Word Work - The Daily Five

Thanks for all of your positive feedback about the D5 posts! I hope you will all LOVE Daily Five as much as I do! :)

Now...let's dish about my favorite part of D5...Word Work!

Word Work is quite simply that, working with words! Kinders might work on sight words, and firsties might work on spelling words. A quote from the book: "Creating and maintaining a time during each literacy block to focus on words is critical to developing readers, writers, and communicators." (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser - The Daily Five, page 85)

The last two stations introduced (Word Work and Listen to Reading) are a little different than the other parts of D5. I find that I do not need to model AS MUCH in first grade because they don't need to build up stamina to do Word Work and Listen to Reading! These choices are FUN and they keep the kiddos ENGAGED!

Follow the familiar :) 6 steps:
Step 1 - Brainstorm what Word Work should look like and sound like (They might need a little help with this...using soft voices, etc)
Step 2 - Make an anchor chart (students will work quietly...teachers will work with students)
Step 3 - Discuss where materials are stored and how to use them (add to anchor chart)
Step 4 - Discuss where to sit in the room (add to anchor chart)
Step 5 - Have students model the correct AND incorrect procedures to get materials, where to sit in the room, and how to clean up the materials. Don't skip this important step! :)
Step 6 - I find that the kiddos have a lot of stamina with Word Work...they can usually work longer than 2 minutes the first day!

Now on to the good stuff!!! There are endless materials for Word Work! This is where you can get creative! :) To start the year, the kiddos practice making our spelling words with all kinds of manipulatives ~ magnetic letters, Wikki Stix, letter beads, shaving cream, play dough, painted beans, and sand boxes!

As the year progresses, I introduce Rainbow Spelling (writing spelling words - each letter is a different color), Word Work games, Making Words activities, and Word Sorts. SO MUCH FUN!

Click on the pie to head over to TpT to check out my Cherry Pie long vowel /i/ -ie, -igh Word Work activity! :) It includes a Word Sort, and Making words activity, as well as read aloud suggestions!








I will give away my Cherry Pie long vowel /i/ -ie, -igh Word Work activity for FREE to the first two people that comment on this post! :)