Electric Company Centers

Ok, so this is Episode 206: Goodnight Robot's centers. I focused on ite/ight and silent e. Here are some of the centers that I either created or downloaded from some of the great bloggers out there! :)

We watch the streaming episode first, then I go over the directions for each center. Some are independent, some are teacher-led. I'm lucky that I have a collab. teacher in the room at the time! :) We rotate about 5-7 minutes, so sometimes not all the centers are completed, but students can finish later either at their own time, take them home to finish, or it becomes part of our literacy centers for the week.

Sorry that some of the pics are blurry - I had two teacher-led centers and hopped up very quickly to take pics while my group was unscrambling their words! Wished I had previewed them first! ;)

Center One:
"Silent E is a Ninja": Students had to add silent e and write the new word, then draw a picture of its meaning (this is a second version of the same theme...we used another one for an earlier episode). I wanted students to draw the meaning to make sure they read the word correctly. This was a self-guided center. (I have some early finishers, so this was also combined with a SMART table activity on long vowels!)


"ight" word search: My students LOVE word searches! I mean, LOVE them - they cheer every time they have one! On the flip side was an "unscramble" (for those early finishers!).


"ite kites" (teacher-led): This is an original, and my favorite. I lucked into finding two scrabble-type games at Goodwill and literally scavenged the games for their different parts! This was using the letter tiles :) I had a list of words that I created, put the tiles in the baggies (encouraging students to pull out "ite" first) then unscramble the rest of the letters to form an "ite" word. (I had a word list for my lower readers). Students then wrote the "ite" words on the tail of the kite. Since we did not have time to finish this center, it goes in the "It's Electric!" literacy center for this coming week :)


Okay, my favorite that is not an original. I credit this one to The First Grade Sweet Life (the link will take you to the post...just scroll down). Love it so much, I found that I had posted in on 3 of my Pinterest boards! :) The kids had a great time "building" their cabins. This was also another teacher-led center.



I guess I should clarify "teacher-led." We are there for student support and questions, but still check on the other centers during the rotation.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed what you saw and can use some of it! I highly recommend The Electric Company for any third or fourth grade classroom. It also throws in character education, a little Math, Science, History, and TONS of fun! :) I have uploaded some of the shorter phonics segments from the show from YouTube on my Grammar/Word Study blog, if you'd like to check it out, as well as some links to online activities.

The AHA Moment!

Do you ever find your best ideas come to you spontaneously? I've always said flexibility is important in a good teacher, but I also think listening to those crazy ideas as you sit with a group that's just not getting it is also important!

I've had a lot of crazy thoughts over the years, and while some work well, others just get me those strange looks that say, "our teacher has LOST it!".

This was one of those great AHA moments! I posted my frustration about some of my reading students just not getting long vowels. I was looking for a different approach, new ideas, etc. This morning when I got to school, I googled long vowel activities. (Yep, "google" is a verb!). I found some great activities and started a new board on Pinterest. You'll have to check out the link. I don't know why, but I always seem to be attracted to ESOL sites...they always have the best activities! I found some great monster cards, went to Florida's reading site and found some centers....but of course, all that requires time, printing, lamination, cutting out....and of course, did I mention TIME time to put it all together?

So, today in group, since my frantic cutting at every possible free moment of the day hadn't been working....that "AHA" moment struck! We took a deep breath and said long "a" as long as we had breath. Then, we tried to do the same thing for short "a" and....it came out ("like a burp" as one of my kids put it) and we couldn't make it last! The kids of course burst into giggles. We talked about how with short vowels, we can't use a lot of breath! OMG! Light bulbs were busting out all over! One child in my second group then theorized..."I guess that's why they call them short vowels, for short breaths, and long vowels, for long breaths!"

WOO HOO!

Not that it totally sunk in, but after they insisted we test out all the vowels, we hit the ground running....and ran into the brick wall with silent e. I do, however, have some other great ideas we're going to work on tomorrow about words with silent e, including sticky notes (I did "rip" and "ripe" today - each letter on a separate note, and we're going to do some word hunts tomorrow and "make" silent e words) as well as those great monster cards I mentioned!

Thanks once again for all the great suggestions! I'll keep posting the ideas that work, whether they're my own or someone else's. Meanwhile, check out Lanternfish, the ESOL site I got the monster cards from. It's AWESOME! :)