Listening To Books

Remember this face??? Can you hear the voice in your head???
Good for you!!
Now for the really good news —- This is Katherine Kinney (yes, I know, you’ll always think of her as Mimi) and she’s created a wonderful website for children.  MrsP.com
Students can listen to stories, watch videos, and play interactive literacy games.  This is [...]

Good Fit Books

This is not the time of year that most of you are teaching the “good fit books” lesson —- but it may be the time of year for a quick little review with your kiddos.
The Sisters gave us that terrific demo lesson with the shoes that so many of you love doing with the students [...]

Poetry Month: Prompts

One fun teaching blog, Bud the Teacher, has found a great way to get all of us involved in celebrating National Poetry Month. He’s inviting readers to write some poems and publish them on blogs, his site, etc. If you’re like I am, this is is easier said than done.  Apparently, Bud thought so too.  [...]

Trivia for Kiddie Lit

I’m not a huge fan of trivia questions as a part of reading instruction or assessment — but as part of fun —- count me in.  Trivia can be a huge source of fun and a way of playing games and working cooperatively on a subject.  It can also be a way of documenting surface [...]

Poetry Resources

We’re hunting for fun poetry resources once again (its that time of year, isn’t it??)  Here are a few that I found from the Choice Literacy Newsletter (go Brenda!!).  Can’t recommend them enough — even if you can’t swing a subscription, they’re worth just getting the newsletter (although– fair warning — each newsletter will tease [...]

Another Workshop Video

Reader’s Workshop Slideshow

I found this slideshow today while doing some research for the upcoming PLA —- see what you think…..

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

What a fun idea!!  I’m wondering if some of our kids might like to participate in this one.
Its National Novel Writing Month — and the goal is to simply write 50,000 words by the end of November.  That’s it!! Nothing special, nothing sophisticated — just get the words down on the paper.
Everyone who accomplishes the [...]

Trading Spaces: Classroom Edition Part I — Just Kindergarten

Wow, oh wow!! Did you all ever do an amazing job on the classroom spaces this year!! I am impressed beyond words. We arrived with only a couple of days before the children were arriving to find the building all topsy-turvy — desks were turned on end, materials were piled everywhere, boxes [...]

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 [...]