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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Batty fun freebie!

Our field trip was AWESOME! We had sprinkling rain most of the day and found some muddy trails to the pumpkin patch but the kids LOVED the cider mill and pumpkin patch! It was so cool seeing kids who were new to our country stand in awe of a live pumpkin field!

Tomorrow starts our week of bat fun! I finished the emergent reader for "The Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat." I added color words to help kids practice reading the color words AND so we could make a retelling bead bracelet later in the week! (I had some kids sort my big bead container, great fine motor work!)
I wanted to share the reader and hope to take some pictures of the retelling bracelets this week.
Don't forget: B-b-b-bats, the only mammal to take to flight! :) (I can't wait to share that big book and song with my kiddos!!)
Click  HERE  for this freebie!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

I've gone batty!!!

Wow! The first 6 weeks just flies by! I went from 17 kids (12 boys and 5 girls) to 25 kids (17 boys and 8 girls) in a matter of weeks! My room is MUCH more crowded!! I'm wearing tennis shoes to keep up with all the boys!! We are going full steam ahead with Daily 5 and so far have conquered Listen to a Story (Thanks to my DonorsChoose Cd players!) and Read to Self. Getting to Read to Someone Else tomorrow and Working with Words next year!
It's mid October and we are looking forward to heading to the cider mill/pumpkin patch soon! Our school has a large population of ELL students. This means doing traditional Halloween activities might not work. I've always done a few days on bats, but this year I'm going batty and doing a WHOLE week!
So I've got big plans!
1. I'm working on an emergent reader for "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat". I remember last year how amazing the Gingerbread emergent reader/retelling bracelet from Kindergarten Crayons worked for retelling. Fran used beads on a bracelet for retelling, using one color for each character. That's my plan for this book too!!Last year I had students who could retell weeks after based on looking at that bracelet!!
2. I have seen the games where you put programmed cards in a pocket chart and hide one little card behind one of them. The kids read a card and try and find the hidden card. Well, I've made one using numbers and BATS!!
You can get your free copy HERE
3. We will be doing a schema/new learning/misconceptions chart. Can't wait! Plus I am going to make a labeling sheet!
Hope you are not quite so batty as I am:)
Susan