Do you have a listening center in your classroom? I started my career with a collection of books and cassettes, but upgrading it all to CDs seemed a daunting task. Below are links to fun (and free) kids' seasonal literacy playlists to keep your listening center relevant and engaging all year long! Click through to find stories read aloud, songs, poems and videos. Do you have any suggestions to add to these … [Read more...]
Just-right Halloween Stories for Kindergarten
Happy Halloween season! With the big day coming up, I wanted to share some of my favorite just-right Halloween stories for kindergarten with you. Why these four Halloween stories for kindergarten? Halloween themed, yet not scary (well, one is a little bit...) perceived age of characters appeal to young children special 'it' factor Specifically... Rattlebone Rock by Sylvia Andrews, illustrated by Jennifer Plecas Halloween … [Read more...]
The Back to School sale goes on!
Hello my friends. It's 11:55 pm E.S.T. and officially the TpT #StartFreshBTS sale ends in 5 minutes. Except that I have decided to keep my own sale going another day and that I will be starting fresh tomorrow. I had grand plans. I have been bundling and organizing and reorganizing trying to prepare for this sale, and have run out of time. I posted two 2-packs just over an hour ago. I should have posted this days ago. I'll explain more in a … [Read more...]
Happy Father’s Day, and an inspiring story about a father reading aloud daily for nearly a decade!
Happy Father's Day! Recently I stumbled upon a story about a father reading aloud to his daughter that I found so inspiring. Fellow teachers and parents, have you heard of Alice Ozma's, The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared? (Barnes and Noble, 2011) It began as a 100 consecutive nights promise from a father to read aloud to his nine year old daughter. As Alice's memoir explains, it was so positive for both of them, their … [Read more...]
Happy Mother’s Day!
Today we celebrate you, mothers! Enjoy this special day that honors the most important job in the world. I am so grateful to be celebrating my 20th year as a mom, today, myself. I've written about the the poem below previously, and it is public domain. You may download this image as a jpg by clicking on it and saving it to your computer! To download a PDF, please click here. … [Read more...]
Teaching beginning readers to prioritize meaning: the why and the how of Prompt #1
When I was teaching Reading Recovery, one of the great lessons I learned as an educator, parent and co-existing human being in a world of social beings, is that we can not assume that others think the same way we do about anything, reading included. WHAT I LEARNED FROM PARENTS OBSERVING READING RECOVERY LESSONS: As teachers, meaning can feel like the 'given' part of reading. Part of the Reading Recovery program included inviting parents to … [Read more...]
8 ways to help students with social and emotional regulation (and still have time to teach!) Part 2
This post is the second of two posts about helping students with social and emotional regulation. To read Part 1, please click here. In the first post, we discussed 1) communicating feelings, 2) social / emotional language, 3) incorporating feelings and emotions into other curriculum areas and 4) Making connections between feelings and behaviors. Over my 21 year career, I have worked with many young children who struggle with anxiety and … [Read more...]
8 ways to help students with social and emotional regulation (and still have time to teach!) Part 1
Dealing with issues related to social and emotional regulation have become a part of everyday life for many teachers. Here are the first 4 of 8 ways to help students with social emotional regulation (and still have time to teach!) 1 Teach and regularly support your students' journey in learning to communicate their feelings. Remember that when you plant a seed, you must put in the time and care with the faith that there is growth happening … [Read more...]
Fun activities for sorting syllables, seasons and more – through play!
Do your students know how to break words down into syllables? Do they know how to sort? These two skills are essential for early learning as they are part of building a strong base for concepts coming up in language, math, science and making sense of our general world. Learning by being involved in an active, social, non-competitive and fun play activity is very effective. Kids' feel confident, have a positive attitude towards learning and are … [Read more...]
Happy New Year: Gratitude for what was, goals for the year ahead!
Happy New Year, my friends! I hope you have enjoyed the holiday season, and are filled with a sense of gratitude as I am while I sit here writing to you today. Just five years ago I accidentally stumbled into this TpT world via a Facebook group, as a parenting and lifestyle blogger. Posts from my teaching life had been taking over A Vision For Our Kids, so I opened That Fun Reading Teacher as a side blog. I had started to feel unworthy of the … [Read more...]
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