Phonics Lesson 75 -le Ending & Phonics Lesson 76 Ending Review: Feb 23-27 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - Feb 23-27

Lesson 75: -le ending

We have learned about syllables which helps us read and spell bigger words. Besides open and closed syllables and the vowel sounds that made with those, we also have another type of syllable. 

A final stable syllable is the final syllable that the sound is always the same. One common final stable syllable is consonant +le. The le spells the /l/ sound like at the end of the word puzzle and apple. 

To decode words with the consonant + le. we can cover up the last three letters (the final consonant + le) and look at the first syllable. We can decode this as usual with our open and closed syllable knowledge, then we read each syllable and blend it together. 

middle - mid +dle 

table - ta + ble

In this week's text called, Maple Fudge, students are looking for all the words that have the le stable syllable to end the word to make the /l/ sound (ie.maple, uncle). There is a tricky one in there that has an additional ending - can you find it? They are looking to highlight the whole word with this spelling pattern. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Lesson 76: Review Ending Patterns 

This lesson is all about reviewing the endings that we have been learning about the last few weeks. With all the bus cancellations and absences, this will be important to take the time to review to really build this knowledge and application of these skills. 

• long vcc (vowel, consonant, consonant) words as in:
• -ild spells with a long /i/ sound like in the word wild, child, mild
• -ind often spells with a long /i/ sound like in the word mind, blind, kind
• -old spells with a long /o/ sound like in the word told, bold, cold, gold
• -olt often spells with a long /o/ sound like in the word bolt. colt, holt
• -ost often spells with a long /o/ sound like in the word host, most, post
• Yy making the long /i/ sound like in my
• Yy making the long /e/ sound like in baby and puppy 
• -le at the end of a word like in table and puzzle

In this week's text called, A Trip to the Jungle, students are looking for all the words that have:

• long vcc (vowel, consonant, consonant) words as in -ild, -old, -ind, -olt, -ost
• Yy making the long /i/ sound
• Yy making the long /e/ sound
• -le at the end of a word

As a tip, try to look for one at a time and aim for about 8 words total. 

They are looking to highlight the whole word. Students are also looking to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice. These will eventually (if not already) be on spelling word lists or word rings. 

This week we are reviewing:

• both
• four
• fourth
• forty

This week's new words:

• people

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders
Students have been working on the story or stories in their Reading Practice book this week that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. 

At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. 

This week, we are have completed two lessons so there will be two stories to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet after the clip. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday).

Happy reading!

Pink Shirt Day

 

Today is Pink Shirt Day! We learned about the meaning behind pink shirt day and why it was needed. Thanks to Travis and David for standing up against bullies and how to show kindness! Students made posters to show what they know about what we were learning. We are excited to share a message about bullying and post our learning in the hallway at school. Check them out below but a close up is posted on each student's digital portfolios as well. 

Phonics Lesson 73 y as long /i/ & Phonics Lesson 74 y as long /e/: Feb 17-20 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - Feb 17-20

Lesson 73: y as long /i/

We have learned that the consonant y is a tricky sound!! It comes at the beginning of words like yes and yellow.  

The letter y can also have a vowel sound. When the letter y comes at the end of a one syllable word, it spells long /i/ like at the end of the word my or fly.  

In this week's text called, Plane Race, students are looking for words with the y making the long /i/ at the end of a syllable. They are looking to highlight the whole word with this spelling pattern. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Lesson 74: y as long /e/ 

The letter y can also spell the long /e/. Y spells the long /e/ at the end of long words with two or more syllables like baby and puppy. 

Often, big words that end in y making the long /e/ sound have double consonants. Usually, we see double consonants in a closed syllable with a short vowel sound like in the words puppy, mommy and sunny.  

In this week's text called, Lily's Puppy, students are looking for those words that have the y at the end of the word that makes the long /e/. They are looking to highlight the whole word. Students are also looking to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice. These will eventually (if not already) be on spelling word lists or word rings. 

This week we are reviewing:

• woman
• women
• move 
• both

This week's new words:

• four
• fourth
• forty

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders
Students have been working on the story or stories in their Reading Practice book this week that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. 

At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. 

This week, we are have completed two lessons so there will be two stories to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet after the clip. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday).

Happy reading!

Pancake Day!

Happy Pancake Day!!

Today, we were so lucky to have Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Elgie, Mrs. Parkinson and Ms. DeYoung work with our Busy Bees to make pancakes for Pancake Day! We worked on following a recipe, measuring, safety around cooking devices and of course, eating pancakes!! Thank you to these wonderful ladies for your time to make this work for these special events for our little ones!  

Following our pancake making, we did a cut and paste procedural task after we made our pancakes to really learn that order is important on the way we do things! This is leading into more procedural writing tasks we will be doing. 

We also did some non-fiction reading about Pancake Day! Why do we celebrate it? Where did it come from? Do people all over the world celebrate this? Remember to ask our little ones all about it what we learned with our non fiction reading and reading response today. 

For our word work today, students had a word search with the challenge to find the word pancake as many times as possible! Some of us learned there were some tricky ways to spell pancake so we really had to look at the whole word to make sure we found one! We have accepted the challenge to see how many times we can find the word on our activity page! Our current record to beat is 28 times! 

Valentine's Day with the Busy Bees!

We have enjoyed some good fiction stories about Valentine's Day this week. We have also read a non-fiction book about Valentine's Day. We certainly have learned some facts about Valentine's Day too! Ask us what we have learned! 

We have had lots of Valentine activities the past week and topped it off today with even more! We have had a day full of smiles and our hearts are full! Thank you to all the special valentines shared today. It made the day full of excitement as students were able to give and receive some kind messages.

We also received a special package today! We had written a letter to another class in a different school in St. Marys asking us to be our penpals! And today, they sent a package back with a big letter to our class AND a Valentine's Day card and letter to each of us! We are excited to write back and make a new friend!

What a way to top off this exciting week full of special events! Happy Valentine's Day to you all and enjoy the long weekend with your family! See you on Tuesday for more learning excitement for Pancake Day! 

Skating Trip!

Our skating trip was so much fun! The 1/2 Busy Bees tried so hard out on the ice. Many of our students practiced and persevered and were able to skate around the whole rink! Many students enjoyed being helpers to others as well. We have an amazing class full of kind, hard-working kids!

Thank you to family members who prepared gear and made sure our students were ready for the afternoon. Thank you as well to all volunteers who came to help at the rink. Our trip went so smoothly, thanks to you!

A special thank you to School Council for covering the costs of this trip and making it a fun experience for all of our students. We had a great afternoon!

Phonics Lesson 70 dge /j/ & Phonics Lesson 72 Long vcc Words: Feb 9-13 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons - Feb 9-13

Lesson 70: dge /j/

We have learned that the consonant digraph j spells /j/ like at the beginning of the word jar. The consonant g also spells /j/ when followed by a silent e, such as in the word cage.  

The grapheme dge is another way to spell /j/. This is a trigraph which means it is three letters that make one sound. The trigraph dge only comes at the end of the word and follows after a short vowel sound, as in the words dodge and bridge. 

We spent some time realizing the difference of when to use dge and ge. That gets confusing when there are choices to spell the same sound. We found that dge is used only at the end of words and only after short vowel sounds. However, ge is used when after a consonant or long vowel like in cage or charge. 

 

In this week's text called, The Lodge, students are looking for words with the trigraph dge to make the /j/ sound. They are looking to highlight the whole word with this spelling pattern. Students are also asked to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Lesson 72: Lon vcc Words

There are some tricky word endings that change the sound of the vowel ins words. It happens with the vowel and then followed by two specific consonant letter combinations on o and i words: 

ild - has a long i sound like in the word wild

ind - often, but not always, has the long i sound like in the word mind

old - with a long o sound like in the word told

olt - with a long o sound like in the word bolt

ost - often, but not always, has the long o sound like in the word host

We use our decoding strategy 'vowel owl' to know that vowels can sometimes say the other sound and we need to try both if the word doesn't sound right or make sense in our sentence. 

In this week's text called, The Gold Rush, students are looking for those words that follow these vcc (-ild, -old, -ind, -olt, -ost) spelling patterns that have the two consonants following the vowel change the vowel to a long vowel sound. They are looking to highlight the whole word. Students are also looking to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice. These will eventually (if not already) be on spelling word lists or word rings. 

This week we are reviewing:

• there
• where
• friend
• because
• woman
• women

This week's new words:

• move
• both

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders
Students have been working on the story or stories in their Reading Practice book this week that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. 

At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. 

This week, we are have completed two lessons so there will be two stories to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet after the clip. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday).

Happy reading!