Trading Spaces: We are not alone.

I couldn’t resist that title — sorry.  The whole internet thing always has this slightly sci-fi feeling for me — very “we are not alone” with some spooky sounding John Williams music as the soundtrack. 
Moving right along —– Karen from Literate Lives dropped us a comment on our classroom design notes.  She noted that  Franki [...]

Common Assessments

I worked on a couple of committees this summer and the same theme kept rising over and over again — we need some kind of common assessment.  And it was followed each time by the echo:  something that means something!!
Currently, we have some standardized assessments like the DRP and the SAT and of course we [...]

First Day of School Read Alouds

By now we’re all thinking and planning for the first day of school.  One of the things I’m hoping that you’re planning for is your read aloud.  The read aloud choice for the first day of school does so much in a classroom:

it sets the tone for reading for the year — will this be [...]

Kids’ Books Websites

Most of us are beginning to think about books we might want to use for read-alouds or as Mentor Texts in September.  But — we’re still in vacation mode — and sitting in a library studying books just isn’t going to cut it!  (Although an afternoon in Barnes and Noble or Borders with an iced [...]

Learning the ABC’s

I noticed this interesting article this morning and thought of my kindergarten friends….
Letterpalooza has 26 ways to learn the alphabet!!  Sounds like fun.  Its a two page article intended mostly for parents.  I’m thinking that some of the ideas might be fun in our classrooms.  But I’m also thinking that we might want to take [...]

More Back-to-School Shopping

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50c Target Kid’s Pointed or Blunt-tip Scissors
85c 1-subject spiral bound notebook
$1.85 3-subject spiral bound notebook
$2.85 5-subject spiral bound notebook
$1.50 each
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Protractor
Retractable Compass
15% off other seclected scissors and measuring tools$11 each
Sharpie 25 count Fine or Ultra-fine tip
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