Do you use Fry Phrases in your classroom? I'm currently using them with a reading intervention group and I'm loving it!
I love Fry Phrases because they take sight words and put them in a context. I am always amazed at students who can fly through sight word assessments but miss basic words when reading a text. Fry Phrases take those high-frequency words and put them in a context so that students have an opportunity to connect and transfer their reading skills.
We're currently working on the third set of fluency phrases, so that's the pack that I just put up on TpT and you can have one of the games for free!
The pack has assessment and graphing pages (perfect for RTI!), a "BUMP" style game for practicing the phrases, another game called "BUMMER DUDE!" which is one of my signature sayings, and directions for turning "BUMMER DUDE!" into a fun dice game! This current pack is made for my 3rd graders who need extra support... so I'm thinking that 3rd and 4th graders would benefit the most, but I had some 2nd graders last year who would have loved the challenge! PS- every font that I used is one that I made! :) Yay!
Anywho- you can click the image below for one of the "BUMP" style game boards. The pack has 5 of the games, which I called "ROLL, READ, REPEAT". If you don't know how to play "BUMP", students need 10 "markers" like Unifix cubes or BINGO chips. Each player rolls three dice, adds to find the sum, and then reads that spot on the board. If they are correct, they put their piece there. If another student rolls that number, they can knock the other student off! BUT... if a student rolls the same number twice (while their marker is still on the spot) they can put a 2nd marker on there and then the space is locked and no one can bump them off!
The winner is the player who uses all of their pieces first!
If you download the file and enjoy it... if you let me know in a comment, I'll choose one to win my whole new pack tomorrow! :)
Today I worked with my intervention group on the 4th 100 HF word Fry Phrases. We had so much fun!
We played one of the games from my 4th Fry Phrase pack- "Say it like a...". They had to spin a spinner and read a phrase as a character- pirate, princess, teacher, kid, mouse, giant, witch, farmer. They LOVED it and I was cracking up!
Check us out... These ladies used a pencil and paper clip for their spinner.
I happened to have a plastic casing for spinners... so these boys were the lucky ones who got to use that!
I LOVED hearing this group of three boys do "Teacher" and "Princess" voices! Hahaha! This was such a feel good and fun activity... after a week of temps too low to have outdoor recess, everyone's going a little stir crazy. This was a fun way to work this morning!
And I just put the finishing touches on a pack for the 1st 100 HF word Fry Phrases. This one has the "BUMP" style game too and a game called "Watch Out for Mr. Wolf" that features some Three Little Piggish elements... sure to delight 1st and 2nd graders who are so familiar with every version of that story!
I've also put a bundle pack of all four of the Fry Phrase packs on TpT. It's $12.00... so essentially one is free since they are $4 each and there are 4 in the pack!
Tune in *hopefully* tomorrow for some product Dos and Don'ts as part of my little soapbox series! I say *hopefully* because, well, it's Friday... and a week without outdoor recess has made this teacher crazy too!
Last question... would anyone want Fry Phrase packs for the 5th and 6th hundred words? Not sure if I'm going to work on that right now... I'm "Fry Phrased Out"! But, if others would like them, I might start sooner that I thought!
Well, someone didn't wear their PJs inside out because I still had school today.
But, I survived the pie throwing! It was really fun and the kiddos were so excited... and, aside from the crunchy bangs I got from the whipped cream drying on my hair and the smell of the whipped cream the lingered until I was able to race home and take a shower, it was allll good!
In the harrowing, gut-renching hours leading up to the pie event, we did some normal-ish stuff.
In Success Time (our intervention block) my group worked on their reading and multiplication fact fluency.
Here's what we did:
We played PB & J with Fry Phrases! This game is from my 5th 100 phrases pack.
And we played this fabulous multiplication game from Lisa at Fourth and Ten. We played it like BUMP but they had previously played it in math class in more of a BINGO type game... which would have been super fun too!
Then we did our marking period reward for those students who had less than 3 missing assignments, read a ton of Pippi Longstocking, and then made a winter bracelet! :)
Then at 2pm, the pies were a'flying!
Tonight the hubby and I are off to see Les Miserables- not the movie, the actual musical. I'm so excited!!!
We're gearing up for the HUGE "Teacher Appreciation Sale" going on at TpT tomorrow and Wednesday, May 7 and 8.
Everything in my store will be 20% off and TpT is giving an EXTRA 10% off of that if you use the code TAD13 when you check out! Teacher's Notebook is having a similar sale until the 10th, so if you like shopping there, here's my link if you want to check out my products!
Anywho, to celebrate the sale and to celebrate all of the teachers who have helped make my TpT store a success, I'm hosting a "Fabulous Feedback" linky party where you have a chance to win a product from my shop!
All you have to do is read on, see if I selected your feedback as one of my most fabulous, and let me know if I did and you get your choice of an item from my shop for leaving me such amazing feedback! I really do love hearing how my products are making a difference for your students, so thank you thank you thank you!
After you see if you've won from me, you can check out the other links in the linky to see if you've won there too! And, if you didn't win, feel free to check out the products that earned such high praises and get them for 28% off during this sale!
I've worked really hard on my collection of Classroom or Hallway Hunts since I teach only ELA this year. I wanted to make grammar fun and interactive for my students. I've gotten some great feedback on these hunts. Third Grade Bookworm tried out my Galactic Past and Present Tense Verbs pack and she said...
The last product with feedback that has really made me smile is my Partner Reading Comprehension pack. This is one of my best sellers and has over 200 positive reviews. When I got this feedback from TeaPro... well, I was one happy girl...
Check out the other teachers who linked up below. Some of them will also be giving the most fabulous feedback a free item from their shop... maybe it's you!
You have ONE MORE DAY to enter to win the amazing comprehension passages from Little Red's Schoolhouse!!!!!
Click the pic to see more, if you haven't entered already!
I'm doing Three fer Thursday at my TpT store again this week and I'm doing my students' three favorite ELA activities from the past year... and each one is 20% off for today only! If you click each pic, you can check out the product for more info!
First... The Chocolate Touch mini-unit! This is one of my FAVORITE read alouds. It's such a great example of foreshadowing, character growth (perfect for 3.RL.3!), and just darn good descriptive writing! My favorite thing in this pack is the prediction cards for each chapter. I showed them before reading each chapter and we made predictions about how the pictures would be significant in the chapter!
Next... Fry Phrase Bundle!!! My intervention groups LOVED playing these games and charting their progress toward mastery of Fry Phrases... I loved that they were having such a fun time practicing their fluency and growing their reading skills with games!
Third... this was the first hall hunt that we did this year and I had more fun than my kiddos did! It's called "trick-or-treat" and it's all about singular and plural nouns. I hung "trick" cards in the hallway and got such a kick every time they found a "trick" and thought it was one of the "treats" they needed to complete the hunt! I use these ALL. THE. TIME. in my classroom and love them! You can find LOTS of them at my store... just click HERE to check them all out!
All right! Happy Thursday! I'm off to a meeting at school and MUST work on stuff for summer school!!! I start teaching it on Monday!
We played the game "Roll, Read, Repeat" today and my kiddos had so much fun! One came up to me after and said, "Mrs. Bainbridge... I actually liked that game"! As if she usually doesn't like the fun things we do... Haha!
Check us out...
If you didn't get your free game board with 18 fluency phrases on it, click here to get it!
So, tonight I added a 2nd Fry Fluency Phrases pack to TpT. This one is for the 2nd 100 words and also has the "Roll, Read, Repeat" game but has a different 2nd game inside. The new game is called "First to 20" and I think the kiddos will love it! They have to "LOCK" down stacks of five phrases... and cross their fingers they don't draw a card that unlocks their locked stack!
And last... a winner! Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday that you enjoyed the freebie! The winner is #11 Brenda @ Primary Inspired. I'll be e-mailing you so you can choose whether you'd like the 2nd 100 set or the 3rd!
I hope to have more finished this weekend... we'll see what happens!
I'm re-linking this post to Jodi's "Be a Fly on my Wall" linky as she's focusing on interventions for this linky! I hope you'll check out the ideas and link up too!
Yay! It's a Monday and I'm at home in my PJs (which I may stay for the day!). It's Mid-Winter Break for this gal! We had Friday off, today off, and tomorrow go to see Mike Mattos, who is an AMAZING RTI guru and a speaker who lights a fire under your booty and makes you want to work so hard.
I'm super pumped!
In my building, we have an intervention time that I think Mr. Mattos would be proud of. I mentioned this last week and got lots of comments asking to hear more... so, here goes!
Having a successful intervention time really hinges on the effectiveness of the PLCs you have in your building. In mine, we operate in grade-level PLCs and subject area PLCs. We have a grade-level PLC every month that is headed up by the Title 1 teacher. She brings data for the Tier 3 kids and we re-evaluate these students every month. For our intervention time, we evaluate data all the time...
Here is how "Success Time" works...
My building has three grade levels: 3-5th. Each grade level has a 35-minute period of time in the morning for "Success Time".
I think it's something like this:
4th- 8:00-8:35
3rd- 8:35-9:10
5th- 9:10-9:45
I'm not sure how exactly it works for 4th and 5th grades, but during that time in 3rd grade, each classroom teacher (there are 4 of us), the Title 1 Teacher, two Paras, librarian, and one of the special ed teachers all have groups going on. The librarian doesn't teach a group- there is a large group of students working independently on IXL or Math Facts in a Flash on the computer.
That keeps the other groups much smaller since there are 8 other adults running a group at that time.
We've been primarily doing math interventions, although we've also done math and reading and sent kids to the one they needed the most. When we did that, I had a low fluency group and we did Six Minute Solutions, Fry Phrases, and Reader's Theaters.
Currently, we are focusing on math interventions. We're doing timed multiplication tests as kids progress through levels at their own pace and then working on whatever students need for math... what this means is that, depending on the assessments the math teacher gives, the groups change often... which is awesome. They are literally changing weekly... occasionally daily!... but our kids are getting the instruction and practice they need at that moment, which is awesome.
The Title and 3rd grade math teacher are incredible at meeting to look at data and form new groups.
This coming week is a short one- just Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday- so our groups are a little different... all of our groups this coming week are...
Subtraction with regrouping... which only has two kids! Hooray!
A small reading group
Multiplication facts x3
Multiplication facts x4
Independent fact practice in the computer lab
Multiplication facts x10
Two leveled groups of multiplication properties
And I'm doing a writing intervention group with kids who need help organizing their thoughts. We'll be reading a lot of books, writing summaries, and interacting with texts through writing.
As kids pass their x3 facts, they'll go right to x4, and as soon as the kiddos in the subtraction w/regrouping group master that, they'll go to where they need to be and that person will be re-assigned to teach something new.
It's fluid, fluid, fluid and we all have to be flexible, flexible, flexible! I love it!
It's really easy when you do interventions to get comfortable and lose the focus... which is doing what is best for KIDS. I have found in the past that there are teachers who won't want to have fluid groups because they've already planned out what they are doing in their intervention group and they don't want to make another copy, or re-arrange the pairings, or whatever.
I feel really fortunate to work with a group of teachers who know that Success Time is about helping our students become successful! And, that sometimes means that we find out 10 minutes before school starts who will be in our groups for the day... but our kids are making great progress!
This would be our Tier-2 interventions. The students who still need support are pulled out throughout the day for more intense small group instruction.
Here's a little video about RTI, if you aren't familiar with it, and you can see Mr. Mattos in the video. He's a great speaker... if your district is looking to expand your PLCs or learn more about RTI, this would be the man to provide it!
How come kids aren't as observant about errors in their own work as they are about errors in ours? And why couldn't mine have been a little quicker to find it?!
We've only been playing "Roll, Read, Repeat" for DAYS and having so much fun doing it! See- here we are... having fun!
Then, today, one of my little friends laughed and said, "With three dice, how can I ever roll a 1 or a 2 for this game? I'll never get to read those phrases!"
So glad for such a smartie... but wishing he'd been a little quicker to come to that conclusion! Or, even better... wishing I had realized it first! You know... a week ago!
So, each Roll, Read, Repeat board in all of my Fry packs has been changed to have 16 spaces, numbered 3-18 so that every square can actually be read! I de-activated them all this afternoon to spare anyone who wanted to purchase them from buying the error packs... but if you downloaded them prior to about 10am today, you have the baddies. I'm so sorry!!!!!!
I'm SO sorry and beg your forgiveness if you purchased any of them! I had my kids today just roll 1 dice for a bit to do the #1 and #2, but the rest of the ones I print will have the right number of spaces on them to play the game!
To make up for it, here's a corrected free board from the 5th 100 pack... with 16 spaces!
Tune in tomorrow for the winner of the all six Fry pack giveaway! Click HERE to enter if you missed it!
Sorry for the double post today, but I really wanted to do the linky party in the bottom of this post and didn't want to wait to link up until tomorrow, which is when I was scheduled for this post... so, anyway...
My snow day was quite productive as far as making stuff for school goes. My kitchen floor is still grody- you know, the floor I thought about mopping... but never got past the initial thinking stage.
But I did make some cute language arts centers for the upcoming weeks in my room. My kiddos will be sorting nouns and verbs, reading Fry phrases for fluency, making compound words, and reviewing adjectives and end marks.
I'm going to choose a winner at random to receive a free copy of my center set (appropriate for 1st & 2nd grades)! If you'd like to enter, just leave a comment! The winner will be announced on Sunday! You can read more about it by clicking the picture if you're interested.
I've also sent a copy of the pack to Erica, a teacher in Joplin, Missouri, who is collecting files to share with teachers in her area who lost everything in last year's tornado.
Head over to Mrs. Willis' Kindergarten to find out more and link up to tell about a file you've shared! What a wonderful, small thing we can all do... thank you, Mrs. Willis, for organizing this!
