Developmental Sequence of Phonological Awareness Skills

admin April 27, 2014 No Comments

Click the following link to download this free handout Developmental Stages of Phonemic Awareness My good friend, Heidi, who is a Reading Specialist at one of our local elementary buildings, asked if I’d be interested in co-presenting with her at our next year’s district-wide professional development day.  I love working with Heidi so, of course, I jumped at the chance.  Next year Heidi and I will be presenting on the topic of phonological and phonemic awareness.  Our target audience will be preschool and Pre-K teachers.  I developed this handout for the presentation and thought others may find it helpful.  Feel free to download it if you’d like!  Enjoy!  

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Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives!

admin April 12, 2014 No Comments

Many of my second and third grade friends are now learning the parts of speech.  I thought I’d create a few posters that they can use for reference.  Here’s a little sampling of the 8 posters that you can download for free.  Just click the link below. Click HERE to download the FREE Parts of Speech Posters from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I always find sorting activities helpful when teaching a concept.  The Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives! Picture Sorting activity is an ideal introductory activity for teaching the parts of speech.  When you download this activity you’ll receive 66 colorful nouns, verbs and adjective pictures and 2 differentiated templates.  The self-checking feature makes this activity ideal for independent literacy

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Rhyming Ice Cream Cones

admin April 9, 2014 No Comments

These rhyming ice cream cones have certainly been a hit with our little preschoolers and kindergarteners!  The activity is easily differentiated as you can choose how many rhyming cones and scoops to use.  For those kiddos just learning the concept of rhyme, you’ll likely want to start with just 2 cones and gradually add more cones as they become proficient with the skill.  For those students who just need added practice, you can use more cones and just place them in an independent work center.  When you download this activity, you’ll receive 18 rhyming cones with 60 rhyming scoops! The Build An Ice Cream Cone activity is available through the Make, Take & Teach website or through my online Teachers

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Fostering Thoughtful Literacy

admin April 6, 2014 No Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile now, you may know that I actually enjoy reading professional articles and books.  Last year I came across Richard Allington’s article “What Really Matters When Working With Struggling Readers” in the April 2013 of  The Reading Teacher.  I immediatley made copies of the article for all my colleagues.  I think we all read that article over 50 times as each person’s copy was tattered, had rows of text marked with highlights, and notes scribbled in the margins. We talked about the content of that article for months. I will admit, it kind of shook our world.  Several of his issues with current practices of instruction and intervention for struggling students we were actually

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Even More Basketball Themed Activities!

admin March 30, 2014 No Comments

One of the best little tricks-of-the-trade is to capitalize on a student’s interest to keep them engaged in learning the basic skills needed for fluent reading.  Your sports-minded students, particularly your little basketball shooters,  may enjoy the “Swish!” activities for practicing various phonics skills.  I love this activity as it is a fast-paced game and allows for multiple practice opportunities.  To play “Swish!”, simply scatter the balls word side down on the table and have your students take turns choosing a ball and reading the word.  If a player chooses the “Swish!” ball, he/she can choose several more balls.  If a “Penalty” ball is chosen, all the balls must be placed back in the pile and play continues.  Easy to

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A Lesson From Adreian

admin March 24, 2014 No Comments

My oldest son is now a junior at Michigan State University so for the past few years I’ve been following Spartan athletics.  I really enjoy football, but I really LOVE watching the Spartan basketball team.  Last year during a televised airing of the Spartans playing a game at the NCAA tournament, the announcer briefly shared the story of Adriean Payne.  Adreian is MSU’s star player and how he ended up at MSU is nothing short of remarkable.  As a kindergarten student, Adreian was identified as a student with a cognitive impairment and placed in special education.  Adreian is now a highly recruited player for the NBA and also a MSU academic scholar!  Below is an article I wrote on Adreian’s

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Rhyming Caterpillars

admin March 22, 2014 No Comments

I have such fond memories of reading The Hungry Caterpillar to my own children and to my preschool students.  It was one of my very favorite books.   I use to have a puppet which started as a caterpillar and then flipped inside out to turn into a butterfly.  Now that my preschool-teaching days are long past gone and my own kiddos are now in college, I just couldn’t part ways with that caterpillar and he sits proudly on the shelf above my desk.    Since many of my teacher friends are putting away their St. Patrick’s Day-themed activities and are bringing out their spring activities for small group instruction and centers, I thought creating a few spring-themed activities would

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Rhyming Cupcakes Freebie!

admin March 16, 2014 No Comments

  Oh My Goodness!  I walked into my local Walmart last night and there they were!  Two years ago I created rhyming stickers to go along with these little plastic cupcakes I found in the holiday section at Walmart.  Last year around Easter, they were nowhere to be found so I was super excited that Walmart decided to put them back on the shelf. Creating the activity is quite simple.  Just print the pdf file on a full size Avery label, cut the stickers along the dotted line and adhere them to the bottom of each cupcake.   The game is played just like a typical memory game as you place the cupcakes on the table in rows and players

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Spring Themed Sight Word Game Boards

admin March 10, 2014 No Comments

 Oh my…. spring is just around the corner.  It certainly has been a long, hard winter.  Creating these spring-themed activities really lightens the mood.  I asked my fabulous artist, Kyle, to create 4 different spring/summer themed game boards and she really out-did herself.  I absolutely LOVE the designs she created.  There are 4 different game board styles- butterflies, bumblebees, ladybugs and umbrellas.  I love each one!  There are 9 game boards containing words from the Dolch 220 sight word lists.  Be sure to download my free Dolch Sight Word assessment so that you know which board is most appropriate for the students. I’ve included black and white copies of each game board.  Many of my teacher friends like to send

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Response to Intervention: A Lesson From our Orthodontist

admin March 7, 2014 No Comments

My three children are now 20, 19 and 17.  When Response to Intervention (RtI) was first introduced in our districts around 10 years ago, I was spending just about the same amount of time in the Orthodontist’s office as I was on the soccer fields.  As our family Orthodontist explained, there was something about my husband’s and my genetic combination that contributed to our children’s very unique orthodontic problems.  My son’s issues were mild compared to my two daughters.  What was astounding to our Orthodontist was that Kassie and Lizzie had the opposite problem.  Kassie had a severe overbite and Lizzie had a severe underbite (among many other issues).  He informed us that out of the three very difficult orthodontic

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