Words Their Way Game Freebie

This fall, I will begin my 3rd year using Words Their Way in my classroom.  It will be the first year that it is district curriculum.

I am glad that I have used it for a couple of years, as I have been able to become more comfortable with it and make changes to my plans as I go.  In general, I think it is a good program.  I have found parents relatively receptive to it although some still struggle with understanding how it works.

This game I made for Monday Made It with Tara.  It is a pretty easy game, and I will continue to develop it for more sorts as the  year continues.  So far I have made the game for sorts 1-15 in Book 3.  The majority of my 3rd graders have been falling into the Syllables and Affixes stage, so I decided this was a good place to start.

I started with some of those little gems that you use in the bottom of vases.  I got these at Michaels.

I used circle labels to mark some as Free Choice, Lose a Turn, and Oddball.  These will be able to used throughout the year for all of the sorts I create.

Next, I began with Unit 1 in the above book, and I put the headers for the Unit 1 sorts onto other gems.  As we start sorts, I will pull out the gems the kids need to complete the sort. Most sorts have about three headers.  That will mean 3 gems plus one free choice and lose a turn gem making a total of about 5 gems for the game.

These gems will be placed in a bag or cup in the middle of the two players. The students will take their sort cards and lay them in a pool face up.  (Each player will have their own pool.)  They will then put their sort headers onto a piece of paper in front of them.  They will follow these directions to then play the game.

Basically, the first player to place all of their cards in the sort correctly wins.  We will typically have about 20-30 minutes of word work each day, so I think that this game will be able to be completed during this time.

I am making three sets of gems for each unit which will allow 6-9 kids to play.  Most of my groups do not have more than 9 students in them.

Well--There is my Monday Made It!  Go check out Tara's website to find more great ideas!