Word Study Binder

Hey hey hey friends! I am SO excited for this upcoming week. Valentine’s is like my FAVORITE! And how sweet is my amazing hubs?! He took the day off to bring us pizza and hang out for our class party. My littles are SUPER excited.

A few years ago, our district implemented Words their Way. I love it, but I have to be honest…I never really figured out how to keep it organized. I’m still not the best about games with the sorts. Hopefully that will be one of my summer projects. Fortunately, they think sorting is like OH SO FUN! Haha. They would do it for an hour if we had time! I wanted to share how I keep it organized, and keep myself sane. 🙂

Everyone has their own folder with a ziploc bag and notebook paper. You could also use a notebook! I just like the folder with brads so we can add things if we need to. 🙂

I teach my little ones just to write the first letter of their name, because there is usually only one of each letter in each group. A few of my smarty smarts like to put all three of their initials. Haha. 🙂 I have 4 groups in my classroom, but some of my coworkers have more/less. At the beginning of the year, especially in Dual Language, alot of the class is at the same place so they only have 2-3 groups. During our word study block, they can sit with their group if they want to. But they always want to! 🙂 Keeping them sorted by color helps me remember who is in what group, find lost pieces, and easily call the groups over for small group time. Plus, I honestly think somehow it makes it just a bit more engaging.

Usually, we spend about 2 weeks on a sort because we don’t work on it everyday. There just isn’t enough time. 🙁

Day 1- Cut out our sorts, put our names on them, and sort them however we think we should
Day 2- Work on our sort with a partner in our group while I walk around and help friends who need it
Day 3- Continue to work on sort, and teacher calls over in small group to talk about how we sorted/why we sorted that way
Day 4- Teacher has students sort at back table as an assessment and then use words to write new words or sentences

Super easy peasy! I know there are WAY more ways to use Word Study. This way just happens to work for me, and like I said, I don’t have lots of activities to go along with them yet. But, they enjoy it and I truly see changes in their writing and reading because of it.

Now…how do I not go crazy with all of these colored sorts lying around everywhere? I HATE copying from books without rings. It’s so annoying to put it on the copier glass and the book moves around, yada yada. So, at the beginning of the year, I went through and copied all the sorts on white paper to keep in a binder. I just think it’s so much easier, and I can grab just the 4 I need.

After that, I  make copies of 5-6 sorts so I have them ready for upcoming weeks. I put all of the copies for each sort in a page protector to keep them together.

Now the big question…what good would a binder be without a cute cover and dividers?! 🙂 Grab this freebie in my TPT store!