Friday Freebie on a Saturday

I fell asleep as soon as I got home yesterday.  I can't believe I slept that long!  I'm also excited to say that I'm a dot com now!  Check it!  Just type www.lessonplansandlollipops.com.  I think it's super cool!  I learned to follow directions and make it work too.  Well I have had a super busy week and I didn't have much to share.  Sorry about that, but next week is more promising.  Oh and my retired aide is subbing next week for my wonderful new aide.  I miss her, but she is happy in retirement land.  We still go out for dinner from time to time so it's all good. 

Today, I made a word building activity to use with my kids this week during guided reading.  I color coded each set of letter card so they are easy to sort and the kids can keep them separated easier.  I also included a work mat for them to make the words on.  This is a CVC word making activity with teacher directions.  The cards are cute little candy corn which is perfect for this time of the year.  All you have to do is print out the letter card and a work mat for each student.  Laminate and cut apart to make them last.  I like to store my letter cards sorted by color in individual baggies.  Then I put all the small baggies in a larger baggie or page protector.  I also put each of the work mats in a page protector and store everything in a 3 ring binder.  If you click the picture below, you can grab your freebie.  Before you go, leave me a comment and let me know if you would like to see more activities like this.  Thanks a bunch!

New Blog Look, My Guided Reading Tub, and a Freebie

I love my new blog look!  To celebrate the new look, I have a little Halloween Ten Frame Freebie for all my followers.  I also want to share what's inside my guided reading tub.

Here is what my tub looks like.  I have it stuffed full of things for this week.

I bought the smaller whiteboards in the Target dollar spot, but I have also seen them at the Dollar Tree.  These fit inside the container nicely and I no longer have to get up and get my larger whiteboards.

I have my sight words to review at the beginning of my guided reading lesson.  I review sight words with my students at least 3 times a day.  I have multiple copies of the sight words so I don't have to search for them.  I have a set everywhere that I am sitting/standing to review.

This week, I have smaller copies of my sight words and a few CVC words in baggies for the students to build sentences.

I have my pointer fingers and the books that I will use with my groups.  The students love using the fingers to point to the words.  I do take them away at one point in the year because brain research shows that students need to be able to track with their eyes because we actually look at more than one word when we are reading.

These are my whiteboard erasers.  I bought microfiber washcloths at the Dollar Tree and cut them into four pieces.  The work wonderfully and they are cheap so I can't go wrong there.  The bonus is that I can wash them too.

Now to get my Halloween Ten Frame Freebie click the picture below.

I almost forgot.  I'm linking up with Table Talk with C and C for a Fall/Halloween Giveaway!

This is a huge giveaway!  There are over 25 products!  One of my products are included in the giveaway as well.  Click the linky pic to check it out.

Tuesday Centers and an Alphabet Hat

 

This week we made out letter A hat.  This is in my new Phonics Alphabet Hats pack (TN).  They kids loved this!  They wanted to wear them all day and they received lots of complements too.  I had them practice writing the letter on the sentence strip with a crayon first.  Then they colored and cut out the pieces.  There were a few distractor pictures so they had to think which pictures begin with the /a/ sound to glue onto the strip.  This is new in my store and is 50% off today and tomorrow!  I made them while I was off last week.

During guided reading, my class rotates between for stations.  One of the stations this week is to fill in the missing letter.  I gave them both upper and lowercase letter magnets and a cookie sheet.  The students get a card and place it on the cookie sheet and then determine if they need a capital or lowercase letter to fill in the missing letter.  I also made this activity with the middle letter missing and the first letter missing.  Students can use an alphabet strip if they feel they need one.  Later in the year, I will switch this activity up by giving them cards with different letters missing.  I have also made these for my TPT and TN store.  You can see them here or here.  It's a simple activity that doesn't require a lot of ink.  144 different cards in all!  Only 24 pages.

Today, I brought out my little pointers for the kids to use during guided reading while they were pointing to the words.  They love using little pointers.  I have more than just the fingers.  My favorite are the monkeys.  I'll have to post those sometime soon.  This was the first time I brought the pointers out this year.  I wanted to set my behavior expectations first before giving them a potential play thing.

 Here is a look at another independent center this week.  I have been recording my own stories on CDs.  I just record my voice on my laptop and I ring a bell as an indicator to turn the page.  The best thing about making my own CDs is that they automatically play and they are finished when the book is finished.  Next week, I plan on introducing a response sheet for after they listen to a story, but for now, I am just having them listen.  I think it is important that they have plenty of time to get use to the equipment and the CD players are much easier to use than cassette player, but we use those too.  I previously posted that I bought a wonderful headphone jack so up to 5 students can listen at the same time.  I bought the cheapo headphones from the Dollar Tree.  Maybe one day I will buy more expensive durable ones, but for now these will do.  I was trying not to spend too much.  I only have 4 students at this station so two share a book and CD so I don't have to worry about having multiple book copies.  This week, they are listening to Green Wilma, The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash, and Miss Nelson is Missing.  Since stories are not all the same length, there is always an extra in the basket.

 

My aide has been working with students on letters recognition and beginning sounds.  These are the kid cards that come with our Saxon Phonics program.  The activities at this table change depending on the group, just like my guided reading group activity.  Previously, she has played rhyming bingo, matching, ABC Bingo, and has helped them work on writing their names.  It all depends on the needs of the group.  Currently, we have 4 students in each group and on Fridays, one group has 5 kids because I have a student that spends the afternoons with us and all days on Fridays.  The mornings he goes to preschool and next year he will be in my class full time.  I also have a student that comes to my class from first grade for reading in the morning.  He may be coming back over to kindergarten all day, but the final decision won't be made until next week.  Either way, I love having both of them.  The shocker of the days is that another kindergarten class just got a new student today.  We have been in school for 7 weeks now and it was his FIRST day!!!  Um, what were his parents thinking?

 

Thanks for stopping by!  Come back later to learn how I run my reading block.