Words Their Way - How I Make it Work!

Words Their Way can be a bit of a daunting undertaking! Six years of working with it in my classroom has led me to the structure and set up that I currently use. In my second grade class, the students make dramatic jumps in their spelling pattern knowledge and WTW really accelerates their learning.

Let's jump into creating word study groups!

Spelling inventories help you to determine which spelling patterns students have a strong knowledge of, which ones they are using but confusing, and which ones they don't know at all.

The Words Their Way books provide you with different inventories (primary, elementary, and upper level inventory)




Personally, I prefer to use the spelling inventory version by Second Story Window. Check it out here! This version uses the same words, but changes up the format so that you can use the same sheet for the whole year. It makes it very easy to see individual student growth through the year.

Once you have the student inventories, it's vital to put the students into groups based on the spelling patterns they are working on. I try to keep my groups between 2 and 5 students because I want to make sure that students are getting an opportunities to talk through the sorting with a peer, and I want to make sure that all students are participating in the sorting.

Having lots of groups can be confusing (for me and the kids)! I keep a record in my Words Their Way binder, but I also keep a board up in my classroom that I can refer to easily and so the kids can remember the name and number of their sort.

Once you have your groups, then it's time to get started sorting and thinking!

Here's the rundown of a normal week of Words Their Way in my room.

Monday

Each Monday my groups receive their new sorts. They have to cut out their words, sort them as a group, and then raise their hands to show me they are ready to check over their work. I make sure that they understand the sorts and we have a short conversations about what the words mean. (This is an often overlooked component of Words Their Way that we go back to on Tuesdays.) Once checked, the students then write the words in the Sort and Search sheets.

Take a peek below at one of my groups working together to sort their words!

When finished with sorting and writing, my students have to think about a tip or a trick that will help them remember how to sort the words in the future. I've found that this section really makes the students explain the pattern in their own words. After that, they can work on the word search. This word search serves the purpose of occupying the quicker groups, giving me time to work with the other groups that require more help or time to finish.

Tuesday

On Tuesdays we take about 10 minutes out of our Daily 5 and CAFE language arts schedule to reinforce the meanings of the words with a Matching Meaning sheet. This is meant to be a quick review consisting of a definition/picture match section, a cloze sentence section, and a find the word paragraph. It helps to give the words meaningful context!

Tuesday - Thursday

During our Daily 5 time on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, my Word Work station is made up of games that help students practice sorting their words for the week. I put out the correlating games on the work work table, and students can reference the Word Sort bulletin board to remember which sort is their own. I have Connect 4 or Domino games for each sort all the way from Letter Name Alphabetic and Within Word Pattern to Syllable and Affixes.

Wednesday

On Wednesdays we complete another quick spelling activity to continue working with the words. Our Spelling Foldables address a variety of spelling and vocabulary skills. We only do one per week and so switching the 5 different activities keeps the students from becoming bored. 

The Consonants and Vowels Foldable is particularly helpful for students working with different long vowels patterns!

Spelling Foldables

- Draw and Label

- Consonants and Vowels

- Word Hunt

- Sentence Writing

- Alphabetical Order

Thursday

On Thursday we head into the computer lab for about 20 minutes to practice our words with the SpellingCity website/app. My kids LOVE playing these games and the extra practice is GREAT for them! What's even better is that the site already has all the lists typed up for you! (Cause you do not want to be typing in 200 some lists of words...) I often assign my students SpellingCity for homework as well. A subscription to the site costs only 60 a bucks a year and is SO worth it!

Friday 

Finally, on Fridays my students all pull their words out of their baggies and do a final sort. They then check the sort, either by conferencing with me, or by looking back at their Sort and Search sheet and then glue them into their notebook. When all members of their group have finished the final sort, I call them to me to take their spelling quiz. 

As of right now, the spelling quiz is nothin' fancy. I just call out 10 words from the sort, making sure that I hit on all the spelling patterns. I've got a few plans to jazz up my quizzes, but you'll have to wait and see!

And that's basically how I set up Words Their Way in my classroom! 

Digging Up Some Fossil Activities...

What student isn't immediately entranced by the topic of fossils? It brings to mind digging in the dirt, finding amazing things, and dreaming of giant long-dead reptiles...Cool, right?

I usually introduce any new science or social studies topic with a vocabulary foldable. This way any topic specific language is dealt with upfront; this also benefits my students who are still picking up English and probably have never seen some of these words before. 

I mean, would you know the word for paleontologist in Spanish??

(It's paleontologo, btw)

Click here or the picture to grab this spinning Fossil Vocabulary Foldable!

I only give my kids three basic terms for fossils: Fossil, paleontologist, and extinct. Many fossils terms are technical and their little brains explode if I try to give them too many technical definitions at once! The fact that this foldable spins, makes it an instant crowd pleaser with my second graders. If you can find sparkly or gemstone brads to use, then its a real winner!



At my school, we focus on the different types of fossils: true form fossils, trace fossils and cast and mold fossils. For each of these, I designed a little craft to make the definition more memorable. You can see our trace fossil footprint craft above! That product isn't quite ready for unveiling yet, but look out for it in my TPT store soon! To help the kids remember the names of these different types of fossils, I busted out my set of plastic dinos and my ipad and whipped up this cinematic masterpiece! (If you want to check out any of my other educational videos, CLICK HERE to head over to my youtube channel or simply click the videos tab at the top of the page!)

That dino may have some moves, but the clear star here is my cat! 

In a perfect world, I would introduce the topic, do a little bit of learning and then hop on a bus and field trip over to a museum where we could stand, awestruck, in front of real dinosaur bones. Alas, living Guatemala City, there are no dinosaur museums to visit. As a result, I've become very good at persuading scientists from around the world to skype with my class... (Thank you random meteorologist from my hometown!)

This time I managed to find Adam Pritchard, through his website Past Time: A Paleontology Podcast Where the Past is the Key to the Present. Let me tell you, he did an excellent job! He often does skype sessions with classrooms around the world. If you're interested, you can find out more details and contact him by going through his website!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for skyping with us, Adam!

I love getting my kids all fired up about the science and social studies topics that we learn about! (chatting with a real paleontologist is one way to do this) I really love it when they take that enthusiasm home with them; and it makes my day when parents tell me that they got involved researching or talking with their child about the topic!

I try to keep parents updated on the things that we learn in class, and one way that I do this is through Take-Home Projects!!

Introducing the
DINOSAUR FOSSIL TAKE HOME PROJECT!!!

I try to make sure that these projects are simple to complete and don't require too many materials. I also send these home a week and a half or two weeks before I want them to come back. If anything, I want to give families more than enough time to work on together on the project!

Another key aspect of assigning these projects is modeling. The day that I send them home, I basically do the entire project as the students watch. I take them step by step through the entire thing and then save a good chunk of time for questions.

I want these kids to be experts on what they need to do for the project before I send them home!

I also send an email heads-up to all of my parents that project instructions will be making their way home that day.

The key to these Take-Home Projects is the Parent Explanation Sheet. It lays out the project so there is no confusion or frustration at home.

In this packet, I also include a sheet to organize due dates, 2 rubrics (one that I use and an editable version) as well as a class book cover, and the actual project sheets.

For this project, students are researching a dinosaur, filling out an encyclopedia sheet, and finally writing a paragraph about the dinosaur using the information on the encyclopedia sheet. 

We had a looooong talk before I sent it home about how to research, remembering to use introduction and conclusion sentences and MOST IMPORTANTLY writing in your own words. When it came time to turn in projects, I still had a few that I had to have a little conversation with:

"Hmm, do you actually know what the words "theorized", "bipedal", and "biomechanics" mean? Are you sure this is ALL your writing?"

But all-in-all the projects came back great! My students loved the opportunity to talk about, and complete, the project with their parents and the finished products are now hanging with pride on our bulletin board!

Check out some pictures of the finished products below and if your interest was piqued by this Take-Home Project, check it out in my TPT store by clicking the cover picture above or RIGHT HERE! If you download the preview on the TPT page, you can see a mini version of all the sheets in the packet!!