Hi friends,
How are you this week? I hope you are doing well. Today, I would like to talk about word sorts. There are many kinds of word sorts: by sound, be singular and plural, by tense, by part of speech, by syllables, and more. Word sorts can be written or physical and both are important. Not only do word sorts address multiple learning styles, but they also address multiple levels of learning. Word sorts don’t just utilize factual learning, but also ask students to analyze as well as compare and contrast. It is helpful to encourage students to develop higher levels of learning. DUO Inspirations now has a word sort product, “The Nouns and Verbs Word Sort Set”. The Nouns and Verbs Word Sort Set contains three regular noun and verb sort pages, plus a bonus noun and verb sort page for written sorts. The bonus page has three categories: nouns, verbs, and both. (Some words can be both nouns and verbs.) Also, included in the set are noun and verb cards that can be used for physical sorts. I like The Nouns and Verbs Word Sort Set, because it can be used in different ways. It also contains words that are often and not so often used as both nouns and verbs. This also gives students an opportunity to make a case and explain why they chose a particular category for a word. So, this not only helps with parts of speech skills, but also debating, analyzing, comparing and contrasting, and speaking skills as well. Also, even though this word sort product is called The Nouns and Verbs Word Sort Set, the many word cards can be used for other kinds of sorts. All you would have to do is make your own category cards. I like it when a product has multiple uses and addresses multiple skills, don’t you? If you are interest in The Nouns and Verb Word Sort Set, you can check it out here or purchase it now: 
Now, it is your turn. I am thankful that you are here and would like to know your thoughts as well as your experiences. Do you use word sorts? What kind? Please, comment below or feel free to contact me. If you find the Education Blog by DUO Inspirations valuable, please share it with your friends and family. Also, if you haven't already, please consider signing up below to get the Education Blog by DUO Inspirations and other education content in your inbox. Thank you.
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Hi friends, How are you today? When I taught kindergarten, I provided a word rich environment for my students. I put word labels on objects throughout the classroom, so that the students could relate the words to the objects. Of course, most students didn’t get the connection right away, but it was more and more helpful over time. When students first come into kindergarten, most do not know letters or label words for common environmental objects. Yet, after seeing these labels every day, they pick up things. For example, after learning the letter “p”, students may realize that the label on the pencil box starts with the letter “p”. After a while, they may even be able to spell the word pencils. Even if they may not learn to spell the word pencils in their kindergarten year, they may use to go to the pencil box and look at the label to get the correct spelling for the word pencils. It may get tedious to label every single thing. I mean, if a room has thousands of objects in it, you may not want to label everything. Also, make sure that it is obvious what the label is for. It may be confusing to use the label to use the word “box” on a container that you use for pencils, even if it is a pencil box, especially if you have a better representation of a box that isn’t as confusing. For example, if that is where the pencils are stored, the label “pencils” is a better fit. If you have an empty box hanging around, that is a better fit for the word “box”. It is a good idea to introduce the label words early in the year. You can either have them labeled already or use the labeling as an activity and have the students help you with the labeling. Another great tip is to use the label words as often as possible as part of your lessons. For example, if you are introducing the letter “p”, you may show the students a letter “p” and ask if anyone knows the letter. You may also ask, if anyone has noticed that letter in any of the label words. If nobody can remember seeing it, you may even want the students to take a minute or two to look around the room and then come back to share their findings. If someone says, that they saw it on the pencil box, you can say something like, “Yes. The word on the pencil box is ‘pencils’. You can see that the word pencils starts with the letter ‘p’. The letter ‘p’ makes a /p/ sound and you can hear that /p/ sound at the beginning of the word, when you say the word pencils.” Sample words to use as label words may be: folders, pencils, desk, table, chair, crayons, door, wall, books, and paper. They are ordinary objects that are often seen in a classroom. I have included this sample list of label words with this post. Feel free to use them. 
Now, it is your turn.
What other words would you like to see? How do you provide a word rich environment? What other products or topics would you like to see? Also, If you are finding value with my posts, please share them with friends and family. If you haven't signed up to get the Education Blog in your inbox yet, please consider doing so. Thank you. 
Hi friends, How are you? Earlier this month, I wrote about fact families, an important beginning math skill. This week, I thought I would write about identifying nouns, an important beginning language arts skill. Once we start learning about letters, letter sounds, and simple words, often one of the next skills is to identify nouns. Nouns, as we know, are people, places, and things. It might seem simple to us, because we know it. Yet, for students just starting out, it may not be quite so easy. It may take practice and a variety of activities to get the idea of what constitutes a noun and what doesn’t. I have used a variety of ways to teach and reinforce noun identification. The first way that I will tell you about to teach, reinforce, and practice the skill of identifying nouns is to make it fun. You can make up simple silly stories leaving out the nouns and having students come up with nouns to complete the stories. (Yes, there was a product that was out when I was growing up that was very much like this.) Another way to teach, reinforce, and practice the skill of identifying nouns is to have word sorts. For a simple sort, have just noun and verb sorts. Don’t make the words too difficult at first. Have simple nouns like, “man, boy, cow, book, car” or simple verbs like “jump, run, clap, read, eat”. Believe it or not, some words that may seem like simple nouns or verbs may be a little confusing. For example, when I was writing the examples above, I originally had toy as a simple noun. However, if a student has ever been told, “Don’t toy with me” he or she may wonder why it is a verb in this case and a noun when it refers to something with which to play. I also had hide down for a simple verb, but a student who has heard of animal hide, may not understand why it is a noun in that case and a verb when playing and trying not to be found. You may decide to use the words that may be a little tricky, however, I do feel that it is worth considering before you teach them. This may be especially true when teaching the skill to those whose first language is not English. A third way to teach, reinforce, and practice nouns is to have students do activities in which they color in words a certain color based on the type of speech. I actually created an activity where nouns are colored in blue. It seems to be one that people enjoy. Now, it is your turn. How do you teach, reinforce, and practice the identification of nouns? Please, comment below. I look forward to your ideas. If you are finding value in what I write, please share it with your friends and family. Also, please consider joining the email list to get content sent straight to your inbox. Thank you. P.S.- Did you know that DUO Inspirations creates educational materials? If you are interested in having me create an activity for you, please contact me. Also, some are given free, especially if you are on the email list. Thank you. 
Hi friends,
How are you today? Do you have planned work to give the students who finish early or to give the class to do when you are not in the class? There will always be times when you will not be there to guide the students or will be busy with other students. So, it is good to have enrichment or review materials for students to do in every topic or skill you teach. Sometimes, it takes time to gather enrichment and review materials for every topic and skill you teach. However, it is easier when you have someone who will create these materials for you. DUO Inspirations is such a resource. If you need an enrichment activity or review materials in any particular topic or skill, please contact me. In the meantime, please, let me tell you about one of the activities that I enjoy. It is something that almost any grade can do. The activity is taking a word with quite a few letters in it or a short phrase and asking the students to make smaller words they can make out of the letters in that word or phrase. It is better if you can use a vocabulary word or topic phrase that goes with the subject you teach. Creating words out of letters of a larger word or small phrase is an important skill. It helps students to notice the letters in a word. This helps in spelling as well as reading. Here is an example I did out of the letters in the word education. There are other words. However, I thought one hundred was a nice round number. 
If you notice, most of the words are smaller words. That reinforces the fact that it can be done with success with most grade levels. Also, as you can see many of the words have prefixes or suffixes. So, this is makes a wonderful activity to review root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
I usually tell students that they cannot use slang, bad words, or proper nouns. However, you can use whatever guidelines you wish. I hope you and your students enjoy this activity. Another good idea for doing an activity like this is asking students their strategy to finding words. One of my strategies is to choose endings and look for any other words that have the same ending, such as ten and den or can and tan. Now, it is your turn. Have you ever done this activity? What are your guidelines? Do you and your students enjoy it? Also, if you find value in my posts, please feel free to share with your friends and also sign up to receive the Education Blog by DUO Inspirations in your inbox. Thank you. |
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