Hey remember me? I really am still around. Soccer with my boys is taking a ton of my time this fall (and I love it...really I do), but I promise, I am still checking in and trying to keep up. Oh know all you teacher moms out there get where I'm coming from . . . So … [Read more...]
Organizing Daily 5 Literacy Stations in Kindergarten and …a freebie for you.
Daily 5 Literacy Stations!!!! Holy email, you all have a ton of questions, and while I’d love to claim that I’m an expert, I can really only tell you how this works in my own classroom. As some of you know, I do a form of Daily 5 . . . We call it Daily 6 in my … [Read more...]
Getting them from HERE to THERE…Starting Your Literacy/Daily 5 Stations in Kindergarten
As teachers embarking on the beginning of the school year, we have these visions of how our literacy stations will 'go.' In our mind, we see our students working on meaningful tasks at their level and engaged for the duration of their station time throughout the classroom while … [Read more...]
Chapter Three of the Next Step: Non-readers and Emergent Guided Reading Tips, Skills and a Couple of Freebies
Chapter 3: The Next Step You know, I tell myself every year, “this summer, you’re not going to do a book study.” And every summer, of course, I do and I never regret it because, quite honestly, every time (so far) I’ve learned new things or have been able to tweek what … [Read more...]
Assessment and Grouping: Chapter 2 of The Next Step
Assessment and Grouping-Chapter 2 The Next Step Chapter Two speaks about assessment and grouping. I’m passionate about assessment. No! Not the kind of paper pencil standardized assessment that we teachers dread and avoid if at all possible. I like the kind of … [Read more...]
Zip Lovin’ Next Step
Zip Lovin’ Next Step? Yeah, I know, I have too many things going on at one time, and they’re all kind of random. So, that’s the best title I could come up with at the moment. I’m just finishing the second week of my summer vacation, and I’ve been so busy I feel like it … [Read more...]
The Next Step Chapter One: Welcome to Our Book Study Adventure
And so it begins…another summer book study! Chapter 1 of The Next Step. Today's host is Crystal from the one and only Kreative In Kinder and Tammy from Live, Love Laugh Everday in Kindergarten. Make sure you check out their posts. The reason I’m so excited … [Read more...]
All In the Family (The Word Family That Is) and a Freebie to Get you Started
I am a true believer in the power of FAMILY...specifically Word Families. In my own classroom, it's an essential part of my Daily 5 Word Work. Word families, or some people call them chunks (families is just so much more friendly sounding to me but to each their own), … [Read more...]
Winding down and gearing up.
There are only days left before the school year is over. On one hand it feels like we need to hurry to get everything in before they leave. And on the other hand, it's time to plan for those fun, end of the year events, that celebrate the completion to another successful year. … [Read more...]
Get Your Books . . . We’re Doing a Book Study!
While there will be tons of fun things going on from the Freebielicious authors this summer, I wanted to give you a quick heads up about the book study that's going to be taking place so you can get your book and be ready to go. All the details aren't hammered out yet, … [Read more...]
Speed Readers Dolch Phrase Frenzy . . . I mean Fluency!
When I started doing 'Ball Words' (my Dolch word mastery system) four years ago, I ran into a very good problem to have. My kinders that were able to master all 220 Dolch words were NOT satisfied with 'now you're done.' They wanted more. They wanted more of a challenge. They … [Read more...]
Sight Word Fluency – Answered Questions
This is going to be a bit of a follow up to my blog about my Ball Words and Sight Word Fluency System post that I did last week. Since I've had so many questions regarding my Ball Words, I thought I'd try and hit some of the most frequent questions … [Read more...]
