Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 12 Bat Loves the Night are here! NOTE: This blog post includes affiliate links, but my opinions are my own. Read Aloud Lesson Plans Nicola Davies is one of my favorite authors. I love how she couples informational text with a narrative text. Not only is a great book for our Engaging Readers, it is also a wonderful mentor text for writing. Her descriptive writing allows ...
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Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 11 A Creepy Pair of Underwear (Free Math Files Too)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 11 featuring the book, A Creepy Pair of Underwear. NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links but the ideas are my own. Lesson Plans: Read Aloud We loved the book Creepy Carrots so much we knew we had to have Aaron Reynold's book, A Creepy Pair of Underwear! Jasper desperately wants a pair of Creepy Underwear. His mom is doubtful. I love the mom's ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 10 Spiders
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 10 featuring ideas learning about spiders. Each fall, we try to take a moment to learn more about arachnids! Spider Read Aloud We love National Geographic Kids books and Spiders by Laura Marsh is another outstanding resource. The pictures are vibrant and detailed and this book offers a chance to explore text features of informational books. We created a Spider Life Cycle chart. Then ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 9 Martha Speaks
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 9 featuring ideas for Martha Speaks by Susan Meddaugh! NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links, but my opinions are my own. Martha Speaks Reading Lessons Martha Speaks by Susan Meddaugh is such a fun book, we knew we had to include it in our Engaging Readers Units. The story follows Martha who one day eats alphabet soup, which gives her the ability to talk. AND she talks, talks, ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 8 How Do Apples Grow? (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 8 featuring ideas for How Do Apples Grow! How Does an Apple Grow Reading Lessons I love this book because it has a lot of information about apples and the illustrations are beautiful! However, a word to the wise. There are discussions in this book about male parts and female parts. 😳 So you may want to skim and scan over these sections...or you may want to brace yourself for a whole ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 7 The Art Lesson (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 7 featuring ideas for The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola. The Art Lesson Close-Read I've always had a soft spot for Tomie dePaola books and The Art Lesson is a great little autobiography to share with your class. Here are the retelling cards we use. We have found that students can start practicing retelling with text details very early in the year. This takes the act of listening ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 6 The Recess Queen (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 6 featuring ideas for The Recess Queen! If you look at this book, you can tell it is a little frayed around the edges... Yes! I love it that much! The Recess Queen Read-Aloud Lessons The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill is a great back to school book, but it can honestly be used at any point during the year. We included this book selection in our reading units. You can find the ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 5 Chrysanthemum (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 5 featuring ideas for Chrysanthemum! Let's do this! (NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links, but the ideas are my own.) Week 5 Lesson Plans for Reading Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes is a class favorite. You can also find the video on Amazon Prime! SWEET! You can click: Chrysanthemum Video to view ...
Writing Folder Organization FREE file!
I am often asked how I organize my student writing folders. Then the other day I was cleaning out a "special drawer" that I had (AKA: junk drawer, catch-all, blackhole) when I found an old writing folder I used with my 2nd-grade students. I'd forgotten all about them. So I decided to whip up a cleaned-up version and offer them to you all! Here are your Writing Folder Organization FREE labels for your early ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 4 Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 4 featuring ideas for Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse! Woo HOO! Week 4 Lesson Plans for Reading We love Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes! It is a MUST read every year with our Engaging Readers units. The retell cards really provide a structure for students to practice noticing the text key ideas. They also help build students' oral language as they practice retelling the ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 3 Clark the Shark
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 3 featuring ideas for Clark the Shark Reading, writing, math, and center activities too. Clark the Shark Close Read Clark the Shark is a great book to introduce to your students early in the year. Clark is big and rough and he has a hard time with his friends. Can you think of a really enthusiastic student who might benefit from this gentle reminders? In the end, Clark learns ...
Free Journal and Notebook Labels for Kindergarten
Free Journal and Notebook Labels for Kindergarten. This blog post contains free labels for your math journals, poetry notebook, and your students' thinking journals. Perfect for interactive notebooks! Preparing your notebooks So I was always the crazy lady, sitting on the floor at Walmart trying to get all of my composition books to match. Then when all of my notebooks were matchy-matchy, I would start the year off. This helped my ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 2 Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 2 featuring ideas for Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon. This is a great back to school book, but it can be used at any time of the year. Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon Close Reading With our Engaging Reading Curriculum, we revisit the same book over a 5 day period. Each day, we dig a little deeper into the text. So it is important we select a book that engages students. LOOK at this ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 1 (free file) Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 1 is HERE! I've been there! I know what it is like. You worked so HARD to get your classroom ready and now you are about to meet your new friends that will be with you all year. So how do you get started? For years, I have posted my Peek at my Week lesson plans and shared them with you all. This last year, I took the year off and I received so many ...
First few days of school
The first few days of school can make even a seasoned kindergarten teacher nervous. Let me show you how our week looks. We had our first day of kindergarten on Wednesday and it was such great fun! Let me show you want the first few days entailed. If you want to see my lesson plans for the first week of school, click {here}. The Overhead Station It always cracks me up how the overhead station is always the coolest one! ...
Introducing the Alphabet (Free File too!)
As we are introducing the alphabet, we help kindergarten students learn to identify the letters of the alphabet at first by looking at the path of motion. When we designed our Engaging Readers units, (where you can find the alphabet cards) we not only planned amazing reading comprehension activities, but we also planned our word study as well. We are often asked about how we introduce the alphabet to our kindergartners at the beginning ...
Tips for organizing your read aloud materials now!
I'm often asked for read aloud organization tips! Here are a few ideas for your classroom! Organizing Your Read Aloud Books I have to be honest, I used to keep most of my read aloud books on a shelf in alphabetic order. This seemed to make sense... until I took them off the shelf and vowed to return them, but I never did. So then I would end the year with my book version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa! I was always hunting ...
Classroom Resources for May… Are your lessons ready?
Kindergarten Curriculum Guide for May. Are you ready? Here are some classroom activities, read aloud books, lesson ideas, and resources for you to use with you students. Read Aloud Books for May We sure love studying the ocean in May. The book, Hello Ocean by Pam Munoz Ryan i(affiliate link) is a great book to weave into your studies. The language is rich and perfect for talking about figurative language and using our five ...
Shark Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade
Shark Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade. Check out the book ideas for reader's workshop and writers workshop. You can find a free file towards the end of this blog post too! Shark Activities Mentor Texts Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies is such a great book! This book contains a ton information about sharks! I love the illustrations and so will your class! We ...
City Dog, Country Frog Activity Ideas and more
City Dog Country Frog Activities and Mentor Text lesson ideas are here! Find reading comprehension and writing ideas to use with this amazing book by Mo Willems. City Dog, Country Frog Mentor Text I don't remember the exact moment I fell in love with City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems. I think it was actually a love at first sight sort of thing. I love the theme that two individuals who are so different can still find a true ...
Are you ready for April?
April kindergarten activities and lesson plan ideas! This blog post is filled with Spring classroom ideas for read-aloud, spring literacy centers, spring math centers, and more! Plus a free lesson planning guide for you! April Book Activities We sure love books! Here are a few that we love to teach with in April. Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens. You can see a blog post on this book with a free file: Tops and Bottoms ...
Running Record Assessments: How and Why (Free File)
Running record assessment forms and more will be covered in this blog post. What are running record assessment forms? Way back in the day, researcher Marie Clay designed the running record assessment as a tool to analyze and capture a student's thinking and behavior when reading. It is also not just used to record what the child says, but also how the child acts when they are reading. EXAMPLE: When reading and they get stuck, ...
12 Math Center Activities That Will Engage Your Class ALL Year! (Free File)
Kindergarten Math Center Activities and a freebie file too! These ideas will engage your class all year long. Why do math centers? Why do we even do math centers? First of all... they are fun! The bonus is the learning and practice that takes place. We, as teachers, also need moments in the day when students work independently so we can work with small groups. Let me show you 12 kindergarten math center activities ...
Snow by Cynthia Rylant Lesson Plans
Cynthia Rylant's Snow Lesson Plans! Snow by Cynthia Rylant Read Aloud We love the beautiful language in Cynthia Rylant's book Snow (affiliate link). You might say that I am a Cynthia Rylant junkie! This is a book that you will want in your collection! In our reading comprehension units, we work on figurative language using this book. Snow Science I am a ...