Showing posts with label ELA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ELA. Show all posts

BOOM Learning Cards: A Game-Changer for Every Classroom

how to use digital task cards

In today's ever-changing educational landscape, technology has become an integral part of the learning process. As teachers, we are always looking for ways to engage our students in interactive and effective ways while nurturing their love for learning. This is where Boom™ Learning cards come into play. Boom™ Learning is an innovative platform that offers a wide range of digital learning cards designed specifically for elementary students. 

Immersive and Interactive Learning:
Boom™ Learning cards provide a dynamic and immersive learning experience that engages students' attention. The platform combines appealing visuals, interactive activities, and instant feedback, making learning fun and exciting for young minds. With Boom Cards, students actively participate in their learning, promoting critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Differentiated Instruction:
One of the greatest challenges for elementary teachers is catering to the diverse needs and learning styles of students in a single classroom. Boom™ Learning cards offer an extensive library of cards that cover various topics and skills, allowing for differentiation and personalized instruction. Teachers can easily assign specific decks to individual students or groups, tailoring the learning experience to meet their unique requirements.

Self-Paced Learning:
Every student learns at a different pace. Boom™ Learning cards provide a self-paced learning environment where students can progress through activities at their own speed. This individualized approach enables students to grasp concepts thoroughly before moving forward, reducing frustration and building confidence. Teachers can track students' progress and identify areas where additional support may be needed, providing targeted intervention when required.

digital task cards, Boom Learning

Real-Time Feedback and Assessment:
Assessment plays a crucial role in monitoring student progress and informing instruction. Boom™ Learning cards offer real-time feedback, allowing students to receive immediate responses to their answers. This instant feedback not only helps students identify mistakes, but also reinforces correct responses. Teachers can access comprehensive data and reports, gaining valuable insights into student performance, identifying areas of strength and weakness, and tailoring their teaching accordingly.

Engaging and Interactive Assessments:
Traditional assessments can often be mundane for students. Boom™ Learning cards introduce gamification elements to assessments, transforming them into exciting challenges. Students can earn rewards, unlock levels, and achieve milestones as they progress, fostering a sense of accomplishment and motivation. By making assessments enjoyable, Boom™ Learning cards help reduce test anxiety and promote a positive attitude towards learning.

digital task cards for r-controlled vowels

Seamless Integration and Easy Accessibility:
Boom™ Learning cards can be seamlessly integrated into existing lesson plans and curriculum. The platform is compatible with various devices, including laptops, tablets, and interactive whiteboards, ensuring easy accessibility for both teachers and students. Additionally, Boom Cards can be used in the classroom or assigned for homework, extending the learning experience beyond the school walls.

Ready To Get Started with BOOM Learning? 
Your students will be so excited to use Boom™ Learning and you will love the ease of use. Simply assign your class a deck of your choice and watch the magic happen. CLICK HERE for a closer look.

Free digital task cards
*Disclaimer: "I may earn a referral prize when you use my discount."

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R-Controlled Vowels Activities

R-Controlled Vowels

When students have a strong control of phonics patterns, they are able to easily decode the words on the pages in front of them. This leads to a higher rate of fluency and ultimately stronger comprehension. However, when students don't have a strong grasp of phonics skills, they tend to struggle as readers. Consistently working on phonics patterns, including r-controlled vowels, will help students improve their reading fluency and become more confident readers.

What are R-Controlled Vowels?
R-controlled vowels, also know as "bossy-r" can be a tricky concept for young readers to grasp. These phonics patterns occur when a vowel is followed by the letter R, and as a result the vowel sound is changed. These two letters combine to form one sound where the vowel sound is silent.

I have so many students each year that struggle with this phonics skill, so I decided to create some NO PREP, fun and engaging activities for them to practice the "bossy-r" sound and spelling patterns! These packets have a wide variety of activities to allow for differentiation for each of your students in order for them to master those r-controlled vowels! I have also created several r-controlled vowels BOOM Card decks for students to use on their devices in class and at home for extra practice!

"bossy-r" no prep worksheets




R-controlled vowels BOOM decks

Nothing engages my students more than a quick game of Scoot or Read the Room with a set of task cards! They can never get enough practice reading and writing with r-controlled vowels. That's one reason I love using these r-controlled vowel task cards with my class. They are also great to use at a center, for intervention, or even early finishers because they are self-checking and easy to prep.

r-controlled vowels ar, or, ir, er, ur



R-controlled vowels

How To Teach R-Controlled Vowels?
As with any phonics skill, constant, repetitive modeling is essential to your students' understanding. R-controlled vowels are tricky for many early learners. Model the r-controlled vowel patterns by holding up a vowel and saying its sound. Then add the "r" sound next to it. Next, model how the sound changes when the two letters are together. Finally, have students make the different sounds with you and then on their own.

R-controlled vowel BOOM cards



How Are the Packets Organized?
The bundle covers ar, ir, er, or, ur and "air" and "ear" vowel sounds. There are 5 different packets included in the bundle: ar words, or words, er, ir, ur words together, "air" words and "ear" words. Ten activities with 2-4 different variations are included in each packet.

When introducing and teaching the er, ir, ur, "ear" and "air" sounds, it is important to understand there are several different spelling patterns that make the same sound. Students need a tremendous amount of practice to become familiar with the sounds and spellings, as they cannot know the correct spelling with just the sound itself. When students see the spelling patterns in these words, in a variety of ways and  formats, they begin to internalize the spelling patterns and can begin to memorize which option goes with each word. 

"bossy-r" no prep worksheets

In order to help your students build fluency with r-controlled vowels, I have some FREE pages from the different packets included in the bundle. Click on the picture below to grab them!

R-Controlled Vowels


Ways to Use Worksheets and BOOM Cards In the Classroom:
⭐ Morning Work Activities
⭐ Early Finishers
⭐ Center Activities
⭐ Small Group / Intervention
⭐ Test Prep Activities
⭐ Homework and Review Packets
⭐ Sub Binder Activities 

I hope these activities help your students master those tricky r-controlled vowels, while helping them build fluency and reading skills at the same time.

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2nd Grade No Prep Review Worksheets

ELA and Math Review Worksheets

As elementary educators, we know first hand the significant amount of time we invest in preparing and planning meaningful activities for our students. We carefully craft and plan morning warm-up activities, center activities, guided reading activities and the list goes on and on. However, it's important to acknowledge that not every activity requires hours of preparation. In fact, spending a crazy amount of time on lesson prep only distracts us from other essential tasks. If you are looking for ways to save time and prioritize what really matters in your classroom, no-prep review worksheets are the way to go!
 
What are No-Prep Review Worksheets?
These no prep worksheets for 2nd grade are perfect for reviewing skills and are standards-aligned! This means they can be used in a variety of ways to provide additional practice with specific skills and standards. The worksheets cover important grade level skills in ELA, math and grammar, AND an added bonus....they come in a DIGITAL format too! That's right! No time to copy a class set? Ran out of copies for the month? No problem. These skills worksheets can be assigned digitally, as well! 

ELA and Math Review Worksheets


What are the Benefits?

💓 Easy to prep

💓 Choose print or digital formats

💓 Are aligned to grade level standards

💓 Saves valuable planning time

💓 Prevents endless hours of searching for the perfect materials

💓 Provides engaging review

💓 Helps with differentiation

Free ELA and Math Review Worksheets

Ways to Use Worksheets In the Classroom:

2nd grade math and ela review worksheets

⭐ Morning Work Activities
⭐ Early Finishers
⭐ Center Activities
⭐ Small Group / Intervention
⭐ Test Prep Activities
⭐ Homework and Review Packets
⭐ Sub Binder Activities 

Check out some of the topics included in the monthly no-prep packs:


ELA + Grammar
✔ synonyms + antonyms                                                                
✔ nouns                                                                                           
✔ verbs                                                                                            
✔ incomplete + complete sentences                                                
✔ sentence editing                                                                           
✔ rhyming words                                                                             
✔ short and long vowels                                                                  
✔ monthly vocabulary word search and word scrambles

Math
✔ missing numbers
✔ number order
✔ place value
✔ greater than / less than
✔ skip counting
✔ odd and even
✔ subtracting to 20



ELA + Grammar
✔ syllables
✔ long + short vowels
✔ vowel sounds
✔ complete and incomplete sentences
✔ nouns and verbs
✔ syllables
✔ monthly vocabulary word search and word scrambles

Math
✔ equal + not equal equations
✔ more or less: 10 and 100
✔ skip counting
✔ two-digit addition and subtraction without regrouping
✔ adding and subtraction to 20

Check out the other 2nd grade monthly review worksheets:



ELA and Math Review Worksheets


I hope these monthly review worksheets for 2nd grade save you tons of planning and prep time while helping your students review important standards and skills!

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Homework: What's The Point?

Homework...the dreaded word for so many parents and children.

Why do teachers assign it? Why do kids and parents usually dread it? 

WHAT'S THE POINT? ✎

* Please note: The comments in this post are my opinions solely. They are based on my experiences as a classroom teacher for over 20 years and being a mother of school aged children. There is no hard core research behind my findings, just real world experiences and observations that have influenced my opinions.

This is a blog post I have been mulling over in my mind for quite some time now. I have started and stopped writing my opinions about homework and the positives and negatives about children being assigned work to do at home. It's so controversial. What will people think? Well...no more! Here it goes!

As a parent and teacher, I believe homework should NEVER be assigned as "busy work" for children to complete. It needs to be meaningful and have purpose. The meaning and purpose need to be CLEARLY communicated to the students and parents. I also believe the homework process should NOT take up a large portion of the child's after school time.

I have a middle school aged child, who has 3-5 hours or more of homework every night! It's ridiculous! Then, I have an upper elementary aged child who has 20 minutes of homework a night. Sometimes he doesn't even have any! I think that is ridiculous as well! Finding a balance is difficult, but necessary.

I do, however, believe there are many useful reasons for children to have homework assigned to them. And for the most part, the positives outweigh the negatives.

 

Teaching children good study habits from a young age is key to their academic success. Providing a consistent, quiet learning environment is extremely helpful, but not always possible. Children also need to learn how to get their work done even when "life is happening around them." Sometimes this is easier said than done. 


My children always know the first thing they do when they come home from school is get their homework started. It is never a fight. They might get a snack to have while doing their work, but they know the work needs to get done before anything else. Now, don't get me wrong, there are days when sports practices or doctor's appointments prevent this from happening. BUT, whenever we get home, they know the homework needs to be completed. 

A consistent routine and expectations for homework help to lay the foundation for good study habits.


Children need to learn to complete tasks within a finite amount of time. This obviously changes with a child's age and school experience. But learning how to manage one's time is a daily life skill that needs to be mastered.

Homework helps students understand and learn these skills. When children have after school activities AND homework to complete, they need to manage their time correctly. This is not a skill they can learn on their own. They need the guidance and support of their parents and teachers to help them understand how to grow their time management skills.


In my classroom, I give my students a weekly homework packet which includes daily homework mini packets that need to be turned in each day. I explain to my students and parents, at the beginning of the school year, WHY I design homework this way. First, I don't want my students sitting down in one afternoon and completing a week's worth of work in one day. Second, I want to give them options if necessary. If on Wednesday, Alexa has dance class until 5:00pm, she can start that day's homework earlier in the week to help reduce Wednesday's work load.

Parents understand and appreciate the flexibility and help their child manage their time.


When my children were starting elementary school, I spent time helping them with their homework. As each year progressed, I did less and less. My husband and I let them struggle a bit. They learn to work through things that don't come to them quickly and easily.


Up until about 4th grade, we checked out kids homework each night. Let's be honest, after 4th grade things take longer to check and the concepts are WAY more complex. You just skim for completion and quality at this point.

If it was messy, they were told to redo the assignment. If they didn't put forth their best effort, we asked them how they thought they could improve. Then they fixed it. By doing this at an early age, both kids learned to work more independently. They were able to gauge what quality work should look like on their own. This carried over into the classroom and hopefully one day, to their jobs.


We have always told our kids, school is their job. It's the one thing they have to focus on and do well. It's their responsibility to themselves and to our family.

Completing a homework assignment, putting it into their backpack, and turning it in the next day to their teacher is CRUCIAL. It's not my responsibility or my husband's responsibility to put their homework in their backpack. It's the CHILD's responsibility!

As a teacher, I loathe the answer to "Where is your homework?" The answer is either "My mom/dad forgot to put it in my backpack" or "I left it at home." And my response is always, "Who's homework is it? Who's responsibility is it to turn it in?" They usually get the meaning of the message quickly.


Homework should be a time to review and practice skills taught in school. It should NOT be a time to learn new concepts they have never been exposed to.

Homework should also be a time when parents interact with what their child is learning in school. 

Look at what skills are being reviewed for homework. Is the homework connected to the standards? Did your child understand what was taught in class? Can you clarify any concepts for your child? 

If you notice your child struggling with their homework or specific skills, reach out to the teacher. If the homework is too easy or it is taking too long to complete, reach out to the teacher.

Homework time should be one of the indicators of how your child is doing in class when you are apart from one another.

Ask questions! Stay connected!


Looking for homework resources? Click the links below for a closer look.


             Spelling Resources

 

    A Year of Skills in Review: First to Second Grade AND Second to Third Grade



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Interactive Notebooks Tips & Tricks: Part 4

Welcome to Part 4 of my Interactive Notebooks Tips and Tricks blog series. This week I am discussing everything about rubrics and grading.

I have to admit, when I first started using interactive notebooks I didn't use a rubric. I modeled how the pages should be completed and explained my expectations, but there was no visual reference for the students to refer to besides my model page. Most of my classes were OK with that. However, this last year was a bit different. My students needed the rubric to be successful. 


I created this kid-friendly rubric for each of them to glue into the inside of the front cover of their notebook. I also post a copy of it on our math concept board for easy reference!


If you would like a copy of the rubric to use, you can grab it by clicking on the picture below. This FREEBIE also comes with sample math interactive notebook pages for you to use as well. 




Grading... this can be tricky and time consuming if you are using interactive notebooks during whole class time. Collecting and grading 24+ notebooks is just one more thing you do NOT need on your plate. If you are using interactive notebooks during small group time, it is a bit more manageable to grade. 

To solve this great dilemma in my classroom, I switch between whole group and small group time when using INB. This way I can focus on grading a small number of  student notebooks at a time. I use the rubric and then add constructive and meaningful comments. This allows the students to know what they are doing well, and how they can improve their work too.

Using a rubric and grading interactive notebooks looks different in every classroom. Check out these grading tips to help you get started.


But....let's be honest.... grading and commenting on all these notebook pages is difficult to keep up with. It is SO easy to fall behind and then you just throw your hands up in the air and give up trying to grade them. 

In order to tackle this problem, I would have my students "grade" themselves on all their pages they completed. Once a week, I would have them choose one page they wanted me to look at and comment on. Of course, I looked at all the pages, but I only commented on the one page they chose. This kept the kids honest about their work quality and grading. They knew I was going to look at it at some point!

Using a rubric and grading interactive notebooks looks different in every classroom. Check out these grading tips to help you get started.

Using a rubric and grading interactive notebooks looks different in every classroom. Check out these grading tips to help you get started.

I hope this blog series about Interactive Notebooks: Tips and Tricks gave you some new ideas and inspiration to get started using them with your students or at least a new idea to implement if you are already using them. Remember that it is an ever evolving process. Each class is different. Find what you love and make it work for you and your students! 


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Did you miss any part of this blog series? No worries. Just click on the links below to the posts you missed and get started!