Syllables

Ideas for teaching syllables:

• name sort
• sound hunt

Finish the Poem

Finish the Poem Below by circling the correct answers.

Winter Surprise
On a cold winter's day,
Three months before (April, May, June)
A groundhog wants to play.
"It's spring," she thinks,
She looks up and (blinks, says, hints)
Then she climbs out and winks.
She looks to the ground
It's her shadow she's (done, seen, found)!
For a six-week nap she's bound.

From Cracking the Second Grade Reading and Math by the Princeton Review

Contraction Concentration

Write contractions and their spelled-out counterparts on individual index cards. Play "Concentration" by trying to find pairs that go together.

Compound Word Concentration

Write words that can be made into compound words on individual index cards. Lay them face down and play "Concentration". Try to find pairs of words that go together to form compound words.

Poetry Notebooks

Lots of teachers have poetry folders for their students. I did. I gave all my students a folder with brads one year. That was a mess! The next year, I bought 70 count notebooks and lots of glue sticks. This worked so much better. I gave my students shrunken down copies that fit on their sized paper. The words were big enough to big, and small enough to fit on their paper without sticking out all over the place. The students glued their poem in before lunch. They went to lunch and recess. We came back from lunch, read the chart paper, then the students decorated their own poem in their own notebook. It worked really well.

On other days, the kids then read their poetry book all week for 5-8 minutes at the start of Self Selected Reading block. It worked for me.

Visualize This

Describe letters visually and see whether your child can guess the letter. You might say, "It looks like two mountains pushed together," or "It's round like a doughnut."

Personalized Plates

Have your child think of words starting with the letters on a license plate. For example, 7-year-old Kevin Iwai, of Mountain View, California, says that the "EHH" on his mom's license plate stands for "Elephants Hug Hippos."