Daily 5- Word Work Update!! (Freebie)

I am still loving the Daily 5 in my classroom and I am more and more impressed everyday with how well my students work during our Daily 5 time. I do, however, have lots of things I want to change next year in order to make it even better! One thing that I am constantly struggling with is Word Work. I find that my grade 4's are too old for a lot of the hands on type of activities...even though they may really enjoy them. They just don't focus the way younger students do with the tactile activities.

So we first tried a modification of some of the activities I had been seeing on other blogs and Pinterest. I created a bunch of activity cards and bought some plastic chick/eggs (Easter style) for the cards to go into. The students were able to choose a different chick each time that we did our Daily 5 and that's how we practiced our spelling words and worked on our grammar lessons. But.....the students were not very good at making sure the chicks were put away neatly, the cards were always falling out and no one could find the card they were working on from the time before.....le sigh!

What to do? What to do??

Here's my new plan....I created a BINGO board with a variety of spelling and grammar activities based on the language arts expectations for Grade 4 in Ontario. Then I set some point values for "playing" Word Work Bingo! The students are expected to completed at least a straight line, in any direction, for 5 points. After that if they want to complete an X, a box or the whole board they can earn points...plus practice more spelling, vocabulary and grammar.

The best part is...my kids were really into it when I introduced them to it today. They did, however, want to know what the points would be going towards. Mostly, it will be for me to track who is putting forth a great deal of effort to practice their skills but of course, I want to reward the students as well for all their work. I plan to start a classroom economy soon so that my students will be practicing their adding and subtracting decimals/money skills so this seemed like a good time to make a trip for prizes. I went to the dollar store and party packagers after school to stock up on small little trinkets for the prizes. I am also going to add in certificates like "sit in Mrs. Lyons's chair" and homework passes...but naturally that will be worth A LOT of points!!

If you are interested in using my bingo board in your own classroom just click on the image below to get a copy!

I'll be posting each new bingo board so be sure to check back often! I would also LOVE any and all suggestions for other activities to add to future bingo boards. 

Thanks for all the comments...in advance of course!!!