September 25, 2016
The week before last we had a full moon.  It showed all around the school.  I was so ready for the weekend.  This past Friday afternoon at 2:45 our kindergartners had their annual Teddy Bear Parade. At 9:15 AM the assistant principal announced during the morning announcements that the parade would be at 2:45.  My students went berserk with excitement. Only, they misunderstood and thought the assistant principal had said 10:45 AM.  So, at 10:45, several students interrupted class to announce that it was 10:45 and that we all needed to go sit in the hallway for the parade. How much learning do you think really took place from 9:15 to 10:45 in anticipation of this event?  Hmm.  I had to break it to them that the parade would be at 2:45. Disappointed, they went back to work.

At 2:45, our class has specials.  We were on the way when we heard clapping in the near distance.  Here comes the parade, the little cherubs pulling their sweet little stuffed animals in or on adorable homemade parade floats.  They parade up and down each hall in the building.  Precious.  Absolutely precious.  All of the other kids sat lined along the walls in the halls and clapped in admiration as the little tykes showed off their toys. Thankfully, I wasn't one of the teachers who had to teach for that last 45 minutes of the day.  Thankfully, it was my planning time-2:45 on Friday afternoon.

I made the 3rd vocabulary development activity using prefixes.  This time the prefix is "a-" with three different meanings.

Click here to buy this activity. I included a page of the words and the headings for a word sort, but I think I'm not going to use the sorting activity this time.  The sort is typically by the different prefixes.  This time there is only one prefix and the sort is by meaning.  The kids would not be able to do the sort unless there is a direct instruction lesson or they know the meanings of the words already.  This time, I'm going to have the kids do the puzzles first and concurrently fill out the word chart with the word, the prefix and its meaning, the base word, and the definition.  After that, they can use their word charts with definitions to help them complete the fill-in-the-blank sentences activity. It is my hope that between the definitions on the chart and the context clues in the sentences, students will be successful with this activity.

You can try a similar prefix activity for free by clicking here.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

Happy Teaching!
~Gwen