What's Working Wednesday...and Winner Wednesday

I know I haven't posted one of this in a while..ok forever, but I have good reason. I always forget to take the pictures. Bad memory is a good reason right? So while I am sitting here on lunch, I took out my cell phone (because of course I forgot my camera on my desk at home...) and snapped a couple pictures of what is working for me. I originally found this idea at Adventures in Teaching but changed it up a bit to match my classroom and our curriculum.

Our new assistant principal is really pushing differentiation. And while I understand the importance of it and how it can really help, sometimes it is just practically impossible due to time constraints. But this is one thing that I am able to differentiate thanks to this stellar idea- Spelling. Who knew differentiating spelling could be so easy?

Now the original post (and I believe the person who trained on this) had a different plan, but like I said, I had to make this work with my class. So instead of cutting file folders into thirds (like the post suggests) I cut mine in half. One side for pretest and one side for post-test. This eliminates any chance of cheating because the word list is not attached. Here is how it works-

On Monday, I give my students a pretest on the first 15 words from our spelling list. I use our spelling that comes with our series because that is what is expected. I then grade the pretest and circle anything that students got wrong. If they got less than 10 wrong, I circle up to all of the challenge words to make up to 10 words. Now, sometimes students might ONLY have the challenge words circled because they got a 100 on the first 15 words. To them I say congratulations on a short spelling list. No child has more than 10 words a week.

As you can see, this child only has 6 spelling words this week. I don't write the challenge words in, I just circle them so they know to circle them on their newsletter.

I do this while students head to music (we have it early in the morning). When they return, their folders are on their desk along with their weekly newsletter. Students then open both flaps and circle the same numbers on their post test page as I circled on their pretest page. They circle the same numbers on their newsletters and those are the words they study for the week and the words they do their homework with for the week. It is working well so far (this is only week 2) and I have seen a lot more success out of my students when it comes to spelling.

**I have my folders laminated for durability. I stuck a sticker on the folders and labeled them with my students' numbers to help me pass them out without having to open flaps and see who the folder belongs to. They are stored on my shelf during the week and only come out on Monday and Friday for tests. I never have to worry about them being ruined or students trying to sneak and write the words in advance on the post test side.

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for my Turkey Treats writing and craftivity and a HUGE thank you to everyone who follows this little blog of mine! I ended up passing my goal of 25 followers on TpT (HUGE thank you!) so I drew two winners! Congratulations to Amber and Courtney! Your emails are on their way ladies! I hope you enjoy it!

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