Free For All Friday

I am so happy it’s Friday!  It was 104 degrees today . . . we didn’t get ANY recesses, not even the morning one.  🙁  I felt so bad for the kids AND me!  But my firsties are still amazing and we had a great day together.  However, I am melting.

I can’t wait to look at all of the freebies!  I am going to offer up a couple of word family sorts.  We just finished working on the -at, -an, and -am word families and next week we will be working on short i word families.  For those of you who “get” to do The Daily Five, maybe you can use them for word work.  I am not sure how I will incorporate them this year but I used them last year as a Phonics Center.  THIS YEAR . . . is different.  And I am very afraid that I am going to get into trouble.  Not for blogging when I was supposed to be teaching.  Not for talking on my cell phone when I was supposed to be teaching.  Not for sitting at my desk with my feet up when I was supposed to be teaching.  Nope.  I am afraid that I am in trouble because I gave a Spelling Test during my two and a half hour Language Arts block and at our grade level meeting with my principal, we (AS IN the principal) agreed that since the Spelling Tests we created are “supplemental”, we have to give them during our Universal Access time.  And folks, it was well past that time.  I don’t know about you all, but I am STILL going over procedures and routines and everything takes sooooo long with these babies.  And even though my spelling test covered the -am and -an word families that were taught during the Houghton Mifflin block and also covered the two (yep – just two) high frequency words that were taught during the HM block, I —- GASP!!!! —– I called the high frequency words —– can’t believe I did this in front of the principal —— SIGHT WORDS.  (just in case you didn’t know, I cheated on HM with that.  No fidelity whatsoever)

And then, a little bit later, RIGHT AFTER our inside recess time (so fun – wish you could have been there), I had to take a moment to explain to the class that when I say “snack time”, I actually mean “you can eat that in the classroom NOW”.  The majority of my kids got it but I had a couple who wanted to know when we were going to have snack.  (Which I just don’t get.  You’re playing blocks with your buddy who is eating a bag of chips or a pudding cup or string cheese, and no bells go off in your head?  Seriously?)  Anyways, as I’m taking this moment, my ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL came in.  And she actually said she was just seeing what I was doing.  Yep.  I think she was checking to see if I was teaching math during our FIDELITY TO THE CORE time.  I wasn’t.  So, being quick on my feet and everything, I said, “Oh, we are just about to grab our reading anthologies and REVISIT THE LITERATURE from this week.”  (good buzz words in HM)  All true.  Really.  I am not joking or being sarcastic.  But now I’m sure she’s thinking that I was just wasting time.

I think I’m in big trouble.  My partner does, too, because SHE gave her spelling test at the wrong time, too, and our principal passed through.  And then when the Assistant Principal walked in, she was doing whiteboard work which did not match her lesson plans.  I really just do not understand what has happened to my career.  I barely recognize it.  What is it that I do again????

SO . . . I have absolutely NO CLUE when I’ll ever use these again.  But maybe you can!

Be sure to copy the words on colored copy paper so that the kiddos have no confusion when they get their materials.

Short a word families: