Busy Week with Lots of Literacy Activities & Some Apps! "Five for Friday"

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday to show you what my students have been accomplishing this week during my guided reading groups. 

My students have been busy writing all week.  They used their personalized writing books to respond to their reading.  My 2nd graders wrote facts they learned from their nonfiction texts, while my 4th graders used nonfiction text features to write about the cycle of milk becoming ice cream.  I loved how they went back into their books to help them spell tricky vocabulary words!  In addition, some of my 2nd grade groups participated in various Interactive Writing activities about their fictional texts.

My 2nd graders need lots of practice instantly identifying sight words while reading.  We *mixed and fixed* sight words on the iPads with the Magnetic ABC App (which is FREE), as well as on cookie sheets with magnetic letters.  Soon we'll be using the iPads and the SCAN App to listen to, match and spell PrePrimer through 3rd grade sight words.  You can check out the Audio QR Code sight word activities HERE. 

Magnetic ABC App icon

Explicitly teaching and modeling the use of fix-up strategies is a major portion of the time spent with the students in my RtI groups. To help support my students with visual reminders of the strategies, I've created posters and bookmarks for my students to reference while reading.  If you're interested, you can check them out HERE.  My little readers sure are getting the hang of it. :)

I took my first running records this week, since the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark testing has ended.  I documented my students' reading progress to see how they are doing with their strategy use.  I used the online running record resources from Fountas and Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention Kit.  So far, so good. :)

My 3rd graders have been working with words containing silent letters.  After recording the words on chart paper, the students practiced spelling and identifying the silent letters on the iPads using the ScreenChomp App.

ScreenChomp App icon

Well, there you have it.  That's my week in a nutshell.  Check out our Twitter and Instagram buttons for mini-blog posts of our literacy activities throughout the year!  Now, head on over to Doodle Bugs to share your Five for Friday. ;)

Have a great weekend!

P.S. On a side note, stop back next Friday for another literacy blog hop with a trail of freebies!