Sweet & Simple Reading Interactive Notebook for Young Learners

I love using interactive notebooks in my classroom. It's a great way to keep a portfolio of student work as well as giving students a reference they created themselves. That being said, I also have a lot of trouble with some interactive notebooks. As a kindergarten teacher, I notice that many interactive notebooks have complicated instructions and directions that my students cannot read!


I decided to make a reading interactive notebook that was simple, repetitive, and full of pictures AND words. Through the repetition, my students are able to focus their energies on the lesson objective instead of complicated instructions. They are also given pictures on each activity to better understand and visualize lesson objectives. *Helpful tip: make anchor charts to match the interactive notebooks!!!

Here's is a quick preview of the notebook. It is simple, yet rigorous, and is easy to differentiate!

Enjoy!

Download HERE!

           

Instagram Literacy Activity: Sorting Vowel Sounds & Beginning Consonants

Instagram Vowel Sort

Looking for a fun new literacy activity that is sure to keep your students engaged? Well you've found it! With this activity, students are able to combine their interest in technology with a rigorous vowel review. Using simple CVC words, students isolate the beginning sound to determine the vowel sound. Introduce one vowel at a time, sort between two vowels, or practice all the vowel sounds. It's totally up to you! 

This is an activity you can put out at word work for months!

     

Also check out my Instagram Beginning Consonant worksheets! Combine your students' interest in technology and social media apps with important phonics skills. This beginning sound activity reviews the beginning sounds for all 21 consonants in the alphabet. Students cut and paste the correct picture onto the social media page. 

Use as word work, make cool bulletin boards, or combine with an interactive notebook. The options are endless!

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THE VOWEL GAME HERE!          

      

  

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THE BEGINNING CONSONANT 

ACTIVITY HERE!

Kindergarten Summer Learning Packet

... Cause We'll Have FUN, FUN, FUN...

  Sweet summer is almost here! It's the time of year where we're all drowning in paperwork and assessments while still attempting to teach and pack-up a classroom. I could seriously use a personal assistant right about now! 

Like most teachers, I always like to send home a summer learning packet on the last day of school. This year I decided to make my own instead of hunting around to put it together. Here are a few pictures of some the activities in this packet. So sit back, pour yourself an ice cold lemonade (or margarita), and enjoy the last few weeks of your year! You deserve it!

Download it HERE!

    

    

    

    

Download it HERE

Science Activities: Living & Non-Living

I just opened a new science lab in my classroom and my students LOVE it! We just finished with living and non-living things and I wanted to share some pictures of some of our activities from this mini-unit. These activities are from my Investigating Living and Non-Living Things Packet (see below). Enjoy!

Download HERE

SHAPE It Off!

We are getting geared up for learning about 2D and 3D shapes in my classroom! Let's keep this low-prep, rigorous, and FUN! These activities are from my NO-PREP Shapes Printables and also my Common Core Math Centers Bundle. Here are a few examples from these packets!

     

     

     

And a few centers from my Common Core Math Centers...

     

Download them HERE!

   

Close Reading Math Word Problems

Get it HERE!

I'll admit when I was first told that my kindergarten students should be doing close reading I was a little skeptical. I just knew that my little kindergarteners could not complete these higher-order thinking tasks. I mean, they're just babies right? But hey, I gave it my best shot. I' admit we started off a little... shaky to say the least. As we reread texts throughout the week I fielded questions like, "Didn't we do this yesterday?", but we powered through. I started by setting daily objectives during my read aloud. One day we'd discuss unknown vocabulary, the next we'd discuss story structure and retelling, and so on. As we head into the second half of the year, I'm happy to say that they're doing great. It's a beautiful sound to a teacher's ears when you hear them explain to me that they're "finding evidence in the text". Winning! Now, I'm not saying that this comes easily to all of my students, but it's worth modeling for our kindergarteners. 

The success I had this year with close reading inspired me to use this skill to help my 1st grade math tutoring group. Why not apply those same reading skills to help students read and solve math word problems? 

I made an easy 3-step process for close reading in math. These help students learn to determine whether to add or subtract, find important details in the problem, and find the question. What makes this more fun is that it involves highlighters! Check it out!

Get it HERE!

Happy Birthday George Washington

A George Washington Close Read and SO Much More!

I know I'm a little late, but I wanted to share some fun things I did with my 2nd grade tutoring group for George Washington's birthday! Close reading is something I like to work with this group on. We spend the first few times reading a passage working on decoding strategies and then we move on to find the important information in the text. I do this by having students locate answers to questions by highlighting the evidence in the text. 

We also had some fun making a Facebook profile for him as well! Check it out here!

Download the Washington Bundle HERE!