UFLI in the Classroom

This was my first full year implementing UFLI in my classroom and I loved it. Once we got into the routines, I saw so much growth in my students. They really had a strong foundation with the short vowels, consonant sounds and blends, digraphs, and even starting to get into the long vowels. Next year, I will still be doing UFLI with my third grade students, but I'm going to organize my supplies a bit differently. Let me show you what I did with my first graders and how I'm going to change it next year.

First up is how I save and access the Google Slides (free on the UFLI Toolbox):

When you access the Google Slides straight from the website, you are forced to make a copy (so you don't edit the original--makes sense!). 

But, did you know that all those copies end up in your Google Drive folder? So every time you make a copy, another version is put into your Drive. You end up with tons of extra files in your Drive. 

So what to do instead? Create a UFLI Folder on your Google Drive and add the files into there. When you open a copy of the UFLI Google Slides, click the little folder with arrow. This allows you to move the file into the UFLI folder you created. You can create a folder for different grades, classes, students, groups, etc. if you work with a number of different students. 

I organized my files by skill set: short vowels, digraphs, silent e, longer words, r control, long vowels, diphthongs, and prefixes/suffixes. I have all the files downloaded and organized, but you just need the ones you use for your grade. I just add a bookmark to my browser so that I can open up my UFLI folder with one click.

You can now rename the file if you want and delete/rearrange/change slides. Next time you open the file from your Google Drive folder (instead of right from the UFLI website), the changes will be there! I like to add in my own clipart on some of the slides, so that it matches the alphabet posters I have in my room, but that's just me and my everything-needs-to-match tendencies! I also don't use the checklist/schedule pages, so I just delete those.

Organizing your UFLI Slides is just one way to save time and energy. And if for some reason the UFLI website is down, you will still have access to your own Google Drive! 

Here is how I organized my UFLI materials that we used daily. First up is our whiteboard kits, for the auditory drill (writing the letter that makes the sound) and writing words and dictated sentences. We used these every day! I put my whiteboards in a large Ziploc bag with a black fine tip dry erase marker (Expo are still my favourite) and a square of black felt that we use as erasers. 

These are the whiteboards I bought two years ago. They are holding up ok so far with daily use. A few of the corners are curling up which is annoying. I might try to glue them down over the summer. I like that they have lines on one side and blank one the other. They are also magnetic, so I could use the magnetic letters on them if I chose to. I could only find these ones on Amazon.com, but the shipping wasn't too much. If you don't care if they are magnetic, you can use these ones from Amazon.ca.

The second thing we used (every other day) is our magnetic boards for making words. 

I bought my magnetic letters from Amazon. UFLI recommends using a single colour of magnetic letters, but I find the blue/red ones easily available. I also don't think students rely on the colours to remember the vowels--we use Secret Stories for our vowels, so they understand the importance of those letters! :) 

I ended up buying a set of these Magnetic Trays from Pioneer Valley. I liked that they were smaller in size (8-1/4" x 9-3/4") and that they had the alphabet printed on them, to make it easier to put the letters back in the correct spot. 

The only downside was that there wasn't room to build the word with the magnets on the trays. At Michaels last summer, I ended up finding these magnetic sentence strips. I cut them apart into 8" strips.

If you can't find them at Michaels though, I found some similar ones on Amazon:

The nice thing is they just sit on top of the magnetic letters (the letters don't stick) and they all stack together perfectly. 

I had a cute little bookshelf beside my carpet area that I used to display holiday books that has two spots that are the right size for our magnetic letter trays and whiteboard kits. The kids could easily grab them when we are at the carpet area for UFLI. We practiced all year on how to put the materials back neatly though. lol.

Now for next year, I will still be doing UFLI with my third graders, but we will most likely be doing it at our tables instead of at the carpet together. I'm going to try these metal caddies (from Amazon) at each table:

I'm going to keep whiteboards at the bottom, the magnet trays in the middle, then at the top I will keep whiteboard markers, erasers, scissors, and glue. Then I think each student will have their own pencil box for pencil crayons, a pencil, and an eraser. I'll post some pics in August when I start setting up.

Also, have you tried out the UFLI Game website? They have 8 different games that you can play online or download/print: Tic Tac Toe, Bingo, Roll n Read, Wordcards, Four in a Row, Race Game, Spiral Game, and Ups and Downs. 

Just click on the game you want to play, click "Select Words", and then "Words from UFLI Foundations". Then you can scroll down to the lesson you are on and click regular words (the phonics skills) and/or irregular words (heart words). You can select/deselect as many lists or words as you want. Then click finish.

You can use this to play whole group with your projector (good for review or to fill a few extra minutes), you can share the link for students to play on devices (just click "Share", then "Share link with word list", the copy the link or QR code), or you can print them to play in the classroom (click "Print", then "Print current board"; you have to change the layout to portrait or horizontal, depending on the game and how it looks). They just print black and white, so I like to use coloured cardstock to make them more exciting when I print them. 

Let me know if you have any questions about UFLI and how I used it. 

Daily Schedule - Sight Words and Poetry/Phonics

One of my projects this summer was to plan out how I wanted to teach sight words and phonics skills next year. My curriculum does not dictate what phonics skills we have to teach and which sight word lists to practice, so I came up with a yearly scope and sequence that I am pretty happy with! At the end of this post you'll find a link to a bunch of freebies. This chart is in there (and it's editable).

I have set aside about 20 minutes a day for sight words, poetry, and phonics. It usually works out to be about 5 minutes sight words, 5 minutes poetry, and 10 minutes phonics.

My plan is to teach five sight words a week. My word lists come from Dolch, Fry's, and a few randoms thrown in! The phonics skills are based on what I feel my students need to work on Grade 1. We spend the first few weeks reviewing the alphabet sounds (I like Beverly Tyner's sequence.) Then we move onto short vowels, silent E, digraphs, long vowels, blends, bossy R, and some diphthongs. Even though I teach this stuff whole group, I do spend time in my guided reading groups doing more focused work on sight words or phonics skills too, depending on the group's needs. 

Each week I display the five sight words of the week on this little board. I bought a little white board from the dollar store, added the title and some clipart, and stuck on five little Stikki Clips. (Have you heard of these things? They are pretty neat. I bought them from Really Good Stuff. Apparently they stick super well to cinder block walls!) Each week I just stick the words in the clips. Easy peasy! At the end of the week we retire the words to the word wall and on Monday we put up five new words.

Here's a peek at what we do all week long with these words:

On Monday we introduce the sight words and practice them using some free chants from Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade. Then we make a little mini book. Students cut apart the squares, staple it in the corner, and then practice tracing each sight word and colouring it (or rainbow writing it). They keep these mini books in their book boxes for a couple weeks to practice the sight words. They can read them during "read to self" time. 

On Tuesday we make and break the words. I scramble up the letters in each word and we practice putting them back together. I do this on the Mimio, but you can just use magnetic letters. 

On Wednesday we play Guess the Word. It's like hangman. I put dashes up for each letter in the word and the students take turns guessing letters. I cross off the letters they guess and cross off a section of the picture each time they make an incorrect guess. There are ten different monthly themed pictures. I don't just use the words of the week--I take any word from the word wall! 

On Thursday we read the Mystery Sentences. I write five sentences that each have one of the words of the week in it. We read the sentences together and try to figure out the missing word.

On Friday we play Swat the Sight Word. On the projector I display a page with the five words all over it. I choose two students, give them each a fly swatter, and call out one of the words. The students try to swat the word. I love this because there's not one winner; they can both find and swat a sight word! :) They love this game!

**I don't have any of the Mimio files for you to download, but I have put a blank PDF version of the four activities (Tues-Fri) into the freebie file. You can import the PDF into Mimio or Smart Notebook and add your own text to create the activities yourself. I have also included my sight word books and an editable version so you can put in your own five sight words.**

I keep all of my sight word stuff for the week in page protectors in my Phonics & Sight Words binders (blogged about this here). The sight word lists are three weeks of sight words. I use them during Word Work. I'll blog about this more later!

I number the back of all my word wall cards so that at the end of the year I can easily organize them back into the proper week.

After our sight word activity, we look at the poem of the week. I have poems from a variety of different sources, but mostly I use Deedee Wills' Poetry Station Packs. They are amazing! I place the poem onto sentence strips and display them on a large pocket chart. On Monday we read the poem together, on Tuesday we look for certain letters or phonics skills, on Wednesday we ready in different voices for fluency practice, on Thursday we highlight our word wall words in the poem, and on Friday we put the poem in our poetry folders. Sometimes we will highlight the word wall words in our folder or draw a picture to go with the poem. 

Then we have phonics time. On Mondays I usually introduce the phonics skill with a story, such as the Scholastic Phonics Tales. Then we brainstorm a list of words that contain that phonics skill on chart paper.

On Tuesdays we usually do some sort of phonics activity. My students love Babbling Abby's Highlight a Word from her Word Work packs. 

On Wednesday we usually do a read and match activity together. These cards are from Reagan Tunstall's Big Phonics Bundle. I love this bundle! It has so many activities for so many phonics skills!! It is well worth the price.

On Thursday we do another phonics activity... this might be a cut and paste activity or a read the room activity. I have so many things in my files from The Mailbox Magazine or other TpTers. I might also have a Phonics Read the Room pack in the works... but we'll see about that! ;)

On Friday we usually play Roll & Cover or Roll & Write. I photocopy the black & white versions of these games onto coloured paper so we can play as a whole group. Then I place a few laminated, coloured versions of the game in our word work centres so students can play them again during guided reading time.

I keep all of my phonics stuff for the week in page protectors in my Phonics & Sight Words binders (read about this here). 

The first five weeks of school are a little bit different for phonics because we are reviewing our alphabet sounds. We still do sight words each work (although the very first week of school we just focus on our names) and we do a poem of the week, but each week we focus on five (or six) letter sounds. I like to use Beverly Tyner's sequence. (If you haven't read any of her books, check out Small-Group Reading Instruction. It's really great!)

I'm planning on using activities from my new Alphabet Practice pack. Each week the activities are the same, but it focuses on a different set of letters. The first week is BSMAC, then TDLRI, JGHON, PUQWY, and lastly ZXEVKF.

On Monday we will practice the sounds that each letter make by chanting "b says /b/, m says /m/, etc." We sometimes add an action to go with it, like biting an apple for /a/ or bouncing a ball for /b/. Then we do a card sort in the pocket chart. We will sort the picture cards based on their initial sound (or final sound with X).

On Tuesday students will do a colour code activity. They have to write the initial letter of each word, then colour the picture using the colour code. Great practice for those colour words as well! Then when they are done, they can play Spin to the Top. They spin an uppercase letter and practice tracing the letters. When one letter reaches the top, they win!

On Wednesday we do a read the room activity. I place 12 cards around the room. Students find the card and write down the letter the word starts with beside the correct number. When done, they do a letter search on the back. They circle and count each type of letter and write number beside it. Great for identifying letters in different fonts!

On Thursday we do a cut and paste sort. Students have to glue the correct lowercase letter and two beginning sound pictures beside the correct train engine. Then when they are done, they can play Roll to the Top. They roll a die and practice tracing the correct lowercase letters. When one letter reaches the top, they win!

On Friday we play a game. Either small group beginning sound BINGO (included in my Alphabet Practice pack), Roll & Cover, or Roll & Write. Check out these products by clicking the pictures below.

     

Well I hope that gives you some good ideas for teaching sight words, poetry, or phonics! Click the picture below to download some of the freebies from this post.

Phonics Cards Updated

I had a few requests to make my phonics cards into full-size posters and I finally finished adding the posters to my pack. I took the same 120 phonics sounds and turned them into large posters. So in the pack you get 120 small cards (3.5x3.5") and 120 large posters (8.5x11"). If you want smaller posters, you could print them off two to a page from Adobe. The price hasn't changed. If you already purchased the pack, make sure you go to TpT, My Purchases, and re-download the pack to get the additional posters!

Click this picture to check out the pack at TpT.

This is a sample of the small phonics cards--six to a page.

This is a sample of a large poster--same colours and clipart as the small cards.

Here is a quick preview of all 120 sounds included in the pack. 

Five for Friday {Father's Day and Freebies} ... whoa, alliteration!

I really had planned to link up on the actual Friday, but it was a lazy night. Watched a bit of TV with the animals and was in bed by 10. That's pretty early for me, especially on a weekend! So here I am, linking up for Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday on Saturday!

Random #1

There are only 8 days of school left!! Woo hoo!! I didn't go all fancy on our countdown. Just a little corner on the whiteboard.

Random #2

We made our Father's Day presents. I like the food idea, because what Dad doesn't like to eat?? So I came up with Dad's Nuts & Bolts! I used a no-bake recipe that my mom always makes around Christmas time. So yummy! I put out pretzels, goldfish crackers, Shreddies, Cheerios, and peanuts. Students put a scoop of each into a medium-size freezer Zip-loc bag. Then I put a tablespoon of "sauce" into the bag. The student then shook up their nuts & bolts and we stapled the cute bag topper onto the top. Easy peasy! We made 26 bags in only an hour. It went pretty smoothly. {Next time though I would put each item into a bowl though--way easier for littles to scoop out of!}

I think the bag topper turned out so cute! You can get the recipe and bag topper for free from TpT. Click {here}. For cards, we just used some scrap book paper cut in half and folded in half. Then I shrunk some cute Dad colouring pages (just search Google for some). Colour, cut, and glue. Done and done.

Random #3:

We did a fun search and find activity for the vowel sounds of "Y". First we listened to the song "Y Can Be A Vowel" from Starfall. Then I had hidden 16 cards around the room--8 of the cards had words that ended in a Y that sounded like an E (like bunny) and 8 of the cards had a Y that sounded like I (like fly). You can download this fun activity for free from {here}.

Random #4:

We have started working on our Year End Memory Books. They turned out super cute! I printed the covers on neon cardstock. On the back cover I included some photos of each child that I had taken throughout the year. I included a photo from the first day of school and a group silly photo. Then I added some randoms of that specific child. We are writing about things we have learned (favourite literacy centre, favourite math activity, favourite thing to do at recess, etc.) On the last day of school we will pass our memory books around and sign each other's book beside our school photos. These will make such a great keepsake!

Random #5:

I love shopping. Here's a few fun things I picked up this weekend!

This is a fun math game I found at Chapters! It's a number puzzle, but it will perfect for practicing subitizing! It works on numbers from 1-10 and practices dice patterns and finger patterns. Students can play by themselves as a puzzle or take turns rolling the dice with a partner. This will be a fun "Math with Someone" game.

Cute new book about a crocodile who LOVES watermelon... until he eats a seed! Uh oh! Adorable. I'm going to read this and do a watermelon activity afternoon sometime this week. Fun, fun! I plan to use this fun freebie from Jessica at Wild About Firsties!

I love my Toms shoes. I have a pair of grey classics and black classics and I wear them all the time! They are so freaking comfortable! Plus, I can feel good about buying shoes, because they donate a pair of shoes for every pair you buy! It's basically like donating to charity, right?? Well when I saw these new ballet flats, I had to get a pair! They are adorable and super comfy too! :)

Well, that's it for now! I have a house to clean and report cards to finish and some procrastinating to do. Happy Saturday!