The Book Whisperer

I finished this book! Thanks to an excessively long wait at Firestone [FOUR hours!] I read a lot of this book in one sitting (while fixing my car's brakes - yikes!). Thank goodness I brought a good book. Then, spring sprung on us! Can I get an AMEN? I am So. Over. Winter. Today it was 75 degrees and just absolutely beautiful. Y'all. The birds were chirping. I had the windows open. The sun was keeping my toes warm. It was heaven.

Back to the book. THE book. I'm sure you've heard of it. If you haven't read it, read it. I'm a wacko and love learning. I think if I wasn't a teacher, I would never leave college. But, you know, who has the money for that life? So now I read books to learn; here is what I learned from this one:

• CELEBRATE reading success!
• Students should pick the books they read and READ in class. 
• Free time (finishing work early) should almost ALWAYS be reading time!
• You can directly apply learning in task specific formats all you want, but students need time to APPLY what they learned in their own reading. 
• The rights of a reader. How have I NEVER heard of these?! This should be one of the FIRST things students hear upon entering the reading environment. I mean, I have these rights and act on them all the time (especially #2!). #1 is a biggie that's hard for me to accept, but sometimes we all have the right to NOT read and that right (however infrequent) should be extended to our students. 

• Students will only learn to love reading if they have a model of someone who loves reading. BE ENTHUSIASTIC IN EVERYTHING! (I'm crazy - but it's nice to hear someone tell me that is how I should be!)

There is, of course, so much more that I learned and activities I want to implement in the classroom. (FYI for when YOU read the book: chapter 6 is ALL ABOUT throwing away [or utilizing a lot less] the old "traditional" ways of teaching reading and trading them out for more effective and engaging teaching practices that are standards based and data driven.)

Now I'm off to read a book for fun before jumping into my next book study: Driven By Data by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo.

Those Pesky Leprechauns!

LEPRECHAUNS.

Y'all. Leprechauns are so mean. They made an absolute MESS in my classroom! And the poor children. They had to clean THIS up:

Poor babies. I know. :)

Here's a run down of  a crazy St. Paddy's day:

• Leprechauns destroying your room.
• Leprechauns peeing green [ewww] in the toilet and leaving footprints on the seat! 
• When the kinders come in assign them the task: find a pencil (if you can) and a clipboard (if you can), get your paper, find somewhere to sit amongst the mess, and write about WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR CLASSROOM??!!?
• Clean the room. Really. This is essential. Don't skip this step. Just. Don't. 
• While the kids are in special, the leprechaun came back and left a scavenger hunt of clues in the room that lead to the Leprechaun's treasure {We read SO MANY St. Patrick's day books that there was a debate in my room amongst the kiddos about whether it was a trick or if we would actually find the treasure! So. Cute.}

• Read lots of St. Patricks day books. Here are some of my favorites:

• Make a leprechaun

• Write about how to catch a leprechaun

(for those that can't read kindergarten-ese: mac a crap = make a trap) 

• And don't forget to sing this song:             

Y'all. I just couldn't handle the cuteness of this day.  One of my littles found everything gold in my room to put under my desk. He was CONVINCED that when we came back from lunch he would have a captured leprechaun under there. I mean really; 5 year olds are the best. 

~Happy St. Patrick's Day!~

Addition Time!

Happy Spring! 

At this point in the year, Kindergarten is all about addition and subtraction! This is absolutely my favorite time of year for Math - addition is such a fun concept to teach.  

Teacher tip: I love teaching students how to use a number line by having a HUGE one on the floor that students get to jump on. :) I make it out of duct tape and it's already looking a little rough because we use it so much! 

My district's math program (Investigations - LOVE it) emphasizes teaching students to use a bajillion different strategies [not exaggerating] to solve problems.  The majority of my students love using pictures (as you would expect) but they also love using number lines.  

As a result, I created these story problem pages for my students:

They love them, I love them, and their ability and comfort level with addition has increased exponentially! Click here to get them at my TPT store! 

**Stay tuned for my SUBTRACTION pack and my HIGH FLYERS pack! I'm excited to get done with both, but especially my high flyers pack; I feel that most challenge packs require students to go beyond the grade level standards instead of just using more challenging problem types.  My high flyers addition and subtraction pack will stay within our kindergarten standards (add and subtract within 10) but use the more challenging CGI problem types that make kids think!