Organize my life!!!

Click here for the planner

It is time.. Three kids and we are officially outnumbered.  I decided it was time to organize all areas of the house and my daily day.  I was finding that the more time I had, the less was getting done.. However, it is very easy to chill on the couch and snuggle with the newest member of the family.  I will not be heading back to work until next August so lately I have been tackling projects.  So far I overhauled the wash room, cleaning closet, pantry, and playroom.  There is still a ton to do.  With all of the projects I had for my hubs to complete I needed to organize.  I looked for a printable insert to put in my "family binder" but couldn't find one.  I wanted space for meal planning, exercise, to do, etc. The binder insert is available for download (free) in my teachers pay teachers store.  Thanks for visiting and happy organizing..... 

It's Been a Long Time.....

Long time no post... A lot has happened recently.  I am currently off for the remainder of the year.  I had a baby in December and decided to take the rest of the school year to spend it with her.  I took Woogie (our middle child) out of daycare/preschool to stay home with me too.  She has Kindergarten screening next week so we have been practicing our letters and just acting like a normal kid.. She loves to do parking lots.. However, she usually uses one of her princesses to jump in the parking spaces for letter recognition.  Parking Lot Blog Post

Having Woogie home with me has forced me to "attempt" a schedule and routine.. Still working on that one.. I hope to have my day down at least by summer, when all three kids are home!  I noticed that Woogs is a hands on learner.  Much like my older child.  She especially enjoys art.  I decided to take her hands on approach and created a sight word activity paper.  She completes the paper (with help) after she practices it using sand and paint.. See the blog post on initial sight word introduction. Sight Word Blog Post  Her favorite part is stamping the words and drawing the pictures.  I currently have fry's list of words 1-25 completed.  However, I am working on completing the remaining words on the 100 list to post in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  Here is a freebie if you want to try it out..

Try it HERE

Back to School!! Freebie

I will be using this activity for back to school.. There are a number of ways to use this game. 

Pass the Pumpkin - Students sit in circle.  Teacher distributes one pumpkin card per student.  Play music, students begin to pass pumpkins.  When music stops, students try to recognize their letter and think of a word that begins with that letter.

Ice Breaker- With class split in half, give one group a lowercase letter.  Give the other group the corresponding uppercase letter.  Students are asked to find their matching letter.

Concentration- Lay all cards upside down.  Students take turns flipping cards and try to find the matching letter.  Play continues until all matches are made.
Student with the most matches wins the game.

Thank you for checking out my blog.  Tomorrow I will be posting about our new mudroom makeover.. With our first little guy heading to Kindergarten, we MUST organize ASAP...

Click HERE for free download

Organizing Guided Reading Groups

It can be somewhat difficult to keep tabs on the different levels of students within a classroom.  When I taught first grade I used a system similar to this one to keep track of levels.  This system can use post-it notes or dry erase markers.  All you need is a manila folder and glue.  See directions below.  This was a huge time saver for me in the classroom.  I was able to easily store the folder in my guided reading binder.

CLICK HERE for your FREE download

Phonemic Awareness Check Up

Click Here for your free phonemic games

As my student pre and post test through the phonemic continuum, I thought they were great with their concepts.  However, I found that there are times my little ones forget to listen for their beginning or ending sound etc.
I decided to create this quick game for warm up to our small group reading lessons.  The game allows me to see who has mastered numerous phonemic tasks and those that need an extra push.  The students really enjoyed this game and I was able to assess them in a fun way. :)
All you need is a stack of picture cards (for example CVC pictures), paper clip, pencil, or see through spinner.  (Sometimes the see through spinners come with  math series).  Students spin clip and choose a card, wherever clip lands they perform the phonemic activity.  Simple and fun!

Making it Fun for the Little Ones!

I work on my school's Title 1 staff as a Reading Specialist.  We have found through the past years that our Kindergarten students are coming to us with much less than what the "state" expects of them.  (Not that I agree with everything the State has pushed, however, I would like to continue to have a job... So I follow the rules and press on.)  Therefore, we as a staff have really focused a big chunk of our day with the young crowd.  I spend over an hour of my day with a small Kindergarten group and then push in for a half hour in two different K classrooms.  I love working with not only the K students but the First graders too.  I just love to see the change they go through-absolutely amazing.   I meet with some fragile learners every morning.  I have to keep things interesting for these little learners.  In the previous post I shared our parking lots we use for learning letters, sounds, and sight words.  They really enjoyed using the parking lots as a quick warm up for our lessons but they were getting a bit bored with that activity.  So I decided to include a day of sight word warm-ups.  Our Kindergarten students are required to know 100 sight words by the end of the year.  For some of our students that goal is a lofty one.  I have four students in my morning remediation group.  Each member of the group has a job to prepare us for the warm-up as it requires a lot of materials.
Here are the materials you will need...

After all materials have been collected, I use a white crayon to write their sight words throughout the page on their notebooks.  Students then paint with water colors to find the sight word.  After the word is found, I give them the entire word on an index card and they write the word in their sand three times while they wait for their page to dry. 

After they write their words three time I cut the words apart and mix up the letters.  By this time the pages are somewhat dry enough for the students to put the words back together and glue them into their notebooks. 

This weekly routine usually takes about fifteen minutes.  After we clean up our materials we come up with sentences with our sight words.  I write the sentences for them and then they read them back to me before they leave.  The following day our warm-up begins with rereading our words, writing them in our palms, then reading the sentences they created.  Then they take a shot at writing a sentence or story with one or more of their sight words and highlighting it in the sentence.
Overall, I really enjoy working with Kindergarten because they love any activity you try with them..

Getting Ready for the Big K!

My little guy is going to Kindergarten this coming Fall.  He was old enough to send to school last fall however, he is a tad impulsive and wanted nothing to do with school...  Keep in mind the pressures of Kindergarten too (good old common core).
Being a teacher, I was kind of bummed when he didn't want anything to do with colors, numbers, letter, etc.. My husband continued to say, "you're the reading specialist, you have to teach him his letters".  However, H had other plans.  He would rather run like a wild man around the house and neighborhood before sitting down to learn letters.. Then I was watching him play with his matchbox cars and had an idea.. I can use his cars to help him learn his letters.  He absolutely loved it!!  I was amazed at how fast he caught on to his letters, numbers, and colors.  His little sister saw it and wanted to give it a shot too.  She really loved it and even started using her princesses.
 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/RTI-Fun-Letter-Identification-game-Park-your-car-activity-644309

We finally know most of our letters so we have moved onto blending letters.  He is great with all of his phonemic skills (for the most part).  We began reading CVC words this week.  He seems to enjoy it as long as it involves cars!!  His favorite part is flipping the flap to see if he read and blended the word properly.  This boy is definitely a tactile learner.

 I am so excited to see if my little Kindergarten friends will enjoy blending and checking their words as much as my son does.. :)
Stay tuned for a blog post on sight word ideas that have become part of our everyday remediation in Kindergarten. 

Stay warm all!! We have over a foot of snow!!!