Hello Mrs Sykes

It's a Bright Idea round-up. Enjoy this post from earlier this year! I work with struggling readers in grades 2-5, so I know it can be a challenge to keep these learners engaged and enthusiastic while practicing Fluency and Accuracy. Today, I'm sharing my secret weapon: The Partner Game!

Remember Cootie Catchers? Or did you call them Fortune Tellers? When I was in 5th grade, these carefully folded papers were all the rage with me and my friends. Since I became a teacher, I have used Cootie Catchers in all subject areas. Want to create your own Cootie Catchers? Read on, and you can also pick up a freebie! Create your own Cootie Catchers, for all subject areas!

If you work with struggling readers in grades 2-5, you know it can be a challenge to keep these learners engaged and enthusiastic while practicing Fluency and Accuracy. Today, I'm sharing my secret weapon: The Partner Game!

Need a quick way to review? Want to see what your kiddos know in less than 15 minutes? Scoot is a game I use in classrooms to get kiddos up and moving while we review. It's a quick way to get a look at how the class is doing with a concept. Just like any other game you play with students, teach them how to play it. It's a great way to spend 10 minutes on a rainy day, trust me.

Last week I received a copy of The Reading Game - 2nd Edition , and I have to tell you, I was pretty excited about it! I saw the game at the ED Expo 2015 in Atlanta , and I need to share the brilliance of this product with you. The Reading Game truly is a game that helps children develop confidence in reading.

The ultimate goal of literacy is to help students become life-long readers, so they can be educated citizens. The child's first and most influential teacher is their parent and/or guardian. With that in mind, it is crucial to give families the tools they need to help this child, as well as other children in the household. {Here's a link to an article from The Atlantic:  How Family Game Night Makes Kids Into Better Students } I love to invite families to school for Literacy Night. I've helped organize, prepare, and lead Literacy Nights at least 8 times over the course of my teaching career, and I plan to continue this for years to come. Here are my tips for an easy and successful Literacy Night in Upper Elementary classrooms. Make and Take for Literacy Night, grades 3-5 At a recent Literacy Night at my school, the parents met in the gym to see a quick presentation about state testing. The students went to the media center to watch a video, learn how to do the Make and...

Here's a quick roundup of 5 freebies and tutorials as you gear up for Back to School from my TPT store: 1.   A tutorial on  how to create your own Chair Pockets  from a person who rarely sews... 2. The Guided Reading Cheat Sheet: A handy reminder of what to do before/during/after reading: 3. The Mystery Word of the Week:   Print a free week here... This one isn't a freebie, but you can download 2 weeks of Mystery Words free from the preview on this product... 4.  The Brain Booster Box:   Grab the instructions and a free set of open-ended questions here. 5. Do your kiddos need to learn Greek and Latin Stems?  Here's my 5 Minutes a Day Strategy: Also, you may have heard about the upcoming BTS sale on TPT !   Shop my store now to add to your cart , and they will be 28% off (August 4 and 5) when you enter the code: BTS14  (Friendly reminder to use the code...  occasionally I forget!) Button credits: ...

Wowza!  I'm exhausted.  Since we had so many snow days recently, we have make up days... on Saturdays!  (I know - it sounds really strange, but I'm a teacher in a year round school.  For more info on this odd schedule, check out this post .)  Since I wasn't sure what kind of attendance we would have at our first Saturday make up day, I needed to plan an engaging lesson that worked on a core concept.  I chose Vocabulary Development, since this is crucial to future scholastic success for my ELLs and struggling readers alike. I've always been vocal about the use of games for word work.  They promote critical thinking skills, an understanding of group dynamics, and vocabulary development.  Games can also promote competition, but I try to downplay that aspect.  I. Don't. Keep. Score.  When my goal is vocabulary development, fluency, comprehension, or an understanding of how words work, I think that the competitive aspect undermines my inten...

It feels like almost everything I want to share with teachers, parents, and administrators is about the importance of Word Study.  There are many different ways to approach word study in the classroom.  During this new series of blog posts, I'm hoping to share many techniques I implemented and used successfully with students in the past.  I hope you'll tune in on Wednesdays... Font:  KG Fonts , Digital Paper:  Sassy Designs Word Games are an effective method to encourage students to "play" with words.  If you play word games often, you may be surprised at the level of discourse students use when discussing their words.  As you hit the thrift shops and yard sales preparing for your classroom, keep your eyes open for a few of these games.  I always do a bit of word work as we begin our Guided Reading group, and when I don't have a particular skill they need to work on that session, we'll play a word game for a few minutes.  Read on, and ...

I can't be the only one feeling like it should be a bit later in the week!  Valentine's Day should count for at least 2 days.  I'm not fully recovered from the candy hearts everywhere, the surprise cookie cake, and the general hoop-la... a 3 day weekend would be so sweet, but it is not to be.  Oh well!!  ;) I finished my "Magic E" word family game - it's played like the game Uno - to help my green beans learn the common word families with the silent e.  Click on the picture to visit my TPT store.  Feel free to become a follower on TPT, so you get updated when I post freebies and new items.  I appreciate your feedback, and I'm still digging through my "literacy specialist" files to update/post new files.  What are you looking for to help with word work, reading strategies, or guided reading?  Let me know!  :) Click here to view in my TpT store, called Hello Mrs Sykes. Want a copy?  Click the image to visit my Teachers Pay Te...

OK... by now you know I totally geek out about anything literacy.  One of my favorite things to do is to get kiddos excited about words.  My grade level is using "Words Their Way" successfully, but I like to do a bit of word work in my reading groups that is not tied to the spelling list or the specific book we are reading.  These activities are just for FUN!!  If I can get them excited about how words work, and how the letters affect the other letters, then I feel successful.   Click here for a post about how I use Boggle in my intervention groups One of my go to games for Word Work is Boggle .  It's awesome, and the kids *love* showing others the words they found.  My other ab-fab games are my  Word Family Games   .  I made these games back when I was a literacy specialist, and used them at least 1x per week with every group.    My struggling students love this game, and I knew they were practicing the comm...