Teaching Grammar Part 3...Interactive Games

Welcome to Part 3 of my Teaching Grammar Series!

Today, I'll show you some ways that I make learning grammar interactive. My students love to get up and move around. Sitting still is just not cool! The two games I'll talk about are Scoot and Write the Room.

Playing Scoot is always a favorite activity in my classroom. I blogged all about how and why I play this game here. Please click on over and read about why you should be playing it, too!

The bottom line is, this game is so much fun, the children have no idea that it's work! To check out some of my Scoot games, just click on the above image.

The other interactive game I want to mention, is write the room. My kindergartners, first graders, and second graders LOVE to write the room. In first and second grade, I use Write the Room Parts of Speech and Write the Room Sentence Editing.

Both of the games above contain 5 different games, for a total of 10 Write the Room Activities! I hang the cards up around the room and, during their station time, they walk around, finding the cards, and writing their answers on their recording sheet. The games cover common and proper nouns, strong verbs, adjectives, and sentence editing. The sentence editing games include all types of sentences, possessives, pronouns, subject verb agreement, and a myriad of other important Common Core language skills. Sometimes, I don't use these activities for write the room. Rather, I put the cards at a station and the children record their answers on the recording sheet, without walking around. They enjoy this too!

My kindergartners use this version of write the room. It contains CVC words and sight words, so they are learning grammar, in a fun way, using words that they are learning how to read or already know how to read.

I'l be back tomorrow with some ideas on how you can easily assess your students when it comes to their knowledge of grammar. See you then! Oh, don't forget that I'm having a link-up on Thursday.  I hope those with blogs will link up their grammar best practices!

Teaching Grammar Part 2...Fun Grammar Games and a Giveaway!

Welcome to Part 2 of Teaching Grammar!

Today, I will show you some of the grammar games my students play. I'm not really a worksheet type person, you know, the ones where they read tons of sentences and underline this or circle that. I try to make everything into a game. Here are some of them:

My students also love to do word searches!

Not only do my students learn all these skills while they play, but, they also learn how to share, take turns, and get along. I always give my students number cards when they play games, and they all choose a number to see who goes first, second, etc. I also keep two small bins at the table so they can keep the playing cards in one bin and the discarded cards in the other. They play these games during station time and they are engaged the entire time. Sometimes, one person does not play the game, and, instead, they are in charge of the answer key. This is a coveted position, as they love to congratulate correct answers!

So, there you have it! Worksheets are just not necessary when you have fun games around. Checking for mastery is quick an easy! When the children leave my classroom, I ask them an exit question. "Can you give me a strong verb? What's the adjective in this sentence?" I also assess them with my grammar review sheets. But, you'll have to wait until Wednesday to hear about those!

I would love to give away one of the games above. Just leave me a comment, letting me know which game you'd prefer. I'll use the random generator to choose a winner later today or tomorrow. And, don't forget to enter to win the Sentence Building Game from Learning Resources. Click on the image below to enter! 

Tomorrow, I'll be back to talk about some interactive games my students LOVE to play! See you, soon!

Teaching Grammar and a Giveaway!

I absolutely love to teach grammar, so, this week, I thought I'd share some of the ways in which I integrate grammar into my writer's workshop and station rotations. Here's what I plan on discussing this week:

On Thursday, I'll have a link-up, where you can link up a blog post about how you teach grammar. That way, you'll be able to share your best practices, too! At the end of this post, I have an awesome grammar game to review and give away to a lucky follower!

I do not teach grammar in isolation. I teach it during my writer's workshop. I am very familiar with all the skills my students need to learn and I make sure to cover a few of them a week. Each time I model write I always stress, among other things, the importance of using specific nouns, action verbs, and descriptive words. I've been doing this since the first days of school. Here is an example of a simple story I wrote with my first graders about what my snowman does at night.

First, I read Snowmen At Night, by Caralyn Buehner. Then, the children and I wrote this story together. Next, they wrote their own stories. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the finished products, but, they came out really cute. After model writing one more story based on a Caralyn Buehner book, the children were asked to write one on their own, without me model writing first. Their story was based on the book Snowmen at Work. Here is a finished first grade story:

She tried her best to use strong verbs and descriptive words. I think she did a great job! On Wednesday, I'll show you the rubric I used to grade these, when I discuss how I assess my students in grammar. These writing activities come from my pack, Snow Much Fun With Caralyn Buehner Books! There is also a fun Parts of Speech Game in this pack!

This is just one way in which I integrate grammar into my curriculum, without teaching it in isolation. Tomorrow, I'll show you some of the fun station games my students play each week to review and practice grammar skills.

Now, onto the giveaway! Learning Resources sent me this fabulous game called Sentence Buildings, which is a parts of speech activity set. Talk about fun!

It includes 9 buildings (noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, article, conjunction, adverb, preposition, and punctuation) and 300 double-sided words cards. Students learn to craft sentences with the color-coded word cards. They can build simple sentences by selecting one of each of the parts of speech they have learned. Then, as they learn more parts of speech, they can add words to see how their sentences change. My students played this game several times and it is definitely a favorite of theirs. They love the buildings and how colorful the pieces are. I love how they are so excited to make and read their sentences to their friends.

These are not my students playing the game, but look at how much fun it looks! There is so much differentiation with this game and so many ways to play it. It's definitely a must have in any primary classroom. Learning Resources is allowing me to give one of these gems away to one of my lucky followers. Could be you! Just use the rafflecopter below to enter. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you'll come back tomorrow to read about some of the exciting grammar games my students play each week! See you soon!

Class Book

Several weeks ago, I received a binding machine from

  My Binding.

I used it for the first time today and couldn't be happier! It's so easy to use and I can't wait to share the book with my students. 

It took me under 5 minutes to put the whole book together! I highly recommend one of these babies! For more information on how you can get your own binding machine, just click on the top photo.

This class book is part of my Snow Much Fun With Caralyn Buehner Books! We'll be making another book tomorrow. And the next day, too!

Don't forget to enter to win The Potato Chip Champ! It's an excellent book, written by Maria Dismondy, that focuses on character education.

New Year Activity Pictures; Book Giveaway

I hope everyone who returned to school today had a great first day back. I know I did! My students were so well-behaved and we had fun catching up on all we'd done during vacation. My kindergartners made these cute banners.

I offered these as a freebie here! If it's too late for you this year, I dated them for the next several years, so you can always do it next year.

My first and second graders made this cute activity from my blogging buddy Michelle, over at Just Wild About Teaching. I had to make my own recording sheet because I forgot to print the one that came with her craftivity and I didn't have the original at school. They had so much fun with this!

For the rest of the week, I'll be reading my favorite snowmen books by Caralyn Buehner. All my students will be completing some fun activities, like making class books. I'm looking forward to using my new binding machine from My Binding. You can check out my snowmen activities by clicking on the images below.

One last thing! One of my favorite authors, Maria Dismondy, who writes the best books that teach good character, is kicking off her blog tour, to discuss her newest book, The Potato Chip Champ.

Please stop by tomorrow to read my blog post about Maria and this wonderful book. I'll be raffling off a signed copy to one of my lucky followers!

One more last thing! I'm sure you've heard that Teacher's Notebook is having a Tablet for the Teacher Sweepstakes from January 5-31. They are giving the winner a choice of an iPad Mini, Amazon Kindle Fire HD or Nook HD. If the  winner comes from my blog I get my choice of one, too! Wouldn't that be nice?! Just click on the banner below to enter. Good luck to us!