I'm trying to increase the rigor in my word work centers. I have the standard sight word practice mediums such as white boards, magnetic letters, sand and stamps but I'm looking for ways to make it more challenging. Administration made a comment to another teacher the other day that stamping sight words was very dated and more suitable for kindergarten (I teach first). That made me stop and evaluate my current set up. Do you have any suggestions for activities that can carry over week to week but are rigorous? Here are a couple that I thought of: Sorting words into real and make-believe for different word families Skimming books for different sight words or word families Can't wait to hear your suggestions. Thanks!
I'm planning to do the real and make believe sort as well. I also am going to start incorporating grammar skills into work work. Some ideas I've had: sorts for common and proper nouns, sorts for noun and verbs, putting words together to make compound words (using Easter eggs!), matching contractions with the expanded form, etc. For the centers that don't have paper work attached, I will have the students use an old digital camera of mine to take a picture. This provides accountability. I saw that idea on Pinterest.
Omigosh, I thought about doing language (grammar) centers, too. With everything being incorporated into writing, it would be nice to provide students with opportunities to practice isolated skills.
For the real/make-believe sort, you would provide students with a rime such as -ig. Then you could have them use letter tiles or flip books to try out different words. So some make-believe, nonsense or silly words might be mig or hig.
@czacza I did sorts like that at the beginning of the year with my students when we were learning/reviewing short vowels. As an example, for short i they would get words like hit, pig, rip, rin, lig, etc. I did cut and paste sorts at that point, so they would cut out the words and glue them into the "real" and "trash" (with a picture of a trash can) columns. It showed me whether or not my first graders could actually read the words using the targeted phonics skill. It could also be done with real and make believe words fitting into a particular word family.
I haven't done this for independent centers, but we have done this in a little game I've played on some Fridays in small groups. I am going to use this for centers, as well! Thanks!
