A Lil Bit O' St. Patrick's Day Fun!

Each year, I try to bring a little bit of St. Patrick’s Day fun into my RTI program, and my goal is to incorporate holiday-themed activities with interventions that are already in place. I like to plan a variety of poetry, language, and phonics activities appropriate for each of my groups. Here’s a quick snapshot of a few of the activities we did this year!

A Lil Bit O’ Figurative Language

My fifth graders have been focusing on figurative language and analyzing poetry. I’ve been trying break down the different figurative language elements and terms throughout the week, while providing them with a variety of practice opportunities. Today, as a warm up, I had my group complete a fun practice St. Patrick’s Day writing task on the iPads (Read more about how to “go paperless” here!). Students had to brainstorm sentences for each of the different examples of figurative language.

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A Lil Bit O’ Word Work

This page is part of my Daily Phonics program. I don’t use Daily Phonics with all of my decoding students, but today my second grade groups worked through a page together! This is always a great assessment for me, to see where their phonics skills are. (NOTE: Most of my students completed these on the iPads, but for the classrooms I push-into I had paper copies for them to complete. Daily Phonics is a great paperless warm-up for students!)

A Lot Bit O’ Poetry

I love, love, LOVE using poetry to celebrate the holidays! So many of my students need fluency practice, so poetry is a wonderful intervention for reinforcing these skills.

Here are a few of my own that I used this week:

“My Lucky Shamrock” (Narrative Poem) — I love pairing this poem with “I Found a Four-Leaf Clover,” by Jack Prelutsky, for students to identify similarities & differences! My students create a venn diagram and compare the different story events.
“Watch Out for Leprechauns!” (Partner Poem) — Great vocabulary for upper grades! I use this with my 4th and 5th graders.
“A Leprechaun’s Surprise” (Narrative Poem) — This poem has great vocabulary, also, and is fun for practicing retelling. Comprehension activities are included!