Bossy R can be so tricky for firsties. Last week we were working on the Bossy R with /o/ words as in -or and -ore. I really wracked my brain trying to come up with something clever that would get my kiddos excited for these tricky words. I finally decided to go with a sport activity because I knew my class loves sports and that would be one of their favorite -or words.
I started the lesson by having my students watch this Annie Prankster video from “The Electric Company” on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE2HFLDPPDc They really seemed to enjoy the video. We talked about how adding an /r/ can change vowel sounds. I explained that they would be working with a buddy to sort some words according to the bossy r. They were super excited to get started on this and they did a great job. Next, I had the class tell me some bossy r words to add to our anchor chart. They could use the words that they just sorted, but they had to use a bossy voice when they told me their word. What kid doesn’t love bossing the teacher around? Ha! We came up with a great anchor chart and the kidletts were ready to get to the independent task.
Each student was given 6 pentagons and they needed to write 6 -or or -ore words (1 on each pentagon). Once I checked their work I let them glue the pentagons down to make a soccer ball. After their soccer ball was complete they made their player holding the ball. I had the students accordion fold the arms so it would provide a more 3-D effect. The kids went wild over this. We chose to make our players Seattle Sounders! I think they turned out ADORBS! If you are interested in doing this activity with your class you can find it in my TpT shop {here}. Everything you will need from the words for the word sort and patterns for the players is included in the TpT file.