OTB activities

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Home : 2005 : May : 14

OTB activities
By Melissa S

The Month-by-Month phonics book is a wonderful resource to find out all the different activities to do with the Words block, including OTB. I do the front of my WWpaper a little different than suggested...I use it for our
handwriting practice. I also work on the same 5 word wall words all week (instead of the first two days). I model the words and talk about the formation of each letter (a LOT in the beginning of the year!), then we cheer the words and write them. I walk around the room and make comments about how they are doing ("great 'a'" 0r "make sure your letters sit on the line..."). This is all the

handwriting "instruction" my kids get...and most of them write very nicely. On Monday, the OTB activity is always ABC order. At the beginning of the year we do this together. I have them write the 5 words on index cards and arrange them in the right order. Later they do this on their own, and I check it before they write it down on their paper. They keep these index cards in their MOOSE notebooks in a zipper pouch to practice at home.
Some of our favorite OTB activies include: endings, cross-checking, mindreader, and "Here comes the Judge." I've got more explanations and pictures of several activities on my website.
http://www.smithsroom.com/
Go to the 4Blocks page, or directly to the Working With Words page.
Hope it helps someone!