Video: Spelling: Flowers
In this video, a Foundation-Year 1 teacher is teaching the word ‘flower’ in spelling, using familiar vocabulary from the science topic of the needs of living things as a launching point. The lesson follows on from many previous lessons where students have talked, read, and jointly constructed texts about the needs of living things. They have made class notes to which they refer often.
In this lesson, the class is in three groups, divided according to their spelling levels. One group is constructing a class text (See videos Shared Pen: Group 1 and Shared Pen: Group 2). One group is doing some sort of matching activity with a school support assistant, and this group is doing spelling. After 15 minutes, the groups rotate. (See video Spelling: -un words.)
Key Messages
- Notice how the teacher breaks the word up into blends /fl/ /ow/ /er/ and the morpheme /s/ (plural).
- Notice how difficult it is to keep student attention on the spelling when they have a pen in their hands!
- Notice how the teacher extends the spelling from ‘flowers’ to another word with the same pattern ‘tower’.