Spring Fluency Practice

Nothing makes us happier then spring! It's time to brush up on our fluency. In order to do this we make fluency tappers out of spoons. It's quick, easy and my personal favorite, cheap! We use the tapper to tap out poems whole group to different rhythms.  We do repeated readings of the poems throughout the month in order to increase our fluency.  Students use the tappers individually to point to words while they do independent timed readings of poetry.  This keeps the classroom quiet during guided reading.  There are two different insects that we have made.  For one spoon we make a bee.  You can see it on our Poet Tree up top. 

You'll need: paper plates, spoons, yellow paint, black sharpie, glue and wax paper.

1.  For bell work students paint the spoon yellow on the paper plate.  When they are done they paint the whole plate yellow.  We let the spoon dry on top of the plate over night.

2.  The next morning students use black sharpie to draw lines, eyes and a stinger on the bee.

3.  The students cut wings out of wax paper and glue them to the top of the spoon.

4.  Students then cut the plate into a flower shape and add pollen to the middle.

5.  The teacher cuts a small slit in the plate so that the spoon can be stored on the flower.

When we are finished practicing with the tapper, it is put on display in the shape of a Poet Tree.  We place our poems from writing around the tree.  You can see my poetry unit down below.

Ladybug tappers are a personal favorite! They are used the same way as the bees above.

You'll need:  clear spoons, red sharpies, black sharpies

1.  Students color the spoon with the red sharpie during bell work.  I use bell work for a lot of our creative projects that might not please everyone during instructional time.  We allow the spoon to dry over night.

2.  The next morning students use the black sharpie to add the wings, dots and face to their ladybug.  Once it dries they are ready to start having fun while they read!

While we are practicing our fluency in reading, we practice our poetry writing during our writing block.  You can see the unit that I developed by tapping on the picture below.