Phonics, Grammar and Writing Fun Inspired by the Green Sheep!

Do you read Mem Fox's 'Where is the Green Sheep?' with your class?  I love it!  Not only are the illustrations just gorgeous, but it provides perfect teaching opportunities for a number of concepts.  This week we enjoyed this story as part of our phonics work (learning about the digraph /sh/), to work on grammar (learning what an antonym is) and as a prompt for some very cute writing.  Today I've stopped by to share a few photos of our Green Sheep inspired fun!

We started by reading the story together.  I always love how enthralled kidlets are with a good book, even when they've heard it a million times before! :) I then explained that to discover our sound of the day they needed to search around the room to find the Green Sheep that I had hidden.  Don't forget that the Green Sheep will be sleeping - we crept silently around the room so as not to wake them.

After each kidlet had found a Green Sheep card, they brought them back to the carpet and read the word printed on their card to me.  This is when we discovered that our phonics focus for the day was /sh/ - although I'm not sure it was much of a state secret!! :)  We added the words to a poster and finished off with our Sound Waves workbook page.

Later in the day we revisited our favourite woolly friend with some work on antonyms. Coming up with engaging ideas to teach grammar to 5 year olds is sometimes tricky, so I gave myself a little pat on the back when I thought of using this book to help! We revised what an antonym was, and found some in the pages of the book.  

Then we made a list of our own.  Warning: If you like to make sure all posters and anchor charts in your room are pretty and cute you might like to skip over the next photo.  I don't want to upset you!

Then it was time to put our writer's hats on and get to work creating pages for a class book!  I explained that each kidlet would write two pages, one for each of their sheep.  The idea was that they would stick to antonym pairs, but I wasn't too fussy with this.  I absolutely love how these pages turned out!! I still have to pop them in a display folder with a cover so I can add our cute sheep to the class library.

Our last bit of Green Sheep fun was with games in reading groups.  Kidlets had been playing Fox in the Hen House to practise reading /sh/, /ch/ and /th/ words during their guided reading time with me, and I added an old favourite as a fast finisher for those who got their sight word rotation done quickly. This game is my best seller - it's in Queensland font with our high frequency words, but a Dolch version is coming soon!

In the past I've also done a directed drawing art activity using markers and watercolours, but we ran out of time for that this week.  Here's a pic of last year's creations:

I hope you were able to grab an idea or two to use in your classroom with 'Where is the Green Sheep?' - I'd love to hear from you if any work for you. :)

Two for Tuesday! A best seller and a newbie.

Well folks, this will be a super quick post because I am having a moment.  You know, one of these:

That darn grumpy cat always makes me smile!  He just has a way of articulating my thoughts, especially in those moments when I'm being a big baby. :)

I'm stopping by today to share with you the two products that I've marked down to half price for The Teaching Tribune's Two for Tuesday.  Both are card sorting activities with bonus worksheets - one is an old favourite that has been a best seller, and the second is a new one that I'm super excited about!

Sort it Out! Letters Words and Sentences is a really engaging way to teach a very important skill.  With this pack, kidlets will sort cards as either letters, words or sentences - perfect for the pocket chart! - and 'show what they know' with either a cut and paste or written worksheet.  The words and sentences are taken mostly from the Dolch lists so your little learners can decode them.  Once we've done this activity as a whole class and then in small groups, I pop it in the 'fast finishers' basket and it works as a great task to review this skill.

  

Grab it today for only $1.50!

My newest product, You've Got Mail, is a medial vowel sorting activity with a cute envelope and post box theme.  

It's got three worksheets as part of the pack - kidlets can colour, write or match to show the correct medial vowel.  Only $1.50 today!

Don't forget to pop over and visit The Teaching Tribune to check out all the other awesome products on sale today.  I've grabbed a few amazing bargains with this linky - can't wait to stock up my cart with some more!

New Products to Give Away!

I've been very busy this past week or so whipping up some products that my kidlets need to practise some important concepts and skills.  I thought I'd quickly share them with you in case they will come in handy in your classroom too!

The first is a simple game to practise CVC reading fluency.  I love using card games in the classroom because by keeping the format similar the kidlets can play them independently even when the skills being developed change!  This one is easy - children choose a card and if it features a friendly sea animal they read the word and keep the card.  Watch out for the shark though! If he is on the card that player must return their cards to the pile.  The kidlet with the most cards at the end is the winner.  The pages are organised by medial vowel sound and words have been chosen to use a wide variety of consonant phoneme combinations.

Check it out in my TpT store here!

I'm always looking for ways to integrate fine motor development with curriculum areas, and have also been trying to think of ways to use the giant container of plastic chain links I bought and have rarely used.  After doing some assessment and discovering that some of my treasures needed some more practise with number recognition I whipped up this activity.  It's proven to be a huge hit so far, and I love that it combines fine motor with maths!

I'm planning on making a lot more activities like this one. :)  Find 'Link It Up 0-20' here.

Last but not least is a noun, verb and adjective sorting activity that I plan to use in my pocket chart.  The pack includes some bonus recording worksheets.  

'Sort it Out! Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives' is designed in a similar way to one of my best selling products - 'Sort it Out! Letters Words and Sentences'

Now time for the giveaway!  Simply make sure you follow my TpT store and then pin any image from this post!  Leave a comment with the link to the pin and I'll come back tomorrow afternoon and choose 3 random winners to receive the product of their choice. :)

I'm linking up with Teaching in a Nutshell for Sell It Saturday! 

Lauren