Chapter 1 "Things To Think About" {Guided Reading Book Study}

 

Summer Readings!

It is Summer time for me! You know, I absolutely love my job, but the lazy days of Summer...I just love! Wait a minute..did I just say lazy days? Because there's not one thing about our Summer that is LAZY! I coach my daughter's 10U softball team. My two other daughters also play. We are basically at the ball field every night and on game days...there from about 4:00-10:00 :-)This Summer is also very special to our family because we are adopting a precious little boy! Our lives have been a tad bit crazy for the last 7 months...hence my lack of blogging and creating! I hope to get back on track this Summer.

As you may have read, some of my freebielicous buddies and I were planning on a book study for the Summer. A schedule will be coming out soon!! Do you have your book already?!

2012-2013 was the first year that my school text leveled all of Kindergarten. We did it 3 times and we used Fountas and Pinnell. It was such a great tool to assess my literacy instruction and create guided reading groups. I will be honest....my small groups were basically focused on specific skills (rhyming, beginning sounds, etc).  This year I began guided reading groups. I loved it! Now, I need to learn more about it and how I can be a more effective guided reading guru! :-)

When I purchased the book for our book study...I also purchased a few other books! I wanted to get this one because we use FP to text level our kiddos.

 I love how Amazon "suggests" books for you when you add one to your cart. This is one that came up too!

 Not only did they suggest that one but this one also...

 When will I have time to read all of these you ask?! LOL! I do have a little bit of down time. I know that these are NOT the books that we will be using for our book study, but I think these are what I need.

 

Are you ready for another book study?

Ok...ok...ok...I know that I said that I was NOT going to do another study this Summer. Well, what do you know. I was discussing things with some bloggin buddies of mine. We all said that we wanted to focus on becoming guided reading gurus! Well...maybe not gurus...just better! :-) So, we talked about books that we had, books that we wanted and we came up with this one! You can order your book by clicking below.

I have heard great things about Jan Richardson! I can't wait to get my book...I ordered it yesterday!

Some of the bloggers that will be working on this book study this Summer are:

We will be posting a schedule soon!! So, don't delay and order your book today! :-)

Freebielicious T Shirt Give Away

We at Freebielicious are so excited to announce teaming up with A+ Teacher Images (the greatest t-shirt company for teachers and more, in case you haven't heard of them!). We all received the fanciest custom designed t-shirt we've ever owned AND now we can give a t-shirt of the winner's choice from each of our individual blogs.

I just love my t-shirt because it is so much more than just a shirt.  It represents friendships, fun, and business relations (oh wait and STYLE, of course!) all in one "blinging" design.  Where else could you get all that from one t-shirt?  A  special thanks goes out to Doug from A+ Images.  He worked with us to make just the right shirt to represent our company and is still giving us a shirt to give one lucky winner for each of our blogs!

We have made this giveaway super easy for you to have almost 50 chances to win one of 23 t-shirts.  It is a blog hop, so you can enter as many or as few giveaways you would like!  The contest begins Saturday, May 18th, at 8:00 a.m. EST and ends on Sunday, May 19th, at 12:00 a.m. EST.  Winners will be announced on the following Monday.  Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy!  Start by entering my giveaway here: a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

 

Next, you will head over to my friend Jennifer's blog Simply Kinder and enter there and keep going until your fingers are too tired to hit click (that is how simple we made it for you!). All you need to do is click her button below!

 

Go to our Freebielicious Facebook page and like us so you never miss a freebie or giveaway like this one!

A New Look For An Old Favorite

An update on one of my favorite packs! At the beginning of the year, I introduce one letter every day.This pack has a fun, fairy tale theme! You can download a preview to what is included in the pack by visiting my store. Simply click the cover page below.

The first round of the Letter Land Party! I introduce a new letter/sound each day. I have all of the kids' names written on a sentence strip. I always try to put the girls and boys on a different color. I place all of the names in a pocket chart. We then go through the names. Anyone that has the letter in their name, then they go to the top of the pocket chart. If they do not, then they go at the bottom. IF their name begins with that letter, then they are the King/Queen of the day.This picture is of my old version. I will try to update with new pics ASAP.

 If they have the letter of the day in their name, then they take their name tag back to their desk and either trace it, circle it, or put a sticker under the letter. We then place it back in the pocket chart.

The first round of our letter party is simply an introduction to the letters and the sounds. After we put the names back in the pocket chart, then we complete a page in our Alphabet Book.

 

Tax Break Sale

 Happy Tax Day!! Well, might not be so "happy" for some...LIKE ME! OYYY! I have decided to put my entire TpT store on sale for 15% today only! 

Here are a few of my latest items! 

This packet is perfect for Kindergarten Round Up!

skills and items included in this packet:
letter recognition (UC and LC cards and recording sheet)
number recognition (cards 0-10 and recording sheet)
color recognition (10 color cards and recording sheet)
shape recognition (8 shape cards and recording sheet)
one to one correspondence (10 number set cards and recording sheet)
beginning sounds (26 BS cards and recording sheet)
fine motor (scissors skills)
name writing and self portrait
name tags
data sheet to keep track of all information collected.

 This packet is perfect to get your through the last 26 days of school! Each of the 26 days you have a fun activity correlating to a letter of the alphabet...starting with A and ending with Z! The best thing is, you get to choose the activities that you do! This product is EDITABLE! 

 This packet is designed for Parent Nights, Back To School, or Open House. I teach Kindergarten and we have a Parent Night for the incoming Kinder parents in the Spring. I create on presentation using these slides that are pretty generic. I include some pictures and Information on what each area looks like. In the Fall, I make my Open House presentation more specific. I include expectations on each slide. The best thing is, you get to choose the activities that you do! This product is EDITABLE! 

 

BBQ Literacy FREEBIE {Guest Post by Kindergarten At Heart}

Hey everyone!  I am Annie from over at kindergartenatheart.blogspot.com!  Tammy was sweet enough to let me guest post today.  Tammy and I taught kindergarten together for five years.  We had so much fun!  Hopefully someday we will be back teaching together again! 

I have to admit that I have a Target problem.  I LOVE Target!  I especially love the dollar bin.  You never know what little treasures you may find.  Yesterday I came across their new BBQ line.  My mind starting racing with ways to use them in the classroom.  I came right home and created this BBQ Literacy freebie.  Look at how cute this stuff is and all for cheep!

In this packet you will find three independent literacy activities.  Each would be great to use in a literacy station.  The activities work on word families, sight words and decodable sentences.  For this packet I bought one package of the french fry containers, hamburger containers and hot dog containers.  So a grand total of $3!

First is a hot dog word family activity.  The students will sort the hot dog words into different word families.  Once they have sorted all the words they will write them on an independent recording sheet. 

Second is the hamburger sight word activity.  The students will sort sight words into the hamburger containers.  Each sight word is repeated six times.   The students will then write each sight word several times on the independent recording sheet.  I also included a blank set of hamburgers so you can change the words for your classroom needs. 

 Last is the french fry decodable sentence activity.  For this activity the students will read the decodable sentence on the outside of the french fry container.  Then they will find the words on the french fries and build the sentence.  Once all the sentences are completed the students will record the six decodable sentences.

I hope that you enjoy this BBQ literacy packet!  Along with these adorable containers Target also has a cute BBQ chefís hat and apron that could be cute to add to this station.  Be sure to check it out! 

Here is the BBQ Literacy freebie!  You will find the directions for creating and playing each of the BBQ activities.

Also be sure to stop on over at kindergartenatheart.blogspot.com for more fun ideas!  You can be sure I will be checking out the Target dollar bin for more kindergarten classroom ideas!

Fill Your Basket!

It's a freebielicious blog hop!! I want to fill your basket with a Spring goodie! This dice game is a favorite in my room! I hope you enjoy it!

For your next FREEBIE click Mandy's button below

You do not want to miss any of the freebielicious gals' freebies. If you were here first, then you want to make sure you start at FREEBIELICIOUS! You can click the button below to start the hop from the beginning!