Summer Checklist Update and a New Item

Okay so my summer checklist has hit a snag! I am at the beach for 30 days and can't really work on a few of the things. With that said Tropical Storm Debby has brought all sorts of rain my way so we can't go outside, so I worked on one of my intervention packs! I made some changes and added to the pack for Chrysanthemum and put it up for sale on my TpT this morning, I also added the zipped file of the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom stuff I put on here for free last week, don't worry it is still free!! You can get bits and pieces from the blog or head over to my store and grab the whole file!! While you are there check out my pack for Chrysanthemum. It has rhyming, syllables, letter recognition, and a class book ( I really want my kids to make a book a week) If you get either unit free or otherwise let me know what you think!!! I think my next rainy day project will be headers for my reading focus wall! Have a great Sunday!!

Oh yeah. I am at 80 followers, which is so exciting considering I have not been that great at updating! I am thinking about a giveaway if I hit 100!

The Wedding of Q and U

Last week our class studied the letter Q and its relationship with U. We read about the marriage of Q and U. Then we brainstormed Qu words. Each child took a word and made a quilt piece using that word. We put that together and made a quilt for a Q and U wedding present. On Monday I drew names and each child received a part.

My bride and her parents were so excited they posted this on Facebook!!




All week long we worked on activities involving Q and U. We made Quiet Queens with Qu words in her crown. We wrote sentences with Qu words. We also planned a wedding. We talked about the different parts and how we could  relate them to the letters. The flower girl is a quarter girl because quarter starts with Qu. The shussers hold up QUIET signs because quiet starts with Qu. The bride carries a bouquet because it has Qu in it (although come wedding time I completely forgot the bouquet!) Our ring bearer carried a queen shaped pillow I found on clearance at Michael's! I hope to have more pics to post later but as the wedding director I wasn't able to pictures. I am completely at the mercy of the parent photographers. My father of the bride is a professional wedding videographer (he even did my wedding!) so he videoed the wedding for us. It is so stinking cute, but I have to go through a whole process to get permission to share that and I know that I will get rejected due to a situation in my room, so I won't be sharing it with you! Sorry! Check out these few pictures I have gotten back!

Our Wedding gift quilt!

Reading Tuesday

Well today is my last day from maternity leave/holiday break. I am a little sad. I am going to miss being home with my babies, but I am ready to get back to a more normal life. We only have a three day week this week. So there will be some review of how to be in school, plus we are doing a reading story. I am curious how all of you out there in bloggy land do your reading time. My goes like this:

We start whole group on the rug and go through a Power Point that I have for each story. We sing a song about our amazing words for the day, then discuss what they mean. Then we read the story for the week (on Thursdays they listen to it on CD and on Fridays we read a related story). After the story we do some form of activity on the reading skill for that week. Then we spend some time working on our letter of the week. We sing a song about the letter and do some phonics activities. We also work on sounding out words and high frequency words. The students then return to their seats and complete some form of independent work on some skill from that day.
After the independent work they go to centers. My students complete one must do center and then have the choice of two other centers. If you want to know all about how my centers work check out this post on centers. During this time I work with small groups on different reading activities. We have some extra time in the afternoon that I work on writing and grammar skills, plus some more work on the letter of the week.

So how do you fit all your reading/language arts into your schedule? And what does your reading time look like?

Reading Tuesday

When we go back to school in January we will be on the story Bunny Day in the Scott Forsman reading series. Each day for my whole group time we complete part of a Power Point. These Power Points were originally created by a team of teachers in my county. I have taken them and completely changed them to fit the way my whole group runs. I thought I would share with you. On pages where there are music notes I link to songs that go with our reading series (songs about the amazing words and building background). Also on the pages about the letters I have a letter in the corner. That links to the Frog Street song for that letter. My kiddos love the letter songs. All day long while we work I hear the hum of what ever letter song we are doing that week!

Bunny Day

Reading Tuesday

Okay so being off work I have no idea what story we are on! I know, I know I wrote the lesson plans and it's the same stories in the same order as last year, but my brain is mush. In fact I have to check my phone before I write to see what day it is. Next week I plan on working on things for when I go back to work so then I will have kindergarten reading stuff for you. This week though I am going to talk about, more like ask about my son.
Carter is my little man. He is 20 months old. He has mad reasoning skills, but still isn't talking. Now I am not worrying about it because I know boys talk later, first children talk later, ect., ect. He will talk when he is ready. That doesn't stop me from wanting him to know his alphabet and numbers. Here come my two questions! Are you ready?!

First, how should I decorate the walls of his playroom, because I have seriously considered decorating it a little like my classroom! Does that make me a crazy teacher mom? (Okay so maybe that was two questions!)

Second, I came across I pin on pinterest (and if I weren't on my iPad I would link it for you, maybe an edit will come later!) from a former teacher turned stay at home mom that has created units for her toddler to do. It is all really fun stuff, they focus on a letter for a week or so at a time, plus have a theme they work on. It is all games and such. I am considering creating my own or borrowing hers and asking our nanny to do them with him. I just feel like she could do more with him if she had a topic to focus on. So my second question is the same as my first just for a different reason, does this make me a crazy teacher mom?

I am the child of a crazy teacher mom and look how I turned out!