Hi everyone!  I’d like to introduce you to my good friend, Debbie Rohn.  Debbie is from my hometown and is the creator of the Guppie Kids brand which promotes social responsibility.  She has an amazing clothing line which promotes the Guppie message.  So I’ll let her introduce you to the concept behind Guppie Kids…. My name is Debbie Rohn, I am the mother of three and the creator of Guppie Kids. I have a passion for the Guppie line and the message it promotes, but it is more than just a clothing line. The Guppie theme promotes kindness and hard work which equates to happiness and success. I started The Guppie Brand because I really believe in the message it

Well, if the cookie sheet activities are my all time favorite, the Write-It cards come in a very, very close second.   The Write-It cards are great for either small group instruction or as an independent activity for your literacy centers.  The cards are ideal for working with specific phonics skills.  Each packet contains between 30-52 colorful and engaging pictures.   Simply copy the pdf on cardstock, laminate and bind together with a 1″ ring and you’re all set.  Students write the letter(s) on the card with a dry erase marker.  After they’re done, wipe the cards clean and they’re ready for use again.  You can use these cards for years! The Write It Phonics Cards are available through the Make, Take &

I’ve been having so much fun with the Cookie Sheet Challenge!  For those of you just joining me, I set a goal to see how many fun activities I can make using cookie sheets purchased at Walmart and a can of metal spray paint.  The challenge is to make as many activities as I can until I run out of paint.  So far I’ve painted 6 cookie sheets–that means 6 different activities– and barely made a dent in the can of paint.   I’m going to be quite busy with this project for some time. Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 2 activities are activities targeting early math skills.  All activities allow for differentiation can be used during small group instruction or as activities within your

Teaching students to identify “chunks” in words is an important step in learning to read.  Identifying these “chunks” helps to build fluency as the student will not have to stop and blend each individual sound.  Word families are groups of words that share the same ending.  For example, the words: can, Dan, fan, man, pan, ran, tan, and van all belong to the “-an” word family.   Learning these “chunks” and patterns within words also helps students spell when writing words.  Word Sliders and Word Wheels are helpful when introducing word families.  Try this little freebie when teaching word families in your classroom. To assemble the word family sliders you will need: 6  8 1/2x 11 full sheet labels (Avery 48165) 18

  If you’ve been reading my blog for a bit now you may know that I’m a pretty big soccer fan.  Although I never played, my three children played soccer ever since they were 4.  I even coached for several years.  I loved every minute of it!  My youngest daughter, Lizzie, will be heading off to college in the fall and I will soon be “an empty-nester”.    So not only will I miss the craziness of traveling to sporting events, I’ll to get used to a very quite house.  Creating these soccer-themed activities has brought back so many wonderful memories of evenings and Saturdays spent at the soccer fields (sniff, sniff).  I’m hoping your little soccer fans will enjoy

My good friend, Jen, teaches a college level reading assessment class and asked if I could talk a bit on aligning intervention with data.  Of course, I was thrilled she asked.   I decided to take a grade level and focus on the assessments typically administered in the winter.  All of our schools use the DIBELS Next as a school-wide screening assessment.  So, I wanted to take that assessment and analyze individual student performance to see what information we can glean from this particular assessment and what type of “digging deeper” assessments and decisions for intervention we can make. If your school administers the DIBELS Next and you subscribe to the online data system, you’ll receive a print out of your student’s performance.  The distribution report and the