Blend or Digraph

Over at I've Got Class, she shared an anchor chart that she created to help her students with this concept of two or more letters together, some making new sounds completely (digraph) and some we are able to hear each sound still (blend).  

Much of what I create or have the children create will be placed in their binders so I turned her anchor chart into a "notebooking page" just for L., my 1st grade student.  The more visuals the better at this stage in the game!

So a blend, like st, you can hear both sounds.  s is the cereal, so to speak, and t is the milk.  If you mix those together, you can still see the cereal and the milk.  In the blend st we can hear both the /s/ and the /t/.

 

In the digraph sh, s is the white milk and h is the chocolate syrup.  If you mix those together, you don't see the white milk, you see brown/chocolate milk.  So /sh/---makes a new sound completely.

 

Perfect for 1st grade minds!

 

Feel free to print this simple visual, for your own personal use, below...

Blend-Diagraph Notebooking Page

 

We'll be adding to this page by creating Post-It flaps for each blend/digraph we learn and sticking it to the back of this page or on another page connected to it. (A little thing I learned, run glue along the left edge of the paper (or top), press the next page to it, let dry and three hole punch it it makes it's own large flap.  Keeps like papers together.)   Post-It flaps...ah, simple!  Label the front, stick to paper, flip the flap up and write or draw pictures underneath.  So we'll write SH on the flap and underneath add pictures/stickers/words of words that have /sh/ in them.  Easy!  Perfect for review!

 

Hope you all had a lovely week!   Our school week went quite smoothly this week.  We are getting into a groove.  Now to start slipping back in the "extras" that I chose not to do this past week.  :-P

Rounding Whole Numbers

Rounding to the Nearest 10s

(but this activity can be used for most any type of rounding.)

 

With the two older students, who had not yet been accepted in MVCA, I was doing review to see where the students were at.  So, first off we did a Rounding Notebooking page.  This was a way to introduce the roller coaster/hill effect to rounding with using a number line. 

Then the children began doing some sheets to show me what they knew.  The 3rd grader was definitely not sure about rounding to the 10s place.  So I did the activity below with her.

 

I drew a hill that looked like her rounding notebook page on the magnetic dry-erase board. Then wrote the poem down that they had written down to go with their notebooking page.

Find the number,

Look right next door,

5 or more?

Raise the score!

4 or less?

Let it rest!

 

The houses were a twist from what I did with them during our place value review.

 Here it shows one house for each section.  On the board I used a house for each place.

Thousands, hundreds, tens, ones.

 

Note that I used a red roof for the 10s.  This was to remind her what we were rounding to and help her know what number was "next door".

We actually started with a single digit number and moved our way up to a 4 digit number when she was able to answer correctly and consistently.  For the pictures I used the 4 digit number but I do strongly suggest starting at just one digit, and be sure to use 4 or less and 5 or more digits in the ones place for each number of digits.  :-)  This was awesome for slipping in 'writing' numbers up to 9,999. 

 

After putting the number you are wanting to round up on the houses, then the next step is to put the number "next door" on the correct side of the hill.  Here we state "5 or more, raise the score; 4 or less, let it rest."

 

 

She knew that the last digit of the rounded number will always be zero so she put the zero in its place and then decided that she needed to "raise the score" so she brought down the 5 and put a 6 in it's place.  And then to slip in that extra "reading numbers to 9,999", she read the rounded number to me.

 

Turned into an easy and excellent, hands-on activity for rounding.  The moving of pieces really helped her understand what we were doing.  So tomorrow...she's going to get another set of numbers to round and be able to use the board if she wants, but I'm looking for her ability to round without the board.

 

And we are off!

Well, we have been off for a couple weeks now.  Starting our 3rd week actually, but time hasn't allowed for me to start the new blog.  Today I'm taking the time to do so.  :-)  I'll start with a picture and grades and a brief summary of what we are doing.  Then you can expect at least one post a week with "happenings" that are worth remember, at least for me.

There they are...and yes, it's a good show of their personalities! 

We have from the top...

A. 4th grade, presently being homeschooled.

E. 2nd grade, enrolled in Michigan Visual Charter Academy

W. 3rd grade, just got accepted TODAY in MVCA...yeah!

Left to right in the front row...

L. 1st grade, enrolled in MVCA

T., my youngest, 3 years old

C., 2nd grade, enrolled in MVCA.

 

Am I slightly busy...you bet.  Do I love it...you bet!

 

Like I mentioned to one mother at the end of last week (which was NOT as good as our first week)...I may be completely exhausted, brain fried, voice gone, and eyes crossing but at the end of the day, I can smile!  What a good feeling!  Lots of tweaks will be made over the next few weeks but we'll get there.

 

Welcome...Enjoy...and I love comments!  :-D

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

www.preschoollearning.blogspot.com

is the website for where we keep track of preschool "happenings".  :-)