Compound Words

I'm not heading in to school this morning - I've got a doctor's appointment that coincides nicely with one of the last days College Girl is home before she heads back up to school. So before my appointment and before spending the day with my girl...  I've got this:

I honored some sweet teacher by copying this idea but that teacher's name is at school and I'm at home {boo, hiss}. Let me start by saying - my afternoons are soooooo looooooong. We come in from lunch recess at 12:10 and we have reading centers, reading whole group, phonics, writing and by then it is More than time to go back outside for afternoon recess. I think it would help if I could switch whole group with centers - and I was just about ready to ask permission for that - when the interventionist {after like a 2 month absence} came back in my room. Our interventionist is a friend, and she works Hard testing kids - and for at least half of the year, that's all she does. But when it's hit and miss... it's difficult. 

So that all leads up to this - I usually do powerpoints with my phonics lessons {to keep me on track!}. But by the time we get to phonics - I can see them - wilting, minds wandering off, etc. So I was thinking, I need to spice things up a bit. This week is compound words. And this is what we did:

I gave students a little card with a compound word written on it. Then we folded our paper {fold in half, open fold, fold each side to the half}. On the outside, they wrote and illustrated the two smaller words of the compound word. On the inside, they wrote and illustrated the compound word. If I'd gotten all excited, I could have had them write a sentence using the compound word. 

All in all, a nice little break from the usual. And the happy camper thing for me is - these pics are from two of my lower students. Yeah, it gives them a chance to shine. I hung all these outside my door. 

And this:

is what I had for breakfast - because today is surely about stuffing myself silly. Anyway, one of my students gave me this for Christmas - a nice little jar of cashew nuts, chocolate dusted almonds and M&Ms. Yum!