We've been working on the r-controlled vowels for a couple of weeks, so I knew that I wanted to do a lesson on that topic for my evaluation.  I had already introduced "ar" and "or" and I was ready to introduce the three tricky ones "ir, er, and ur".  So that is how "The Bossy R Sisters" were born. 😉 

I'll tell you about them in a minute.....but let's start at the beginning. 

I give my firsties a pretest every week on Monday.  The test includes Spelling Words, English/Grammar and High Frequency Words.  It's a quick 5 minute, whole group assessment and it gives me some insight into which students I really need to focus on for the week.  There is also a matching post assessment that I give to the firsties on Friday.  It's amazing how much growth I see in the kiddos on that Friday post test! I have a FREE data collection sheet that you can pick up here.  My principal loved these pre/post tests and the data sheet - (rockin the data collection part of that evaluation)!! 

  

These tests are all included in my Journeys Pre/Post Assessments series on TPT.  You can take a look at them here

Journeys Pre & Post Assessments

Anyway on to the lesson......I usually like to introduce a new skill with some kind of catchy tune or video to really capture the firsties attention.  There are TONS of great videos on YouTube for FREE! The great thing about these little videos is that they are only a couple minutes long....but they pack a lot of punch!  I've compiled a list of the best on my youtube channel....everything you can think of - phonics, math, science, social studies! You can subscribe to my channel here and then every time I add a new video you will be able to see it too! My class LOVES Geraldine the Giraffe so for this lesson we watched her as she learned the new sound of "ir".  You can find this adorable video here.

YouTube - Geraldine Giraffe Learns "ir"

We also watched this cute video, which included all 5 of the Bossy R sounds:

YouTube - Controlling R Song

After this, we reviewed our anchor chart for Bossy R.  We had been working for about two weeks on this chart. Each time we learned one of the new bossy r sounds, we added a new column to our chart. I found this cute poem on Pinterest and I would love to give a shout out to the originator, but sadly it didn't lead to any kind of link. 

We moved on to our Journeys Daily Word Study lesson.  These are lessons that I created as a supplement to our Journeys reading series. They are lessons that we use on our Interactive Board.  They are meant to be a quick review of our daily phonics, grammar, spelling and high frequency words.  We do one of these every morning.  If you would like take a further look at these lessons you can check them out here.  For this lesson, we only did a portion of our Word Study and then moved on to the Story of the Bossy R Sisters. 

Journeys Word Study for First Grade

I wrote this little story because I wanted to include a hands on portion to this lesson and I just couldn't find what I wanted anywhere....so voila "The Bossy R Sisters" were born! It's a simple little story about 3 sisters who - you guessed it - like to boss the vowels around. But they are also helpful.....one sister is a teacher, one is a nurse, and one is a firefighter girl.  The story includes picture cards and as I told it, I put the pictures in the pocket chart.  Afterwards, my fab firsties were each given a "bossy r" word to read and match to a picture. 

Next I paired the firsties up and they moved to a table to play the game "Who's The Boss", a cute little game where they read bossy r words to get to the finish. The best thing is that the game is differentiated into 3 levels, so I could pair kids by ability, but everyone was still playing almost the exact same game.  

At the completion of the game, the kids moved back to their tables to take a quick assessment to see how much they learned!  The assessment was also at 3 different levels so that I could assess kids at their own ability. 

I was really pleased with the lesson and so was my principal - woohoo!  When I develop lessons I keep our Teacher Evaluation Rubric in mind and try to hit all the areas that are listed in the highest performance area. As you can see, this lesson includes:

√diagnostic and formative assessment

√differentiation

√a variety of teaching methods to accommodate all learning styles

√measurable goals

√data collection where I can analyze students needs

√independent/collaborative and whole group activities

√instructional materials that are varied and engage the learner

Yep! This lesson hits the mark!

I hope this helped give you some ideas on how to create your own OUTSTANDING lessons for your kiddos! If you'd like to use this same lesson in your classroom it's available on my TPT store. You can pick it up here. 

The Story of the Bossy R Sisters

Thanks for stopping by Conversations From the Classroom....if you'd like to hear more about what's going on in my classroom I invite you to follow my classroom blog at firstieland.blogspot.com  Come on by next week where I will be talking about our ADORABLE animal habitats! Here's a sneak peak 😉

Hope you have a great week....and hope to see you soon cause there's always something fun happening in.....

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