March 5, 2014 Dictionary Skills

It was a day full of dictionary games and skills. There is still a need to practice (AM I and II), but the children are catching on to using a dictionary as a reference when looking up words. Our first step is to alphabetize. The PM class played a game where they were given words to put in order and see if they can find them using the GUIDE WORDS.
Click here for a sample of GUIDE WORDS

They practiced looking for those word on consecutive pages for easier viewing. The AM class looked into putting words in order by looking at words that have the same first and second letters. I gave them two words (e.g.):

bark ----------- bat (base, back) 

We crossed out each letter -- "b", "a" -- until the letters are "different". In the sample above, the "r" in "bark", the "t" in "bat", the "s" in "base", and the "c" in "back" helped the children easily determine which word fits best between "bark" and "bat". In this case, "base" is the correct answer.

Both classes have the same homework: to circle the word that goes in the middle, alphabetically.

Tomorrow we will take a break from dictionary skills and continue with adverbs (AM II and PM), and nouns/pronouns/capitalization (AM I).