Long U Robots!

Hey blogger buddies, we hope you are all having a fantastic week!  This is our first full, five day week in what seems like FOREVER!  Since we've been back from Christmas break we've had trainings, teacher work days, half days, and holidays galore!  So, as you can imagine, it's been a VERY LONG WEEK!  TGI almost F!  Melissa totally made my morning by swinging through Dunkins on her way to work.  Me without coffee... well, lets just hope we never have to experience that! haha I am totally okay with fully admitting I need a cup-o-joe to jumpstart my morning... and a large French Vanilla iced coffee with milk only is what I like to call... a little cup of heaven!

  
Melissa and I have been busy, busy, busy trying to teach our kids the dreaded LONG U spelling pattern this week! UGH!  I don't know if y'all would agree, but I find that long u takes my kiddos a little longer to grasp than most long vowel patterns.  I'm guessing it's because long u can make two sounds... it can say its name, "U", and it can also sound like a double o as in spoon!  TRICKY TRICKY!  Thus, it required a little extra creativity on our part to make this spelling pattern sink in!  I'm not sure if we've mentioned it before but we use Treasures as a reading series in our county... well, that is until the beginning of next year, when we will adopt a new reading series (inserted excited face here) that is more aligned to common core.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Treasures!  Marion County adopted Treasures my first year teaching (awww) and I am FAR from a "by-the-book" kind of teacher, but I definitely like some of the stories used in Treasures and I also really like the phonics pattern/sequence it follows.  I am slightly sad to see it go, but I'm super excited to see what the new reading series will have to offer and I can't wait to see what Melissa and I come up with as far as activities and games to fit with our stories and phonics patterns!  You can be sure we'll keep you all posted!

Here's a little something we came up with to go along with our main selection "June Robot Cleans Up".    It's a story about a little robot named June who likes to make new creations with old junk!  The story ties in with the whole recycling theme and the kids really love it!  We found these adorable little robot gift bags at TARGET last year in the dollar section!  Aren't they cUUUUUUUte?  (emphasis on the long u)  If you look close, you can see one bag is labeled "Long U" and the other one is labeled "Short U". 

As you can see, students take turns reading the words on the adorable little robot cards.  Then the group gives them a "thumbs-up" if they read the word correctly.  The students decide if they hear a long u or a short u in the word and place it in the appropriate bag.  The kids really love this sorting activity (I think it's because of the awesome bags!!! haha)  I usually introduce this activity at my teacher table during centers and then use it again as an independent activity in my word work center the following week.  It's really helping them distinguish between the long and short u sound!

 

 

Tomorrow is Friday and it's also the 100th day of school!!!  80 days and counting!!! YA BUDDY!!!  It's going to be such a fun day!  Earlier in the week we sent home letter to encourage students to dress as if they were 100 years old!  I can't wait to see them!  You can be sure we'll post pictures of all our 100th day activities!  Until tomorrow frugal followers!!!