Word Work

We are learning about the many ways that long vowel sounds are spelled in words. We are taking an Expeditionary Learning approach to this study rather than a teacher directed approach. This means that we are searching all of our reading materials and noticing different ways that a sound might be spelled. Then we write out these words on sticky notes and sort them by type on a chart. We have had some amazing discussions about words and how they work. The crew is becoming very good at noticing and finding a wide variety of spellings for the different vowel sounds we have focused on so far. That is the goal of this study - to notice how words work and begin to make connections between words, letters, sounds and spellings. We are not trying to learn to spell all of these words perfectly. That comes later after we have a better understanding of how words work and are put together. Since we are taking an Expeditionary Learning type of approach to our word work that also means that we follow the lead of the students and study the things that they notice, find and have meaning for them. For example, I would not normally introduce the "eigh" spelling of the long "a" sound in first grade but since Creighton is in our crew, it came up quite naturally. The crew was surprised to notice that while it sounds like there is a letter "a" in Creighton's name, there isn't an "a" in his name. This led us to notice the spelling of the number eight in math and the word weigh as we were reading a nonfiction book about turtles. The crew loves to find more words throughout our days that follow some of these patterns and it is truly the best way to learn. Be sure to have discussions with your child when they notice things like this as they are reading roads signs in the car or books with you in the evenings.

Home Learning ~ Read a good book or two or try an online book. Check out a Bedtime Math story or play a math game.