Reading Ready!

Want to know how the new resources from Donors Choose are being used? Here we go!
We have been reading our leveled readers, both fiction and non-fiction, during guided reading and centers.  We LOVE the non-fiction readers with their real pictures, decodable words, and engaging topics. Yay for Donors Choose!

I am still working on these (I think) but here is a start on penguin centers.  We will be learning about penguins next week and I wanted to create some centers for the kiddos that expanded on what we will be learning about penguins.  I also found a really cool blubber science experiment that I am going to TRY to do on TPT, but of course I can't find it again. ARGH!

Well, it worked. Our class has been doing everything we can think of to get it to snow.  We have written about snow, we have drawn snow, and yesterday, we had a snow ball fight!!

And then it snowed outside!

How did we have a snowball fight before it was snowing? Let. me. tell. you.

It was a sight word snowball fight.  The kids each got 5 pieces of white paper and a marker.  Then I went around whispering "secret" sight words to each child. After the words were written and they checked their spelling on the word wall, I checked for spelling. Then we crumpled! We crumpled each paper and got ready for the sight word snowball fight. Girls on one side, boys on the other (only because this was a visible and quick way to sort the kids). After a review of the rules - the snowballs flew! The kids got to throw one, then read one to me.  At the end, each child picked 5 snowballs to bring to his/her seat and read.

Then...

They got back up and had a snowball fight against me! We repeated the ending part, and each child read more words. It was a fun, quick way for the kids to practice their sight words.

Thanks to Katie Mense from Little Warriors for the idea: Snowball Fight! She had some great response sheets to go along with it, but I thought that we would run a practice round first!

Good Morning!

Last week, I mentioned that we had received some new books through Donors Choose.  I showed the kids the books on Friday, and today and tomorrow we will start reading with them.  Here is a picture of the set - I will post more pictures as we start working!

Now that we have the materials, we will be sending a thank you note to the donors.  Here is the photo release form if you need another one. Please turn in forms by Friday.

    

Thanks for all your support! Hopefully there will be more projects in the future! :o)

Here are some sight word flash cards to use at home.  You can cut them in half and tape them to a toilet paper rolls to make "sight word rolls"

 or cut them into flash cards and keep them in a baggy for easy practice. Enjoy!

Sight Word Flash Cards

Last post for today ~ Here are some of the sight word pages that we have developed as a grade level (however most are mine) if you would like additional pages to practice at home.

Sight Word Pages

Disclaimer: I will be using some of these in class, but not all.  You also need to have the font ABC Print for it to work.  I am working on converting these all to PDF files, but I am not there yet! Eeee

Polar Express Centers

I also wanted to share this link to our Polar Express centers - I know it's late, but hey - maybe for next year?!

Polar Express Centers

Better late than never?

I wanted to post some pictures from our holiday party, but this two-week break has gotten away from me!!

We created gingerbread houses at the party to wrap up our gingerbread man/woman unit.  On Wednesday we mixed, baked, and hunted for the gingerbread man who has escaped from the oven!! We found him though, thank goodness, and then we tasted him!! Yum! The kids really enjoyed making these houses, and it was nice to spend some quality fun time with each child! :o)

When we weren't decorating the gingerbread houses, we were playing stuff the stocking (with marshmallows - which I forgot to remind the kids NOT to eat until it was attempted, oops!), we made some wreath crafts, and decorated stockings! It was a blast - we were wild and fun ( and safe :o) ).

The last photo came in the days before the party - it was Speedy's little reminder to the class to help us get through the last few days before the excitement of the season took over!  Speedy was fun to have - but we won't see him anymore until next year in our room!