23: One Activity Can Fit All

I'm always looking to create small group activities that fit the needs of all my students.

Well, maybe not the activity, 

more like using the same material.

Students get to work with different groups throughout the day,

but last week,

we started focused, small group instruction,

which means that students are grouped according to needs.

LETTER PLATES: Paper plates with letters written on them- 2 identical sets. Right now I have uppercase letters written on plates. Each plate has a matching letter plate. When they are ready, I will add a set of lowercase plates.

Tier 3: For students that need more support, I only placed 6-8 letter plates faced up. Their task was to match the plate I give them to one on the floor. This group was learning the concept of what a letter is and looks like.  The objective for them was to work on visual discrimination and finding letters that are the same. Simple, but effective.

Tier 2: For students that have more concept of print (some letter knowledge), I placed all the letters of the alphabet faced up on the floor. Matching plates where divided among them. They took turns to find a match, and grabbed the pair.

Tier 1: For students with the most letter knowledge, I made it more challenging. They played a game of letter concentration. I placed  pairs of letters faced down. This group of students had to not only find matching pairs of letters, but had to remember where letters were placed.

They will move from direct matching to upper/lower case matching and then move on to sound and letter match. 

Simple material (only plates and a marker), but possibilities are endless.