I am in charge of the phonics lesson plans and I am having a hard time making them different from day to day....The first week of school we are going to talk about /a/ and I am trying to think of different activities to do....I thought one day we could pull different words from a bag and decide if the word has the short /a/ sound.....One day we can go around the carpet and each kid can come up with their own short /a/ word....Are there any activities that y'all use in your class that you and the kids love? Phonics is definitely not my strong point!
This site has very specific activities for the skills you are teaching. There are a lot to choose from, and my favorite part, they are free! http://www.fcrr.org/Curriculum/studentCenterActivities.shtm
I would do a lot of word work activities. Use side walk chalk, play dough, shaving cream, rainbow words, wikki sticks, pipe cleaners, blocks, etc.
Alrighty! Thanks! One more question....Does the am word family have the short a in it? When I say am I hear the long a.....but perhaps I am not saying it correctly?
Yes, the -am, -at, and an families all have short a. My problem is the regional pronunciation of the -ag family. I've never heard it pronounced with a short a, yet all of our textbooks insist that it is a short a family word.
Does your reading adoption have a phonics component?If it does you should use it because then it will match your reading lessons. Ours does but we use Saxon phonics. Saxon has it's good and bad points.
Also look up orton-gillingham methods such as those found in Wilson or S.P.I.R.E., and just google it. There are a of multi-sensory methods that offer cool variety in terms of practicing specific phonics skills to keep it interesting.
