Easy Word Work Ideas for First Grade
Email after email, I hear "How do you do word work? I want to expose my students to lots of different words but that's a lot of prep. I do want to spend hours each week trading out words!" To this, I say – "PREACH!" So, I'm stopping by with a picture-heavy post all about how Word Work runs during our Daily 5 block.
How Do You Change Out Choices?
Launching Word Work in mid-to-late August, my friends have 4 choices. I keep the activities in Sterilite containers with their week's words on Command Hooks
Where Do You Get Your Words?
Our weekly words come from Reading Street. While we don't use a basal for guided reading, I do like the phonics sequence and helps keep our team focused. The green words are a mix of the must-know words and some of the phonics-skill words. The yellow words are that week's spelling words and the blue words are the enrichment phonics words in the red section of each week (in the teacher's manual). I keep 3 copies of each word ring
Scaffolding Students
With so many moving parts to Daily 5, I try to provide as many scaffolds to my friends as possible. Yes, we did spend lots of time teaching and practicing each of these activities, but still – they're 6. Sometimes they forget. Sometimes they get off track. I find providing visual directions on the tops of each container really helps us keep focused…especially at the beginning of the month when we have new activities. When making visual directions, I prefer to use pictures of my kids, but sometimes (like Super Sentences) it becomes an example/step-by-step guide of what they are to do.
Our Favorites Word Work Choices
Hands down, Stamp It and Pyramid Writing quickly become our favorite centers. Note – I do save Stamp It for the second set of centers because there are more procedures for it (i.e. it's a mess). I have lots of training to do before I release students!
Pyramid Writing is another favorite. It's a very visual way to see our words and it's a simple-to-teach center perfect for the beginning of the year!
Differentiating Word Work
In addition to different words, many of our word work choices are also leveled. Within each container, I keep colored folders for my three different ability groups – below, at, and above grade level. Students know to pull the papers or recording sheets from their colored folder. This is a really simple way to make sure everyone is getting just what they need and what they are ready for!
Sentence Unscramble
Some of our other favorite Word Work activities in Sentence Scramble. Although a 'high maintenance' centers, my friends LOVE the challenge. You can read my post about how sentence scramble works here.
Sound Sorts
Now that we're learning about long vowels and vowel teams, we spend a little time each week sorting sounds we see and hear. This is wonderful phonics practice and I love that all my friends (regardless of level) get just-right phonics practice.
Going Digital with Word Sorts
As technology becomes a natural part of our classrooms these digital sorts are ideal for our 1st and 2nd grade friends. 
This is what is working for us right now! In the next week or so, I will switch up at activities to keep it fresh and interesting. I keep the word-ring storage the same, but will choose 4 of our other favorite word-work activities. I believe January will be long vowel dominoes
If you're interested in the Word Work resources I've show above, you can check them out here. So, tell me – what are your favorite Word Work activities??? I'd love to add some variety to our routine! 🙂
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Source: https://brownbagteacher.com/1st-grade-word-work-daily-5-style/
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