D5 and guided reading fun

I thought I'd share a couple of ways we practice "Working with Words" in both our Daily 5 routine and during guided reading. I love Scrabble, so naturally I try to fit the tiles into our word work. Here is one of my students making words with them. We were working on the long o sound -oa.

Here is how I store the tiles. This divided container was part of the tool box I use for Guided Reading. I posted about it here.

Wonder how I came by so many tiles? Garage sales, baby.

 This is one of my favorite new ways to work with word families. I went to the hardware store and picked up some paint chips. Watch out, they don't like customers taking a huge stack. I've invested so much in Behr Paint that I don't feel too guilty. I got both the single color cards and the ones with multiple hues and shades of the same color. I punched a nice big round hole on the single color card, and wrote a word family ending on it with Sharpie. Then I added initial and ending sounds to the other card. The firsties slide the card with the punch over the other card, and in doing so, make words. Then they write the word they made in their "Working with Words" notebook. I love these because they are so pretty. Nice reason, huh? Pretty makes everything more fun! The cards are also very sturdy. They last a long time!

This is how I store the paint chips. This large coupon organizer was in the dollar aisle at Target a few years ago.

I'm always looking for new ways to make Working with Words fun and creative! Firstie buy-in is so much greater when it's fun and novel!