics Notebook and Dictionary!

I'm baaaaackkk!! 

No, I'm not talking about back to blogging....I'm back to blonde!

It's only been a few weeks, but my dark-chocolate brown hair that I loved so much when it first came out, did not do so well staying in my hair. boo! So, I just went back to my "roots" haha!!

Ok, the real reason for this post... I want to show you how I have been managing my Hands-On Phonics Notebook and Dictionary in class. 

(check out my other posts HERE to see how we got it set up in the beginning of the year and THIS post to see more about what is in the pack.).  If you haven't noticed by now, one of my passions about teaching is phonics...it's the ROOT of reading and writing. If you know the rules, you can sound out pretty much ANY word when you're reading or writing. ok, I know that's a little fib because we ALL know there are exceptions to every rule...but that's why I also make my students learn to spell sight words for their spelling.

  Each section is a different color, that way they can easily find where they need to be in the notebook (orange- dictionary, green - categories, yellow - phonics). We use the dictionary part almost every day! The students know to use it as a resource when writing and want to know how to spell a word, we write or highlight our spelling and sight words, I just love this section!

Here is a few shots of what we did today...

She's writing in our sight word for this week...the word wasn't already on the list that they glued in in the beginning of the year.

If the word IS in on the list, then they highlight it (which, of course, they LOVE doing!)

We do this every week with our words. Also, if a student wants to know how to spell something, they first have to look in their dictionary, and if it's not in there, then they come to me (well, raise their hand) with their dictionary and a pencil and I will write it in there for them. It's a BEAUTIFUL system!

The next section is the Category words...

we haven't added too many words to these pages, but I have some ideas on what to change/add for next year's notebooks!

The next section is the Phonics section - our most used section.

This is where we write the rules for the sounds, sort words, write words that we find on "hunts" or sort as a whole class. Since our district has changed our spelling continuum, it doesn't really follow a "phonics" pattern all the time, but I still use it for learning about plurals and verb tenses, since technically those are rules to follow for spelling, right? So, some of the pages we use come from the headers in the phonics notebook, and some of the of the pages come from other phonics packs that I have. 

Here are just a FEW of the pages that we have so far in our notebooks.

sorting FLOSS words

Open and Closed Syllable words

(sometimes there's a lack of cuteness when there's a lack of time! right!?)

These are the long vowel pages...they came from the phonics notebook pack...I left a LOT of space on the page because we're going to come back and do vowel teams on the long vowel pages.

Changing y to i....

Irregular past tense...

Ok, so I hope that helps you to see inside our notebooks a little better!

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Vocabulary Journals in the Works!

We finally started our Vocabulary Journal today!!

I just got our Vocabulary Journals back from the print shop copied, bound, and ready to use!

So today, while working our Habitat For Sale unit, we were planning our writing sheet, and stumbled across a word for our vocabulary journals! They are going to have to use this word in their writing, so it was a word I really wanted to make sure that they knew. What I like about my journals is that since words are really cross-curricular, it's a free-for-all journal, that way they can use the journals in any subject area, just like our phonics dictionaries.

I want them to color the words with their yellow crayon to highlight the words so they stand out. (I don't have them use a real highlighter because I don't want it to bleed through.

And did you see Stephanie's blogpost on how she uses it?? It's great! Go check it out! She shows you how she uses it with her "Word of the Day."

Check out my Vocabulary Journals 

TpT

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Math centers, Pete, phonics, and readers notebooks

Time to catch up on what we've been up to!!

I've been teaching addition strategies in my whole-group math time, like doubles, near doubles, and making ten. We've been spending a little longer on making ten then I thought we would, but in all honesty, I really want them to be able to do mentally, so I keep on working with it! 

We started off using unifix cubes, and doing what I call "Build, borrow, write" Build the first two numbers (with 2 different colors), then borrow from one color to make the other color 10, then write your NEW math problem....does this make sense???

While I've been pulling my struggling kids working on this, my class has been working on my 2-Digit number sense centers. 

We've also been trying to finish our Pen pal letters...to JAPAN! Woo!! I've only got a few finished, addressed, and ready for delivery, so hopefully by THIS Friday, I'll have the class set ready to go!

Last week, we finished our Pete the Cat unit.  

We compared 2 of the books, using a double bubble (thinking maps!

Which, the students wrote in their Reading Journal.

And for their "test" I had them compare 2 other Pete the Cat books, this one was I Love my White Shoes and Four Groovy Buttons. They did it ALL on their own...and most of them did REALLY good!!

Last week, we worked on our Floss Words....words that have one syllable and end in F, L, S or Z. They did the matching activity in my Floss Pack

and then we put them on in our phonics notebook

I've had a few people question about using notebooks all the time and if it's time consuming getting them to color, cut, and glue in their book. Well....my friends, let me introduce you to my best friend...the timer! lol. For real. Each group has a timer (Each student has a job in the group, and one of them is the timer.)

Check out my post {HERE} on my group jobs! There's a Team Job Freebie!

Anyway, when I tell my time keepers to set the timers, then it's like magic how quickly they work! Do all of them finish?? No, of course not, BUT it makes them realize that we are moving on and they need to pay attention to me, or whatever we are doing at that time.

What timers am I using?? I bought a six-pack of timers from Lakeshore.

(this girl had a minute left before the timer went off!)

What have we started today?? Text features!! I don't know why this is such a hard concept, but I'm sure glad that we have Nicole Shelby's Interactive Reading Notebook to use! I love it!!

Today, we put in her inserts of the notebook, and then labeled everything (during whole group). Then, during small group lessons, I had them come back WITH their reading journals to use as a reference to find non-fiction text features in the Scholastic News that we are reading in small groups.

Tomorrow is an early release, after we just had yesterday off (teacher inservice day). I kind of feel like I dont' have enough time to teach everything I want! lol

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