Making Morphology Meaningful: What Works for Me to Teach Prefixes, Suffixes & Roots

Let’s be honest — teaching morphology can feel… dry.

I’ve tried a lot of approaches over the years: word lists, anchor charts, workbook pages, even sorting activities that took way longer to prep than the payoff was worth. Sometimes it felt like students could memorize a prefix, but had no idea how to actually use it in context. And don’t even get me started on trying to keep students engaged after back-to-back reading and writing blocks.

I knew something needed to shift.

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What is Morphology (and Why We Need to Teach It)

Morphology is all about understanding word parts — prefixes, suffixes, and roots — and how they work together to form meaning. It’s not just about spelling; it’s about unlocking vocabulary, improving reading fluency, and boosting comprehension across subjects.

Current literacy research agrees: teaching morphology explicitly improves reading success, especially for upper elementary students who are encountering more complex words across the curriculum. Morphological awareness helps students decode unfamiliar terms, understand nuance, and transfer knowledge across subject areas.

But for that to happen, the instruction needs to be intentional, scaffolded, and a little more exciting than a worksheet.

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Why Task Cards Work (and Why I Use Them)

Task cards aren’t just trendy — they’re backed by solid pedagogy. They support:

• Active engagement through short, focused tasks

• Differentiation with flexible grouping or independent pacing

• Spaced practice without the monotony of drill-and-kill

• And maybe most importantly… movement

I use task cards as part of a structured scavenger hunt that gets students up, moving, and thinking. It’s perfect for breaking up longer chunks of seated work (like a reading or writing block) and helps bring some much-needed energy into the middle of the day — all while reinforcing academic vocabulary in a meaningful way.

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Why I Created This Resource

I just couldn’t find what I was looking for.

I wanted a morphology resource that struck the right balance:
✔️ Clear and explicit instruction
✔️ Student-led discovery and practice
✔️ Built-in movement in a structured and predictable format
✔️ Actually engaging for real-life students

So, I made it.

Each set in this Morphology Task Card Series includes:

• A learning goal and success criteria

• A visual anchor chart

• A minds-on mini lesson to kick things off

• 12 task cards across all four Ontario Language achievement chart categories

• A student answer page + answer key

• A journal prompt, exit slip, and tracking sheet

• Tips for consolidation, intervention, or extending the learning

Every piece is designed to be meaningful, scaffolded, and low-prep — just print and go.

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What’s in the Series So Far?

There are currently 5 morphology sets available:

1. High-Frequency Prefixes

2. Prefix – Meaning and Nuance

3. Prefix Challenges & Review

4. Common Suffixes

5. Suffixes and Parts of Speech

Each set builds on the last, helping students make deeper connections as they explore word structure and meaning. Coming soon? Root words, spelling through morphology, and vocabulary in context — all designed with the same practical, student-centered approach.

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Try One Out (and Catch the Sale!)

If you’ve been looking for a morphology resource that blends structure, movement, and deep understanding — I’d love for you to try one out!
The whole series is on sale August 5th–6th during the TpT Back to School Sale, so it’s the perfect time to grab your favourite and give it a go.

Click HERE to explore the Morphology Series on TpT!

Bundle coming soon — grab the sets now and the rest will build right into it!

Quick Writing Reflection

This super easy "Don't Stop Until You're Proud" chart may be the best thing that happens to your writing program.  Seriously.  Student self-reflection, goal-setting, peer feedback, writing collaborating, teacher evidence, portfolio piece ... all in a 5 - 10 minute activity.  And the very best one - student pride. 

I'm lucky in that most of my students love writing every year.  They really do.  A definite credit to my fantastic coworkers who built this into our students.  We do a lot of formal writing all the time, but we also make the time to do a lot of "free writing" in my class.  Any writing style.  Any genre.  Any topic.  Just write.  10 - 15 minutes.  But ... be prepared to share your writing with a friend at the end of the time.  (You can read more about this time in my blog post - Just Let Them Write).

About every 2 - 3 weeks, I quickly title a piece of chart, "Don't Stop Until You're Proud - The Line I'm Most Proud of Today is ..." and hand out sticky notes.  The chart isn't instagram pretty, but it's easy and crazy effective.  Which makes it way better than instagram pretty in my books.  I usually have this set up before they begin writing, so they're working just a little harder while they're crafting their pieces ... knowing they will share their best at the end. 

This chart works for any kind of writing - after formal writing lessons, or after fun free writing time.  I try to do a combination of both.  Sometimes I relate the writing to a particular goal we're working on from our writing units which focus on the traits of writing, or from our independent writing goal clip chart, or I ask them to include a kind of punctuation and circle it (comma, apostrophe, etc.), and sometimes there are no rules at all.

When our writing time is up, I ask the students to read through their work, focusing on their very, very best line or sentence from their work - the sentence they are most proud of (I really play this part up).  They then buddy up to read each other what they have.  Working together, they need to make at least two improvements to their line (improve a word, fix spelling, add a phrase, etc.).  When this is done, they write their sentences on a sticky note and add them to the chart paper.  That's it.  My students are always anxious to read what others have written - and their compliments to each other are so genuine.  I love it.

So ... chart done - now what?  You could leave the activity at that - writing revision, self-reflection, peer feedback, peer collaboration ... 10 minutes ... check.  Or you could use the stickies for:

• students add them to a portfolio page where they can track the growth in their writing over a term or year
• teacher can add them to assessment binders for writing evidence - especially at the end of units or near the end of the term
• use them in student teacher conferences to set new writing goals or provide quick oral feedback
• use them as exemplars of great writing and share (can be anonymous) with the class
• use them as story starters for a quick writing activity - read the student's sentence and have the class write the next sentence (or finish the paragraph) (my classes LOVE this one)

And this chart doesn't have to be for writing - I'm going to try, "The proudest math moment I had today was ..." next year.  :)  

Writing resources in this blog post:

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Your Try / My Try Spelling Chart

This Your Try / My Try Spelling Chart is one of the best additions I've recently made to my classroom.  Within 3 days, it completed eliminated the "How do you spell ...?" questions that brought my students to a halt during the writing process, made my students actually think about and attempt to spell the word instead of just shooting their hands up, and freed up my time to meet with more students and provide more meaningful feedback and comments while working on writing.  And the best part ... it literally takes absolutely no time or prep to implement in the classroom.  And that's a win in my books.

I set up this chart on a chart stand that didn't get a lot of use in the room so it could be a permanent fixture in the room.  The instructions are simple - during the writing process, if a student has a question about how to spell a word, they can check a dictionary (online or in print) or write the word on the chart under "your try".  As soon as I get a chance, usually within a few minutes, I will write the correct spelling beside it on the "my try" side.  I've also started to put a checkmark beside correct attempts by students, and I still rewrite the word on the my try side.  And that's it.  I started this chart mid November, and by the end of December, we were already onto our 4th page of chart paper - so it's definitely getting used by the students.  I've also seen them go back and check previous sheets when they know the word was on the chart before.

I do a lot of free writing in my room, and that is when the chart is getting used the most, but I've also seen students using it when writing responses during other subjects, so I've encouraged its use for that, too.  My friend, Tina, from Tina's Teaching Treasures, has a great little freebie if you want to do this on an individual basis with your students.  You can check it out HERE.

Check out some of my other writing resources:

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Getting Students to Reflect on Their Writing

REFLECT is probably one of the words I say the most each day in our classroom.  We're always going back and reflecting on our learning, and taking our reflections to make improvements in our work.  I've used quite a few different ways to do reflections in my classroom, but this year our focus is Traffic Light Reflections (you can click on the link to read a little more about these kinds of reflections).  We already use traffic light dots to reflect on our comprehension of our learning goals, so using full traffic light reflections seemed a natural fit.

We've been focusing a lot on writing reflections lately.  As we're moving towards student-led parent conferences in my classroom this year, I wanted to make sure all the students had a great base piece for their portfolios - reflecting on their writing and improvements at each stage so they can clearly communicate where their starting points were, as well as what goals they are working towards mastering.

My go-to writing resource at the beginning of the year is Paragraph of the Week from Teaching in Room 6 (you can read more about this resource on her blog by clicking HERE).  The clear and easy-to-follow step-by-step scaffolded paragraph writing practice is the perfect starting point for my students.  

When we have finished our rough drafts of the paragraph, we then use my Revising and Editing Resource to go through our writing pieces one step at a time.  Through this process, students color code their writing as they look for each expectation - from structure to mechanics.  As they code, they write a short reflection on a sticky note.  At the end of this activity, they take their sticky notes and fill in a full reflection sheet where they discuss their strengths and needs, and make plans for revision for their final good copies.  This reflection sheet is also included in the Revising and Editing Resource.

Students then use these reflections when writing and publishing their good copies.  At the end of the publishing process, students complete a final Traffic Light Reflection before they hand in their good copies.  I added a small copy of the rubric included in Paragraph of the Week to the reflection sheet so I could provide feedback right on their reflection sheet.  I love these quick reflections - quick and easy for the students, and the fact that they have to go back to their published copies and provide evidence for their reflection by color coding their work really helps them keep their reflections and goals specific and achievable.  And I really really love that I get to read little gems like this one below while I'm marking.  :)  Her "green" reflection - what she's most proud of - just makes me smile.

At the end of the traffic light reflection, each student had to set a personal writing goal.  They were given a clothespin to mark the goal on the Writing Goals Clip Chart in our classroom.  This chart is a daily visual reminder of their goals and has been so helpful in the classroom.  The students take control of their learning - coming to me when they believe they have mastered a goal (with writing pieces as proof), and get so excited to be able to clip their pin onto a new goal.  (Each clothespin has the name of a student written on it - you can't see it in the picture because I blurred out the names).

All these sheets - their rough copies, reflection sheets, good copies, and traffic light reflection get stapled together and kept in their portfolios after I conference quickly to provide feedback with each student.  Before they begin their next writing piece, they get these sheets out of their portfolios so they can see where they want to try to make improvements in their next piece.  Watching them go back through their reflections, seeing them think about their writing, and helping them actively make improvements to their writing is such a rewarding process for all of us.  They also do quick pair-shares with their "elbow buddies" to show and prove where they made their improvements during the writing process for each piece.

If all of this process seems daunting - don't get overwhelmed - it's actually pretty simple.  We break down this process quite a bit.  Students spend about 4 days writing their pieces (from the paragraph of the week to longer pieces like the Halloween narratives we're working on now), then one to two days on the revision and editing process, including first reflection (depending on the length of the writing piece), another day or two on their good drafts (including publishing them), and then one more day on their traffic light reflections before handing in.  Each day I provide them with about 20 - 30 minutes of writing time (on publishing days we may take a little longer).  Each full writing piece from start to finish takes about two weeks of these writing blocks - and results in a wonderfully polished and substantially improved piece of work.  When they focus on their reflections at each stage and use these reflections to improve the next piece they write, they are always amazed at how much their writing improves from piece to piece (and so am I).

EDIT:  I have received many requests to share a copy of the reflection sheet I have - so I made a new one to share with you.  If you would like a copy, just click HERE or on the picture to the right.  I uploaded it to google drive - you just need to click the down arrow to download a copy.  :)  

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Traffic Light Reflections

I'm trying something new with student reflections this year - traffic light reflections.  In the past, I've done Glow and Grow reflections (you can read a little more about that strategy HERE), and I still love love love those reflections, but with my students already familiar with our Traffic Light Comprehension Dots  I decided to keep things simple for them, and changed up our reflections a bit.

(That and I found the coolest light up traffic light at Hobby Lobby and made it a fixture in our class - it's the little things that make me happy).  ;)











I'm planning on doing student-led conferences near the end of the year this year, so I wanted to make sure their portfolio pieces contained a lot of reflections they could refer back to - not only for the conferences at the end of the year, but also to drive their everyday goals.

This week we've used the traffic light reflections with our first writing piece - I just kept it very simple and made a quick template with three dots to resemble the traffic light.  They colored the dots red, yellow, and green - and then had to write down something from their writing for each level of dot:

• red shows an area where they know they need to improve
• yellow shows an area where they are working on and improving in ... but can continue to work on
• green shows their strengths - something they are really proud of

They also used the red, yellow, and green to mark their own writing and show where the areas were in their writing.  When finished, the reflection sheet was stapled to the back of their writing, and placed in their portfolios.

We also used the traffic light reflection on our summary of learning at the end of our math unit this week.  As part of our review before our summative, I do a "summary of learning" where they come up with and reflect on all our learning goals from the unit (this time using "I Can" instead of "I Will" because it's the end of the unit).  I did a class anchor chart, and students copied this into their own notes.  I then asked them to individually reflect on those goals - putting a traffic light dot beside each goal, depending on their level of comfort with the goal.  I reminded them to let this help drive their studying and review for the test - spending more time on concepts they felt were a yellow or red.

We also reflected as a whole group - asking everyone how they felt about a specific goal, and taking a vote for the traffic light reflection dot for each goal.  This was done on our anchor chart.  This gives me a great insight into which areas to do a little more review on before the summative, and I can see who to quickly pull for a little small group practice.  I usually get asked, "Do students really want to admit they don't understand and put down a red dot on their paper, or raise their hand for a red dot?"  And my answer is YES.  I've done traffic light comprehension dots (and now reflection dots) for 4 years now, and my students have always been willing to admit where they need a little extra help without any apprehension or embarrassment at all.  And I am so thankful for that.  And so are they - knowing it's one way of letting me know they need a little extra something from me.

Happy Wednesday!

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Learn Like a Pirate - Improvement Focus

Chapter 4 of Learn Like a Pirate is all about Improvement Focus versus Grade Focus.  "On-going descriptive feedback" is a phrase that is as common as reading and writing in my area, so I knew as soon as I read the chapter title that this would be a natural fit.

Early in the chapter, Paul states that his students don't take many tests or quizzes.  Instead, they spend the time working and learning more.  In my classroom, that ongoing descriptive feedback happens daily through our classroom work and formative assessments.  We regularly go back and improve work, and students engage in meaningful discussions and reflections on how to take their work to the next level.  However, summative assessments still happen - and are required to happen through data walls, evidence pieces required for PLC meetings, porfolio pieces ... the list goes on.   The formative work is where the learning happens, but the summative is where the learning is proven.  And in my opinion, there is too much focus on the summative which detracts from all the work and effort done through the formative ... but I'm not sure how to get admin and parents on board with that shift.

One of the things that I LOVE about this book is the QR codes Paul includes to further your understanding of the concepts he includes.  In this chapter he goes into depth discussing how he and his students use eportfolios - which I was very interested in learning more about.  And just as I was thinking about what they actually look like / include ... BAM ... a QR code that takes me to his blog where he has full examples and samples and links to more information.  I really LOVE the idea of eportfolios and want to dig a little deeper into this (and I love even more the fact that Paul says it eliminates all those homework excuses).  Last week I had a fabulous opportunity to visit my daughers' school where my middle daughter (in grade 3) led me through her student led conference.  Independently, she went through her portfolio and told me about her strengths, areas of need, and things she was most proud of.  I LOVED every single second of it.  (I will be writing more about it in an upcoming blog post).  I left there knowing this was definitely something I was going to do with my own students next year ... and now I'm thinking about how I can add eportfolios to this (just have to check up on our current technology situation / schedule for the year).  And it IS a tangible resource for showing student learning and mastery of goals (and embraces and celebrates student reflection which I already find invaluable).

My other favorite part of this chapter was his discussion about critical peer feedback (and yes, that's a positive thing).  ;)  We do A LOT of peer conferencing and peer feedback in my classroom - especially during writing.  And I, like Paul, see the value in it, but struggle when I don't a lot of value in the peer feedback.  I have done things like "two stars and a wish" which has evolved into  "SWAP Conferences" (where they swap writing pieces for feedback to provide: a  star, wonder (3 questions), advice for the writer, and plans for revision, but I often found that the advice was lacking from their peers.  I think my students' worried a lot about hurting their peers' feelings, instead of looking at it as an opportunity to improve.  Paul writes about a "Quality Booster" lesson he now does with his students to improve feedback - and this is DEFINITELY going to happen in my class next year.  (If you'd like a copy of this SWAP conference sheet I made, you can grab one by clicking HERE or on the picture.)

One chapter ... so many ideas ... so perfect.  :)  Happy Thursday!

An InLinkz Link-up

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A Letter to Next Year's Class

I know this isn't a new idea, but I wanted to share another idea we did in my class at the end of last year.  Last year we wrote letters to next year's class, but I added a little twist.  Even though these letters were written to students in the grade below us, I can't begin to tell you how much these letters meant to me.  Reading them brought a tear to my eye, as I reflected on all the activities we had done together, the fun we had, and the growth we accomplished.

This class was special because last year was the first time our grade sixes would be leaving the school.  Up until last year, we had been a K-8 school.  With a new intermediate school built in our area last year, our school because a K-6 school, and my students would be moving on at the end of the year.  I had had most of my grade 6 students for two years, and I couldn't imagine not seeing them in the hallways next year.  Definitely bitter sweet, but I also knew they would love and excel in their new surroundings.

OK - back to the letter.  For our little twist on the end of the year letters, I had students come up with One Little Word that summed up their year.  They wrote this word on their whiteboards, and many of them decorated their whiteboards, as well.  I took a picture of them holding their whiteboards in front of a blank bulletin board.  (The little happy faces  on the students are just there for privacy reasons).

I have this awesome little photo printer in my classroom - Epson PictureMate Charm Photo Printer.  The school had purchased one for the primary grades for all the photo documentation they have do, but as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted my own, so I bought one.  I absolutely LOVE it.  You can instantly print pictures from your digital camera by putting the memory card right into the printer, or plugging the camera into the printer.  I use it a lot in the classroom.  I just leave my little digital camera at school so I have it whenever I need it.  When not in school, I tend to take pics on my phone or my SLR camera.

I made a quick anchor chart for my students to reference while writing their letters.  They needed to include their One Little Word in each paragraph they wrote.  They also needed to include at least 3 paragraphs in their letter, written in friendly letter format.  When finished, students published their letters on the computer, adjusting their font size so that their letter only took up half the page.  We photocopied their letters onto fancy paper, and glued their pictures underneath.  I then laminated them and posted them all on a bulletin board for next year's class to read (their classroom was next door to ours).

Building Better Writing Responses

Writing Organizer Concept Posters

Writing Reflection Fans - Traits of Writing

Writing Revision Bundle

InLinkz.com

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Poetry ... In Reverse

A few years ago I stumbled across the reverse poem, A Lost Generation, by Jonathan Reed.  I was blown away by it.  Immediately, I knew I wanted to share it with my class, and they were just as blown away as I was.  Over the years, I have continued to use it in my classroom, and every year, the reaction by the students is the same.  Many of them even ask to bring a copy home so they can share it with their parents.  (If you can't see the video below, here is the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA)

This year, I was finally brave enough to let my students have a go at writing their own reverse poetry.  After we watched and read the poem numerous times, I gave each student their own copy, and they went to work with a highlighter, highlighting the phrases that made the poem "work" (I had them work in groups of 2 or 3 for this).  They quickly noticed that every second phrase was generic - the fact that it contained no specific references was what made the poem reversible.

Then, we visited the site Budding Poets:  Reverse Poetry and read through some more examples of Reverse Poetry before I let the students loose to begin writing their own.  I did tell them they were allowed to "borrow" some of the general phrases from the poem if they were stuck.  This really helped the students get their poems started.  I asked them to try to write at least 14 lines, but many wrote more.

We have been piloting the use of 10 tablets in our classroom - Surface 2 tablets, so we wanted to be able to incorporate this technology into our poetry, as well.  We decided that when the groups were finished writing their poems (and after teacher approval) they would use the whiteboards and the video camera on the tablets to make a whiteboard movie or slideshow of their poems.  They used one whiteboard per line, stacked them all up, and then got ready to shoot their movies.  Most groups chose to make a video of their poems, but a few groups took individual pictures of each whiteboard (slide) and then put them together into a slideshow.  Both worked equally well.  We didn't read the poems out loud on the videos - the students thought it would be more powerful if the video was silent.

Here is a completed example of one of the poems my students wrote.  This group was made up of two 6th grade students.  The video you see is one I took on my iPad, standing behind them while they made a video on their tablet.  One student took the video, and one student was reponsible for changing the whiteboards.  On the video they took, you can only see the one stack of whiteboards (not the stack of removed whiteboards) - mine shows the whole process so you can have a better idea of what we did.  When all the groups were finished, we shared the poems with the whole class by projecting them onto the board.  What a great project!!  (Here is the link if you can't view the movie below:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO_B9gS58wg)

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Five for Friday - Olympics, 100 Days, Valentine's Day

I never seem to have the time to get one of these finished on a Friday, so Five for Saturday it is ... :)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Olympics - I've said many times this week that there should be national holidays during the Olympics so we have the time to sit back, relax (OK - maybe not relax) and cheer on our favourite athletes.  But ... bringing it into the classroom is the next best thing.  We're having a classroom Olympics during the big event.  On Monday, I arranged my students into 5 mixed grade, mixed academic abilities, and mixed athletic abilities for this time.  Each group came up with a country name, and they are also responsible for following that country's accomplishments for the Olympics.  The groups are also earning medals during this time.  They can earn medals for showing great team work, great character, working quietly or efficiently, earning compliments from other staff members ... anything positive.  LOVING the effect it's having on my students ... they are literally falling over each other to show that great character (and they were a pretty wonderful group to begin with).  I made up a quick chart on my smartboard to track our medal progress.  This is what our chart looked like after the first day.  

Tuesday was our 100th Day Celebration.  SO MUCH FUN!  I wrote a blog post earlier this week about all our activites (you can view it HERE - you can also grab a copy of the graphic organizer we used for the writing piece), so I'll just share a few pics from our day.  We integrated our celebration into science, writing, and math.  We came up with 100 ways to conserve energy, aged ourselves and wrote a reflection of our lives at 100, and explored the number 100 through measurement and geometry in math.

We've been taking on close reading in the classroom.  It's not something that's required in our school board yet, but I started reading Notice and Note a couple of weeks ago, and I was hooked.  It takes the comprehension strategies I already use in the classroom, and just bumps it up a notch.  I love the way it ties it all together, and the connections the students were making with their thinking and reading.  We've started reading the second book in the Shadow Children series, Among the Imposters, and we've been doing a little close reading with some excerpts from the chapters.  My students are LOVING this series!  I made a Close Reading Poster set for my students to use during this process.  

You can read a little bit more about my Close Reading Concept Posters HERE.

We've also been doing some fun word study activities inspired by another great read I picked up, Word Nerds.  This book has so many great word study activities you can take right to your classroom.  My students are really enjoying these activities.  We're focusing on new words and word choice with our close reading, so this has tied in perfectly.  For one activity, students had to identify a new word in their reading, define it, and then colour their card with the colour the definition made them think of.  On the back of the card they made, they had to explain why they chose that particular colour.  For another activity, students had to pick out a character trait in their reading, and then illustrate the actual letters of the word to show the meaning of the word.  Some of these word illustrations were fantastic!

Last, but never least, Friday brought Valentine's Day (and a full moon).  ;)  I was up far too late on Thursday, finishing Valentines for my daughters' classmates.  I found these ridiculously cute Valentine's cards on I Heart Nap Time.  My own kiddos LOVED them.  

I only had half a day with my students on Friday because I had a meeting in the morning, but I wanted to sweeten our learning with a few treats.  :)  We've been studying angles in math, so I gave each of them some Conversation Hearts.  They had to copy the messages from their candies on the hearts they had drawn on their papers, and then measure all the angles in the letters.  They then added up the total number of degrees in each message, and it quickly became a contest to see who had the highest scoring message.  :)  We've also been looking at apostrophe use this week (SO needed in my class right now).  So, I had them write an announcement they could read over the PA system, explaining what would happen on their dream Valentine's Day.  I asked them to include at least 10 apostrophes in their writing.  While they were out for recess, I went around and added candy hearts over all their correct apostrophes in their writing.  

And that brings me to today ... all done the girls' activities for the day, and looking forward to a day spent watching the Olympics.  Happy Saturday!  I'm linking up to Doodle Bugs Teaching Five For Friday.  Grab a coffee and hop on over.

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