Giveaway

One of my fellow blog friends (Gabrielle at Teaching Special Thinkers) is having a giveaway.....and there is a chance to win a TON of free stuff!!!  Click the picture below and it will take you to her fabulous blog where you can enter to win!!

If you enter.....check out the loot you could possibly win:

• 25 dollars to Teaching Special Thinkers TPT store
• 52 Products for Grades K-2
• 40 products for Grades 3-5
• Special Education giveaway pack

Time to stop reading.....and go enter!!! :)

Hootycreeks and Exit Slips

Man oh man, am I feeling refreshed!  Here in Kansas, the weather was gorgeous!!!  I guess Mother Nature finally wanted to cooperate.....or perhaps she was tired of listening to all of the Kansans complain! Anyway, I spent my relaxing weekend gardening, planting shrubs, working on TPT products and  baking the world's best cookies!!

These little round joys of delight are called Hootycreeks.  They. Are. AMAZING!  They have cranberries, oats and pecans in them....so I like to pretend they are healthy.  And I may or may not eat them for breakfast....

Besides eating my body weight in cookies, I worked on ELA exit slips for my kiddos.  If you don't currently use exit slips.....you totally should!  Exit slips provide an extremely quick (what teacher doesn't like quick??) way to see if your students are comprehending what they have read.  This strategy is perfect for giving you (the teacher) immediate feedback and it will also help you students by providing them a way to think about what they have learned.  And as a bonus....exit slips work perfect for all text types!

Here is what the front side of the exit slips looks like:

The exit slip uses a simple 3, 2, 1 strategy.  When you are ready to wrap up your lesson spend 3 to 5 minutes and have students write 3 things they learned, 2 new words they discovered and 1 remaining question they have.

The back side looks like this:

On the back side you can ask students a specific question about the lesson, or choose from the list of questions below.

You can get this FABULOUS exit slips strategy for FREE at my TPT store.  Just click on the picture below!!

Hope you all had a great weekend!!! :)

Katie

Giveaway!!

Happy Weekend y'all!!!   I wanted to write a quick blog post to shamelessly promote a giveaway for one of the blogs I follow.  Christina Mauro at Mrs. Maruo's Kinderverse is giving away over 30 products from some fabulous sellers on TPT.  You MUST go check it out.....seriously!

 

Katie

Website Wednesday

I am always on the hunt for a great game website to easily incorporate into my classroom.....and I think I found a great one with Grammaropolis!

Students can easily practice parts of speech with this interactive website.  Kids of all ages can play games, watch videos, read books, take quizzes and listen to songs over nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections.  I mean---what more could you want?!?!

Most of the items on the website are free, however some require a paid membership. 

Check it out and see what you think :)

Katie

Monday Funny

I hope everyone had a great weekend and an even better Monday.  Enjoy the Monday Funny!!

Katie

Website Wednesday

Do you ever have kids ask you questions that you just don't have an answer for.....

I sure do!!  I am hoping other teachers experience this too---or I may find myself back in college, haha :)  Let's face it--kids are naturally curious and their growing minds always come up with great (and some cra-zay)questions!  The most recent question I had was, "Mrs. Orr what would a cross between a wiener dog and a Yorkie be called?" Any answer for that one????

         

Anyway.... kids can put their inquisitive thoughts to good use on the website Wonderopolis.

Wonderopolis is a fabulous site that presents a "Wonder of the Day" every day of the year!  For example today's wonder was: Where is the Big Dipper?  Some past wonders have been: Does every rose have a thorn?  How do you paddle board? What is martial arts? Why do monkeys love bananas?

All of the past wonders are saved to the site---so you can scroll through and discover almost anything!  The site is user friendly and has the wonders organized by category--so you are just a click away from making your brain grow!! :)

Each wonder has informational text to read about the wonder, a way to "try it out", great visuals and wonder words!  I love, love, love the wonder words part---perfect for word walls, practicing decoding/word attack skills or even word work!

The best part is that kids can nominate their own wonder!!  How cool would it be for a student to see his/her question get picked for a "Wonder of the Day!"

Do some exploring and see what you think. And, hey, if you don't like it---at least your kids have a place to ask crazy questions! :)

Katie

Flash Fluency

Being a successful reader is comprised of multiple things---fluency being one of them! If a child is trying to read from point a to point b and decodes every word in between ....I can guarantee that child didn't retain a thing!  Thus---fluency is important!!  Ideally, for older students reading should be automatic.  AND--when older students encounter a word they are unfamiliar with (which they will), they should have word attack strategies to decode the word.........

Now, unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world; which means we do have struggling older readers (if you don't, I want to know where you work, haha!).  One great way to help struggling readers, is to help them become more fluent with their reading. 

By fluent-- I mean for the students to become more automatic (not prosody or expression--that is for another post another day).  There are several ways to make students become automatic with their reading.

1. Practice Dolch sight words

• Dolch sight words are 220 words which students should not sound out--but simply know by sight. 

2. Practice Fry's 1,000 high frequency words

• Dr. Edward Fry compiled a list of the most frequently used words students would encounter while reading. The 1,000 words are divided into lists of 100--which start out easy and get harder. 

3. Practice with Flash Fluency

• Flash Fluency was developed by The Positive Engagement Project, which did a plethora of  scientific research to create four "no excuse" word lists
• Tide Pool
• For early readers
• 50 sight words from Dolch and Fry
• Low Tide
• One step above early readers
• 150 sight words form Dolch and Fry
• No repeat words
• High Tide
• Grade 2
• 600 sight words and academic vocabulary
• No repeat words
• Tidal Wave
• Grades 3 and up
• 1,000 words
• Sight words and academic vocabulary
• No repeat words

I have heard of Dolch and Fry words---but Flash Fluency words are new to me.  I love Dolch and Fry; and mastering the words does make a huge difference in a child's fluency. However I am intrigued by the whole Flash Fluency program.  I think it is great how the lists don't just include sight words, but also academic vocabulary. Also, the word lists go all the way up to sixth grade--which is awesome because many sight word lists don't stretch that high.

Anyway---click the links above and check out the lists for you and your students. You can download the PDF's for free. Included in the download are word lists, assessments, implementation ideas and fun ways to practice.

Let me know what you think!
Katie