HMH Spelling Free Resource

 Spelling! Last year our district fully adopted HMH for Language Arts. As with any new curriculum, I needed to get my feet wet to see what I was doing. And the biggest thing I learned was: THIS CURRICULUM IS A BEAST. It is massive! Things are everywhere! My team and I spent a lot of time organizing ourselves. And then reorganizing ourselves. 

Another aspect of HMH that was a little daunting was the difference between the Foundational Skills (Purple Part) of the curriculum and the Structured Literacy part. Were they the same? No. Can we use them together? I don't know (and probably don't have time). So we jumped feet first into Structured Literacy, which is a separate book based in the Science of Reading and very much like UFLI. I liked it. It has daily slides, practice pages, etc. But, it was a little too high/fast for my 2nd graders at the point in the year I was scheduled to teach it. 

So, this summer I did a deep dive into the Foundational Skills portion of HMH and loved that too. But, it wasn't just that it was good. I realized it serves a different purpose for me than Structured Literacy. Foundational Skills will serve as a practice for my kids. These are the words, activities, and lessons I am going to use for my WIN (What I Need) time. They work beautifully with the Start Right Readers and will help my small group time immensely. 

However, I still had to pull it all together. You know how it goes. The school year starts and everything, everywhere happens all at once. Which is why I created my HMH Spelling Free Resource. This is for any teacher in 2nd grade (or whoever actually needs it) to have everything you need for spelling/word work centers, activities, even homework. And yes, it is really free. You just need to click this link. 

 

I took every list in the 2nd grade foundational skills, Modules 1-12, and created 9 different activities for them. Here are a few: 

 

This will be my resource this year for spelling and word work during my small group time. Check it out if you use HMH as well!

Download Here: HMH Spelling FREE Resource

Writing...

Writing.....

Writing is hard. Writing is hard for adults, let alone children. Why is writing hard? Well, that is an interesting question. 

Writing is hard because we have been taught that our academic writing must produce something worth a grade. We teach that writing should be produced as a final product. We even teach the writing process from the perspective of the all too important FINAL DRAFT. Guess what? This old way of teaching writing in class does not work. All we get is nervous students, rushed or overly written pieces, and a lack of creativity. 

Students have stories. So, so, so many stories. And we WANT them to become great writers. But, to help them do so means we have to let them practice without any pressure. We have to let them take a chance on their writing (and on themselves) without the fear of criticism all the time.  The writing process should stay what it is - a process. Sometimes you go through the cycle multiple times before any quality work is produced. 

What quality work should students produce? A personal narrative? An opinion piece? Well, sure, but that is only a label for it. What students should be producing is something they are proud of, worked hard on, and want to share with the people they care about the most! They should be allowed to explore. 

This new school year gives me a wonderful opportunity to start working with students on the many, many levels of writing. From complete sentences, main ideas, grammar, and details, I want my students to practice writing so much that it becomes part of their identity as a student. We will be doing writing workshops, shared writing, quick writes, and formal pieces. Like the saying goes, "Practice makes perfect progress!" We will have our writing folders, monthly quick write journals (below), and student made posters on hand each day. Will writing still be hard? Of course it will be!! But, it will definitely get better.