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 ...
Reading
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 ...
What if You Had Animal Parts Lesson Plans.. Looking at text details
What if you had animal parts lesson plans for kindergarten and first grade! My students have always loved these books and we are really excited to that we are creating a new Engaging Reader series for these an awesome read aloud! What if you had animal parts books! If you are not familiar with these books, here is a peek! These are the four books (affiliate links) we wrote lesson plans for: What If You Had Animal Feet? What If ...
Teaching Black History Month (free file)
Black History Month Lesson Plans for kindergarten through second grade. February is a perfect month to explore the genre of biographies. Learning about the courageous men and women in black history while diving deep into reading comprehension provides an ideal opportunity. Biographies These are the three books we used to help guide our exploration into biographies: Rosa Parks by Kitson Jazynka Frederick Douglass by ...
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, ...
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 ...
Snowmen at Night Lesson Plans (Free Activity TOO!)
Snowmen at Night Lesson Plans are here! My class has always loved this sweet book. We begin the week's lesson by reading it over and over. Snowmen at Night was written by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by her husband, Mark Buehner. The rhyming in the text makes it fantastic for strengthening our phonemic awareness and the illustrations are spectacular! Snowmen at Night: Text Details We knew we had to include ...
The Mitten Reading Comprehension FUN! (psst… FREE unit)
The Mitten reading comprehension unit for kindergarten. This was one of my son's favorite winter books when he was growing up, so naturally, it became one of the books that we read over and over again! The Mitten Perhaps you have heard about our Guiding Readers Reading Comprehension units, but you have not tried them yet. Or perhaps you have, but you would simply love to add this book to your collection! [My hand is raised ...
Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade
Polar Express Classroom Activities for kindergarten and first grade. These fun lesson plans are perfect for Christmas time! Polar Express Close Reading Activities Just like our other Reading Comprehension/Close Reading plans, this Polar Express version is PACKED with reading comprehension activities! We have added questions to help guide your students towards deep comprehension! Students also work on retelling the book with text ...
Are you ready for December? Ideas and Resources … plus a free file!
December kindergarten resources are here! Ready or not! November seemed to fly by... blink and you will be knee deep in December! It is such a BUSY time of the year for most people, but for teachers, it can be down-right overwhelming. I have gathered some ideas you can use for December in your classroom. Books to read in December So many books... so little time! Here are a few favorites! Ordinary Mary's ...
15 Fun Ideas to Teach Sight Words (Free File)
15 Sight Word Ideas for your classroom! You got it! I have collected some ideas to share with you that are engaging! Embedded in Daily Instruction 1. Sight word flash cards Each day we quickly read through our sight words. This is a quick, 2-minute review each day. These cards have actions that go with them which make them fun and all the students really get into it. By combining kinesthetic movements, ...
Are you ready for October?
Kindergarten October Activity Guide is here! October is such a fun (but busy) month. I thought I would round up resources to help you make the most of your month! Books to read in October (affiliate links) Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson We can then complete the Pumpkin Lifecycle activity. Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon We love this fun craft from our Guiding Readers ...
Using Mentor Texts in Kindergarten
Kindergarten Mentor Texts to teach reading and writing with Cynthia Rylant's Scarecrow book (affiliate link)... you bet! This last week I had the pleasure of visiting a kindergarten classroom. She had already started the book, Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant for her Guiding Readers/Close Read, so when she asked me to do a lesson on word choice... I could not contain my excitement. This book is PERFECT for word choice (among other ...
The Life Cycle of Apples Lesson Ideas (FREE file)
Apple Life Cycle Lesson Plan Ideas are here! Learning about apples in kindergarten is a tradition. This informational book about apples is packed with apple facts. See how we integrate reading, writing, science, and math! Free File included are here! A September tradition in many kindergarten classrooms is a thorough exploration of apples! I would like to recommend this book for you to use to lead the study. How Do ...
Mercer Mayer ~ I Was So Mad Lesson Plans
Mercer Mayer lesson plans featuring the book I Was So Mad is here! Read Aloud This is a great book to start the year off. Students get the chance to discuss their emotions in a fun way. I love Little Critter! For this read aloud, students will: Make Predictions Retell Text Details with Retelling Cards Make Connections Identify the Problem and Solution Write an Opinion You can see the retelling cards really ...
Read Aloud Science, Math, and More!
Read Aloud Science, Math, and More! Here are some STEM and literacy activities to extend some of your favorite kindergarten and first grade read aloud books. Last year Deanna Jump and I set out to make our read aloud extension units. We completed August through November and then decided to stop. Several weeks ago, we heard from teachers that they REALLY wanted these units and we were asked to continue them. After some ...
Dinosaur Week is HERE!
Kindergarten dinosaur week activity ideas for the classroom are here! Nothing made my students more excited that a dinosaur themed week! Here are some ideas you can use! Dinosaur Read Aloud Books We love Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by MoWilliems. This book is hilarious! For this book we focused on the following reading skills/strategies: Making Predictions Retelling with Details Making ...
Zoo Lesson Plans
Zoo Lesson Plans for the book A Sick Day for Amos McGee! This is one of my favorite books, so when Deanna Jump and I were putting our reading comprehension units together, I KNEW we needed this sweet story. A Sick Day for Amos McGee is the story of one zookeeper who takes fantastic care of the animals in the zoo. He is so gentle and loving to the zoo animals. Then one day, Amos gets sick and the animals go to his ...
Frog Lesson Plans!
Frog Lesson Plans! Learning about frogs in kindergarten is such a fun activity for the classroom. Reading about frogs My class loved looking through books about frogs. (affiliate links) How to Hide a Meadow Frog and Other Amphibians by Ruth Heller National Geographic Readers: Frogs Frogs by Gail Gibbons Then we had some fun frog books. Five Green and Speckled Frogs Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel You ...
Mastering Sight Words with These 4 Centers! Plus a free file!
Mastering Sight Words Centers with these four activities! I know this time of year... this is when you are really working hard to help students master as many sight words as they can. We want to offer opportunities to build fluency... but HELLO... it is spring... everyone is tired! So you need some fun options for your center time. Assessing Sight Words First things first! You want to know where your class is ...
Frog and Toad Lesson Plans
Frog and Toad Lesson Plans! My kindergarten class loves Frog and Toad! 5 years ago, I created a Frog and Toad unit and it needed a MAJOR facelift. So TA! DA! it is done. You can redownload it at no additional charge or purchase it by clicking HERE. Frog and Toad Character Analysis When reading Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel, we really focused in on the characters. After completing this chart, ...
Poetry in Kindergarten! FREE Organization Resource
Kindergarten poetry is a fun and easy. Here are a few ideas! Poetry Read Aloud I want to share 6 poetry books that are perfect for primary learners. I am going to start with my three favorites. I have had these books for over 15 years and if you look at the books, you can tell that they were well loved. Note: Affiliate links are included in this post. Old Elm Speaks by Kristine O'Connell ...
Tops and Bottoms Lesson Plans
Top and Bottoms Lesson Plans for Janet Stephens book are here! This is one of those CLASSIC reads. The illustrations are precious! and we love using this book in our Guiding Readers units. As with most weeks, we conduct a retelling of the text. You can find the retelling cards HERE. Video Here is a video of the book. I do love the video versions, but they do not take the place of the book. ...
How to Heal a Broken Wing Lesson Plans
How to Heal a Broken Wing is one of my favorite books to use as an illustrative study mentor text. This book is essential any kindergarten classroom and I will tell you why! Reading I'll start with reading. We use this book in our Guiding Readers units because it BEGS to be read over and over again. I have said this many times, you can't have a meaningful conversation about a book that does not grab at your heart. ...