Teaching and Managing Small Groups {A Primary Teacher's Guide to Literacy Centers, Guided Reading, and RTI}

I LOVE teaching my Kindergarten students how to read! There is nothing quite like the excitement of seeing one of my kiddos really "get it" for the first time. I love to see them feel successful in reading, and begin to love it as much as I do.

While teaching Reading in the primary grades is incredibly exciting and fun, it can also be challenging to organize, plan for, and manage guided reading and literacy centers. Throw an RTI group or two in there, and it can be downright hard to ensure that you're differentiating and meeting the needs of all of your kiddos. I know...I've been there. In the years that I've been teaching, I've tried many things. I've worked hard, changed things when needed, and finally come up with a system that I believe sets my kiddos up to achieve success.

Organizing and Managing Small Groups {A Primary Teacher's Guide to Literacy Centers, Guided Reading, and RTI} is full of ideas, organizational materials, planning sheets, clip charts, and resources for teaching guided reading, managing literacy centers, and working with students in RTI. If you teach students in grades Pre-K through 2nd, I guarantee that you will find tons of resources to use with your students here!

Scroll down or visit my TpT store to download the preview for more information and examples of the items that are included with your purchase. This unit includes 105 pages of detailed information and resources, so your purchase will include much, much more!

 

Picture Perfect Parent Teacher Conferences

EEEK!  Parent-Teacher Conferences are next week at my school.  I'm hustling around to finish assessing, get my grade cards done, and tidy up.  I don't know about you, but conferences are still a little intimidating for me, even after many years!

 If you need a little help planning and preparing for conferences, I have a little something that might reduce the stress in your life. 

Click the link to download this FREE Picture Perfect Parent Teacher Conferences Organizational Pack from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Best wishes for "Picture Perfect" Conferences everyone!

Pumpkin Palooza {Part 2}

What a great week we had completing our pumpkin-themed learning and activities! My next door teaching neighbor, Mrs. Holland, had a fantastic idea to complete a second "Pumpkin Investigation" during our whole-group Math. We each had our kiddos make predictions about the pumpkins in our classrooms.

Then, we joined together for some hands-on discovery time as we experimented to see whether our pumpkins would sink or float.  Mrs. Holland had the kiddos come up in a small group to complete the experiment.  She told them to keep the results a secret until everyone had a chance to complete the experiment.  They were so excited, but did a great job giving the others a chance to figure it out for themselves!  Fun, fun, fun!  I love fall! :)

Pumpkin Palooza plus a FREEBIE!

All things pumpkin are happening in my classroom this week!  The kiddos are so excited to be learning about the pumpkin life cycle.  We began the week by talking about pumpkin seeds.  Of course, we got really hands-on doing this! We pulled our seeds out and looked at them, touched them, smelled them, and eventually tasted them.  Talk about a great way to discuss senses! :)

We also counted them and had a lengthy discussion about them, which led to the creation of our anchor chart...

The kiddos also completed a Pumpkin Investigation.  Click on the link to download it for FREE!

Later, we discussed the stages in the pumpkin life cycle.  We discussed how a pumpkin's life cycle happens in sequence.  It's never too early to begin this discussion, my friends! ;)  This led to the creation of a sequence anchor chart.

To wrap up our mini-unit, we will be using a Pumpkin Bubble Map.  It's included in my Fabulous Fall Math and Literacy Centers Plus More! unit on TpT.

If you're looking for some great books to celebrate Pumpkin Palooza in your classroom I recommend these.

 

Happy fall y'all!

Patterning Bracelets plus a Freebie!

A few weeks ago, as I was working on patterning with my Kinder kiddos, I noticed that several of my cuties were having quite a hard time with the concept. So I headed to my craft cabinet.  A package of pipe cleaners and a lot of pony beads later...we had pattern bracelets!

We made them for a few different patterns, and it really seemed to help to make the concept more concrete for my kiddos.  A lot of my girls and boys wore them for weeks, and were able to tell me exactly which pattern they were sporting.  :)

To provide a little extra help for my Math intervention group, I made this take-home note.  You can download it for FREE from my TpT store here!

The entire set for all Kindergarten Math Common Core Standards is also available for purchase if you're interested.

A Little Extra Help, Please!  Take-Home Practice Notes and Materials for Common Core Math Standards

Enjoy!
--Amy