Word Work- we're rockin' it!

As many of you know, this is my first year using Daily 5 in my classroom.  I was really nervous about it at first, but after about a week of building stamina I was completely convinced it was perfect for my classroom.  My kids are more excited than ever to read and write.  I love the opportunity it gives me to work with small groups and individual students.  I'm in love with D5!
We have been working on building our stamina for awhile and maybe a little more slowly than we needed to, but by doing it this way I am positive my students have really built their stamina.  I just introduced Word Work last week and the students were so, so excited to start it.  I started with these activities:

 Scrabble spelling- One of my co-workers generously donated Scrabble tiles to our classroom.  :)
You could also just use the worksheet on the left if you don't have the tiles.   Here is a link to the recording pages I made.

Bendaroo Spelling- My awesome mother bought me 5 boxes of Bendaroos that she found on clearance.  Score!  My kids are loving them.  These are also a pretty good deal.  I separated them into separate plastic baggies so that students can just grab a bag and get started working quickly.  They also know that they can grab a clipboard if they're wanting to sit on the floor.

Stamper Spelling- This is just what it sounds like.  Kids use rubber letter stamps (like these) to spell words.  I have the stamps, stamp pad and plain paper stored in a plastic bin.

Rainbow Spelling- This is an idea that I found on Pinterest.  You can find the original item from Gracehopper Learning here on TpT.  To give my students easy access to this activity, I shrank the original file down to 1/4 page and printed four per page.  I was then able to glue it down on some card stock and laminate it so that it would be durable.  In a quart-sized bag, I put it in the instruction sheet, 6 markers and one die.  I found some awesome eraser "dot cubes" aka dice at the Dollar Tree.  I love them because they are quiet when students roll them on desks.  ;)  All of the materials that students need are stored inside one plastic bag, so they can just grab and go.

Bead Spelling- For this activity, I found a bag of letter beads on clearance at Walmart.  I just love a good bargain.  Then, I bought some plasticy string stuff (think Boondoggle keychains) at the Dollar Tree for student to use.  This stuff is great because it won't ravel or fray when students are using it.  It was also really cheap.  Plus, every time I see it it makes me giggle because this is all I can think of:

I'm still working on the perfect way to store this center.  Right now all of the beads are just dumped into a plastic storage bin, but I'm thinking I want a way to separate letters so that the student can quickly make words...hmmm.  Any ideas on storage containers?

Foam Letter Spelling-  This is pretty self explanatory.  My wonderful mother also bought some foam letter puzzles for me and I popped out all the letters so that students can spelling with them.  

Mixed-Up Sentences- The final Word Work activity that I've introduced so far to my students is from The School Supply Addict's blog.  To find out more about this cool activity, see her blog post.  My students really enjoyed this activity.  I only have two sets right now, but I'm going to make more since they loved it so much.   Here is the link to get the freebie recording sheets.  

To go along with our Word Work activities, I also made a supply request sheet.  This will (hopefully) prevent students from interrupting me when I'm working with small groups.  I hope it works!  

Click here if you would like a copy.

Once we get some more stamina added to our graph, I plan on adding more activities that my students can choose.  I have found lots of great ideas on Pinterest.  What are your students' favorite Word Work activities?  

Here is a cute pic of my littles doing Word Work this week.  The two that appear to be looking at me were actually checking out our spelling word list on the wall.  Isn't it great to see completely engaged students?  I love it!  (I also love the new panoramic feature on the iPhone.)

I also just posted some cute little Chevron Writing Prompt Cards on my TpT store.  Over 60 fun writing prompts for students.  Go grab them for just $2.00!  

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