FLEX - Words Words Words - Part 1 - 4Th-6Th Grade (English, Spelling)

Flexible, English, Spelling. #academic

There is no prerequisite requirement for this course.  There are no required live classes.  All lectures are pre-recorded.  

CLASS HOLIDAY POLICY FOR MS. STACEY’S FLEX CLASSES

Holidays are very personal to each person.  Sometimes a student will not take a class that crosses a holiday.  Please touch base.  I am VERY flexible with dates.  If your family celebrates a holiday that a FLEX class ‘meets’, let me know and I’ll extend the class on the week that you need to be out, your materials will be posted the week you return. 

As we walk into the end of the year Holidays,  know that I will be adding a week to each session that crosses Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.  I will NOT add those dates until we cross the Holiday, all work that would have been due the holiday week, will not be due until that make-up week. 

Spelling and teaching spelling has always fascinated me.  Learning words that were "much too hard" was something I really enjoyed as a kid.  As I dug through the rules and the phonics to teach my own kids spelling, I was inspired and encouraged by so many who had come before me.  Spelling is just a code, and with a few tricks...that code can be revealed even to the most reluctant learner.

When the Spelling Component of my 3Rs Series Words Words Words - 3rd - 5th Grade class became popular, I realized that a lot of these topics could be taught asynchronously, allowing any student to work at their own pace.  This opened this class to students who were studying English as a second language, and students who were in other areas of the world and to students of all ages.  To that end, I’ve re-vamped the class for this flexible setting including videos and digital quizzes, forms, and activities to help solidify the precepts taught in the class.

All students will be assessed for their own level of competency and will be given spelling word lists to suit their personal level.  Each week, each student will have a spelling list of 20 words with 5 learning activities to choose from.    They will learn to code words with a dictation video and choose 3 other learning activities.  They will take their personalized Spelling Test online.  I will create the lists and provide the links.

Each of our Video Classes will cover a new aspect of spelling for formal English.  Students will create their own spelling rules dictionary during the lesson time to reference and continue to build as we go along.  I expect that each student will spend approximately 30-45 minutes 3 to 4 times each week per lesson.

Our first week will have a slightly different structure than the rest.  There will be an Assessment Video and Quiz to be taken as part of the first class to help place your student at the best level for their continued studies. As long as your student submits this Assessment, the Personalized Spelling Binder, Dictation and Test will be available by 12:00 am Wednesday morning this first week.  However, it can take approximately 48 hours to process an assessment and get those materials ready, so a delay taking the assessment, will delay materials.

Each week after the first will follow a similar structure with the materials available by 12:00 am Monday.
While interaction is completely optional on the part of your student here is one suggestion for how your student’s spelling lesson might lay out.

Weekly Spelling Day 1: 
Your student should print out both their personal Spelling Binder and the Learning-Log Lesson.  They could then watch our class Video while filling out the Learning-Log Lesson.  (approximately 30 minutes)

Weekly Spelling Day 2: 
Your student could view their spelling list and watch the Spelling Dictation video.  During the Dictation video, I teach tips, tricks, and coding for their personalized spelling list.  These videos run 8-12 minutes.

To fill out the 30 minutes, after their Dictation lesson, your student could click the link to the activity website (found on the Instructions page of their Spelling Binder) and play a few games or practice their spelling test.

Weekly Spelling Day 3:
Your student could write their spelling words 3-5 times each, or work on their crossword puzzle, or work on their anagrams.  Your student also should study to learn the materials for their Lesson Elements Quiz for that week.

Weekly Spelling Day 4:

Many families use this as a test day.  There is a link to both the Video and the Google Form for the Spelling Test and Learning Element Quiz on the Instruction Page in the Spelling Binder for the week.  The average video length for both the test and the quiz is 8-15 minutes.

While this is one option for these lessons, I have several families that split the lesson across 3 or even 5 days, and one family that does it ALL in one day.  How you structure these classes to learn this material is completely up to you.  I request to receive the dictation lesson sheet and at least one of the worksheets per week so that I can see that your student is understanding the concepts, and I prefer that they do submit the tests, again, so that I can see that we are all together in the concepts.

On Wednesday of the first week, I will send a link to a Google sheet to the “Parent Email” that Outschool has on file for your student that keeps track of the material that I have received from your student so that you can always keep up with how they are doing.  I update these sheets on Fridays and Saturdays for all of my classes so that by the next class period, you’ll be able to see where things are.  These links are personal to your student and not shared with the entire class.

All of my spelling classes will receive a link to a FABULOUS FRIDAY WORDS video on Fridays.  These videos are just some wonderful vocabulary.  In these videos, I’ll discuss the coding of the word, sometimes the origin, and the meaning.  Most of these videos are 1 to 2 minutes long and I’ve made them merely because I personally like to geek out on words.  It’s a hobby of mine and I love to share it with students who are studying our language.

All links will be released into the classroom at 12:00 am Monday morning except for Week 1 which will be released after the Assessment is taken, usually by 12:00 am Wednesday morning.

Lesson Layout
Week 1	Consonants and Vowels
Week 2	Multi-Letter Phonograms - Pt 1
Week 3	Multi-Letter Phonograms - Pt 2
Week 4	Silent Final Es
Week 5	Single Long Vowel
Week 6	Spellings of /er/
Week 7	Spellings of /sh/
Week 8	More Es
Week 9	Doubling 
Week 10	When to Exchange Letters
Week 11	Rules to Plurals
Week 12	I before E except
Week 13	Ending Review
Week 14	Important Words
Week 15	Final Class Review