One of my students’ favorite books is The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner. It is a super fun pop-up book about a frog with a huge mouth. He meets different animal friends and asks them what they like to eat. One animal he meets is an alligator who likes to eat…you guessed it- wide-mouthed frogs!! The kids, of course,… View Post
Working with words: stretching them out, counting the sounds, clapping syllables…. This is something I have my struggling readers do each week. The students seem to really like working with the words and the sounds that they hear. It is fun to watch them work through the steps and how their facial expressions change when they see the numbers. … View Post
My friend, Tammy, over at Forever in First has a great post on first graders and fluency. Fluency is such an important part of good reading. It is something that some readers continue to struggle with. Students need be able to read quickly with meaning, but not so fast that they are just spitting out the words as fast as… View Post
Folk tales bring back such special memories for me. When I was a little girl, I loved spending the night with my grandma. At night before we would go to sleep, she would always tell me stories. The Three Little Pigs was one of my favorites along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Red Riding Hood. She… View Post
The quote “How little things can make a big difference” by Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point was brought to my attention yesterday. I have done a lot of thinking on this little nugget of wisdom. We know it is true that little things do add up and make a difference. But in a week full of… View Post
Do you Pinterest? I am sure you do…everyone is getting into this addictive, but wonderful site. That is where I learned about ARE-CAN-HAVE charts. These charts are a wonderful comprehension tool for all grades. They are fun for the students and really help them to organize the information that they learned from their reading. Here are a couple of… View Post
No snow in our area to be able to make snowmen, so we did the next best thing! We read Snowmen at Night and made our own snowmen. Kindergarteners just love anything to do with snowmen! I did a read aloud and we discussed what the snowmen might do at night. One popular discussion was drinking the ice cold… View Post
