Anderson was the type of kid who put EVERYTHING in his mouth. So in those early days, I was worried about buying play dough in fear he would put it in his mouth. So instead I whipped up a batch of taste-safe play dough and was floored by how easy it is! Continue reading “Color Mixing Experiment with Homemade No-Bake Play Dough”
Another resource is up on the Yellin Center Blog, and this time is it for the Blends Bingo game I designed. This game aims to improve student’s understanding of different letter-sound relationships which are critical to the development of a child’s early reading skills. Mastery of this fundamental phonological awareness skill has been linked to overall success in reading decoding and comprehension.
I use this game primarily in special education and reading recovery settings. However, it can be easily adapted to a whole class environment. If adapting for a large group, it is important to note that every sound is on every card. Therefore, you should expect to have multiple winners at a given time. The reason every sound appears on every card is that this game was designed as a purposeful play activity. As such, Blends Bingo has the objective of each student participating by locating a new sound every time a new playing piece is drawn by the teacher. There is no waiting in this activity, and every child is able to continually work to manipulate sounds.
For detailed description of the research that backs the creation and implementation of this game, how this activity aligns with the standards and detailed instructions of how to run this activity in your classroom please head over to my in depth discussion on the Yellin Center Blog. There, I also discuss how I have used this tool as a formative assessment measure, as well as a few alternate game play structures to keep your students engaged.
This activity was rather labor intensive to create due to formatting and finding images that clearly represented each sound. As such, this game is one of my paid TpT resources but today it is on sale! The sale lasts through the weekend, so you can head over to my Teachers pay Teachers store to download Blends Bingo. Furthermore, since my Blends Bingo Post went up on the Yellin Center Blog I have been routinely asked where I procure affordable or free materials for my curriculum designs. I understand how tough it can be to find copy write free materials, so for this game and most clip art infused resources I often use Classroom Clip Art. It is an affordable membership service, with a pretty robust selection of images that are education centric.
I have been guest blogging and creating resources on my own for awhile now and a couple of exceptional teaching friends were kind enough to encourage me to open a Teachers pay Teachers store to share some of my resources with the greater education world. It is still a work in progress but I have officially launched The Jordan Project Teachers pay Teachers store with 30+ resources I have developed for you to explore. Many are free, and I would love for you to use them, share them and send me feedback on what you think. Everything from math games to literacy center activities to worksheets to general classroom resources are available. Furthermore, materials across grade ranges are up for grabs, and many are great substitute teacher activities due to their portability and minimal additional materials required.
You may have noticed, but there is now a dedicated page on the blog for the The Jordan Project Store so you will be able to access it seamlessly (since it will continually be updated for you). I truly hope you enjoy the content, and that some of the materials can help make your classrooms or home learning environments a little more exciting.
Raising Jordans 