I always look forward to the week when our Journey’s textbook says to introduce the /ar/ sound. In Room 19, we already know this sound because we use Secret Stories to learn our reading sounds (phonics). We have been reading /ar/ words since the first month of school. With Secret Stories, I get to introduce whatever sounds students need. This “need to know” form of introduction eliminates the problem of students not knowing the /ar/ sound until week 21 in our reading series. I call /ar/ the pirate sound after I introduce it.
We put up our pointer finger in a hook shape and make pirate sounds to each other. Arrrrrrr, matey!
Finally, at week 21, we get to be pirates! We talk, read, write, draw, become experts, dress up, all things pirates. This year if students finished writing their pirate paragraph they created a pirate talking head with an app called Chatterkid.
We posed in our pirate garb in front of a green screen so we could give our parents a unique picture of our pirate adventures.
Did I mention we had daily pirate duties to perform which earned each mate a treasure from Captain Settle’s treasure chest?!
Believe me; all work was finished correctly that week on our ship! Did I say how much I love this week due to the motivation factor?! We listened to shanty music, read a list of Secret Stories /ar/ words to be able to walk the plank (we even had our principals walk the plank, hee hee), got eaten by a shark, found /ar/ words hidden around the school on one of our treasure hunts, had time to read in our classroom ship, learned and created a Jolly Roger, and so much more.
Every day the students couldn’t wait to see what pirate work they were going to encounter.
My crew!
