TCAP Boot Camp- Plural nouns

Last year third grade held TCAP Boot Camp the 2 weeks before TCAP week. Students were placed into 4 teams and rotated to all the teachers to review important material.

Students loved it, teachers loved it, the administration loved it, an our scores proved it's worth!

This year we decided to not wait until the last minute. From now until the TCAP test, each Friday will be set aside as Boot Camp day. We still have 4 teams: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta.

There are 3 rotations in the morning, one in the afternoon, with time in the middle for related arts, lunch, and homeroom check-in in the middle. We also end in time to have Fun Friday with the rest of the school.

There are 4 teachers in the rotation; 2 teachers for math review and 2 for language arts. Teachers are encouraged to take pictures and video if possible to share with parents what their student is reviewing in order to help them better at home.

Here are videos from the Plural Nouns review lesson.

We started by reviewing nouns, using a jingle from the Shurley Method. Parents, if you'd like some extra help with the Shurley Method, click {HERE} for a printable version.

Noun Jingle:

This little noun,

floating around,

names a person, place or thing!

With a knick-knack-patty-wack,

these are English rules!

 Isn't language fun and cool?

Alpha team:

Bravo:

 Charlie:

Delta:

Now that we can identify nouns, now we can make them plural! We listened to one of my favorite songs from the Sound of Music: My Favorite Things. We changed it a little to My Favorite Nouns. If you'd like a copy of the song to print, click {HERE}.

Unfamiliar with the song? Check it out below!

After listening to the song, we took the nouns from the song and categorized them into their plural forms, ending with -s, -es, and -ies.

Of course we had to do one more chant to remind us what to do when our word ends with a Y.

Change the Y to I and add ES!

Great job, Team Charlie!

To finish our time together, we used an activity that I found at Queen of the First Grade Jungle's blog about sorting -s and -es nouns. Click on the link to take you to her blog!

I made copies for all the kids and they were able to take the game home for practice. Thank you, Queen!

Students end their time in each classroom with a 5 question Exit Ticket for a quick assessment and grade.

For their first day, I think  everything ran smoothly! It was a hit!