I'm so incredibly happy to tell you that I am once again partnering with Astrobrights®Papers this year as a Bright Minds ambassador. Astrobrights Papers are every teacher's favorite paper source, not only because they have the most amazing quality and colorful products, but … [Read more...]
January Sensory Fun!
How many are too many sensory bins to have going at one time? Hmmm . . . that's really good question. But since I have never met a sensory table or bin I didn't like, I am probably not the best person to ask. I can tell you, however, that I have four going right now in my own … [Read more...]
Edit It-Make It Your Own Spring Sight Word Freebie
It's not often these days that you'll find me 'shopping' in the traditional sense. I mean, I'm usually on a mad dash to put exactly what I need in my cart and get out of a store in time to get back home or the hospital. But I just happened to be flying through Walmart last week … [Read more...]
A New Way To Use No Fuss No Muss I Spy Printables
I have used I-Spy activities in my class to engage students and differentiate instruction for several years. Give a kid a magnifying glass, and you have a happy student. So when your students are engaged and happy and working at a readiness level right for them, it will give … [Read more...]
Editable Sight Word Write The Room Fun and A FREEBIE for you to try it.
Here's the deal. Write the Room activities are one of my most favorite activities to offer students, because I know that my students need to move and this gives them a free pass to wonder all around my room. I know the idea of this puts some teachers into a complete panic, but … [Read more...]
The Reality of Daily 5 Day One In Kindergarten!
The good the bad and the ugly. That should really be the title of this blog all about the reality of starting Daily 5 in kindergarten, because let's face it, you have to be able to roll with the punches, duck and weave and basically multitask like a madman these first couple of … [Read more...]
Setting Up For A Successful Year Of Daily 5 In Kindergarten
The beginning of the kindergarten year is such a blur. About halfway through it, you try to look back and figure out exactly how it all started. It gets difficult to remember the hard work and organization that it took to get your from there to where you are now, but by … [Read more...]
Ingredients For Successful Word Family Instruction
It’s the thirty-second day of school. Over half my kinders are ‘Top Bananas,’ I’ve introduced and we’ve reviewed over half the letters of the alphabet, they are showing signs of segmenting and blending, they totally ‘get’ patterns, and I’m feeling like it’s time to introduce … [Read more...]
Engaging and Extending Skills With Familiar Differentiated Stations
I love it when stations start humming along on their own engines with very little need for intervention or instruction from me. I changed over new stations for math this week and Daily 5 in order to accommodate some October/Autumn/Halloween-ish themes and was delighted to see … [Read more...]
Daily 5: 2nd Edition-Daily 3 Math – My Differentiated Kinder Spin on it!
I need to start out this chapter first and foremost by saying that most of the time I was reading it, I felt like I was nodding in agreement, because it is basically very similar to how I structure my own math stations with a few adjustments. In a similar … [Read more...]
So this is Self Sustained Reading!
We’ve spent so much time talking about Daily 5 lately . . . I thought I would share a little epiphanyI had this week. I know, as teachers, we often struggle with why kinderssometimes have such difficulty with sustained reading. In all honesty, most of the students that we see, … [Read more...]
Daily 5-2nd Edition Chapter 7: Houston We Have Lift Off . . .and a FREEBIE
You’ve started Read To Self. You’re setting your foundation lessons and your kiddos are building stamina. So now what? We may build our read to self-stamina by practicing a couple of times a day, but since that only takes a small portion of our ELA block, … [Read more...]
