Electric Company: Silent e is a ninja!

Hey YOU GUYS!! I loved this show when I was a kid and it absolutely rocks today! My children love it! Here are two more of my favorite videos from the Electric Company. My last post was on Bossy R and that video absolutely is wonderful also!  Check out these two as well:

THE ELECTRIC COMPANY: Veronica Jackson's "Bossy R"

Today I worked on "Bossy R" or Vowel R words with my students.  I happened to remember this video by the Electric Company because my four year old watches it over and over! It is great for teaching this concept!

Great Reading Website

I've been meaning to share this site that I found awhile back while I was searching for some reading strategies for some of my struggling readers.  It is readingresource.net . It is such a valuable resource! Check it out!  Happy reading!

As I was cruising around the internet tonight still looking for the same resource I was searching for earlier, I found this google site.  https://sites.google.com/a/saintelizabeth.us/learningspecialist/home/early-reading-files

There are a ton of free printables for reading on there.  Loved it!

Great Reading Websites

I am pretty sure that I have already blogged about the site readworks.org.  It is phenomenal for reading lessons and teaching the strategies.  It covers all elementary grade levels.  It may cover above that but I didn't actually pay attention.  Today my colleague showed me http://reading.ecb.org/.  It is called Into the Book.  It has an access for both teachers and students. I've only explored the student site, but I love it so much.  It is great!  It really just needs to be looked at by you to truly understand it!  Please check it out and then leave me a comment about what you think.

Mobile Book Reports

Today my students presented their mobile book reports.  I've never done this before so I was a little hesitant to assign this.  They turned out gorgeous.  The kids had a great time too.  A friend of mine gave me the idea for the book report and she is not sure where she found the idea at so if this was your idea please let me know and I will definitely give you the credit.  I just wanted to share the idea though with everyone.  The kids were instructed to include around 10 cards.
Card 1:  Name, Book Title, Author/Illustrator
Card 2:  Setting
Card 3, 4, 5: Characters (Name and picture if possible)
Card 6:  Beginning
Card 7: Middle
Card 8: End
Card 9: Book Recommendation

We had a rubric that included 5 points for each card, 15 points for turning it on time, 15 points for creativity, 10 points for the presentation.

Here are some pictures of my students' projects:

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

The Cat in the Hat

Goosebumps

Chicken Licken

The Daily Five

I have been watching on Pinterest the different posts about the The Daily Five and "CAFE".  I've even pinned a few.  I had no idea what it was all about.  My friend and new teaching partner mentioned to me that she would like to do a reading workshop this year.  I absolutely loved the idea but decided I'd better do research so I would know more about it.  That is what led me to the book The Daily Five by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser.  It's been a long time since I've read a professional book that I couldn't put down.  I really love this idea and I am definitely going to put The Daily Five into practice in my classroom this year.  I will definitely post more from their book as I read through it.  My mind is too full of information to put any of it out here right now.  I'll go on and on.  It is definitely worth checking it out.  I bought in on my Kindle Fire and downloaded it so I could read it right away! The authors have the ebook set up so it is linked to the Internet and you can print what you need to print.  Good idea!  :)

The Daily Five for K-3

The CAFE Book for 4-6