Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Jeopardy Anyone?


Spicing up Skills Block is always a great way to get the children excited about learning new things. After the charts are chanted and the morning message is corrected, we like to kick up Skills Block with fun and interactive activities. Upon our return to school in January, we reviewed diagnostic data, and noticed that our students were confused with some vowel patterns. So an activity last week was a chart divided into three parts to list words that make the "long a" sound: ai, ay, a__e. Words were said and students stated in which column the word should go. Another exercise was a sorting activity with a three column sheet and the words were sorted into the corresponding columns. This week, we decided to introduce the children to "Long A Jeopardy" and see if this high energy, fast paced game would also enhance understanding of these spelling patterns. A student is invited to pick a category, for instance, "ay" for 100 points. A clue is given, "This is something you do at recess." All of the students will then write "play" on their white boards and receive the 100 points. These spelling patterns are not only being noticed during this exercise, but also in Reader's and Writer's Workshop, where we want this understanding to transfer. "I'll take a__e for 200!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this idea to reinforce long vowels. Will use it in my class coming up soon.
Sarah Toa
Grade One Teacher
Shanghai American School
China

dayle timmons said...

Love this! Can you show us what it looks like on the flip camera?

Anonymous said...

Super Job Ladies! Whata great way to keep new things going! I plan to use in the upcoming weeks we use long vowels.

Allison in Dallas, TX
1st grade teacher

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