May 27, 2020
I Tried Literati Sprout and Here's How It Went
Referral links are used within this post.
Using my link will give us both a credit of $5 to use towards your book purchases!
I'm thankful that I still have access to our school's library, which helps provide me with the books needed for my weekly distance learning lessons as well as my bedtime stories. However, after a few weeks and I read through them I'm in need of more books to share. Meanwhile, I have my own son I'd like to keep interested in reading while quarantined - so where do I find more books?
Literati was my answer.
I've heard of Literati through social media advertisements and I loved the concept. 5 books selected based on your child's age and interests and sent once a month for them to enjoy for a week. Afterwards, you purchase the ones you want and send the others back just to receive 5 more the next month.
So, I thought for $9 why not give it a try?
What is Literati?
Great question! Literati is a female founded and owned company based out of Austin, Texas that aims to inspire and encourage the love of reading to our youngest people! What's even better is that their selection of books are based off of "themes" versus just a random selection. This is intentional as it brings awareness and inspires conversations about your child's interests.
Subscriptions are based on age groups (0-12) and run from Neo (newborns), Sprout (3-5), Nova (5-7), Sage (7-9), and Phoenix (9-12). What's great about this is that each set of books are age appropriate and allow children to have exposure to a variety of authors, stories, and experiences - many of which are bestsellers and even a few are Literati exclusive!
For my own 4 year old I started with a Sprout subscription, which are books aimed for 3-5 year olds. So far (we've received 2 shipments so far) I've really enjoyed the selection for him! He has a deep interest in robots and machines, so it's been great seeing how Literati has managed to find books that stick to their "theme" and incorporate robots!
Inside This Month's Box:
This month's box was full of five titles that we ended up keeping two! I've seen across Instagram that other people have fallen in love with this set of books, too!
- Color Blocked
- Have You Seen Elephant?
- If Apples Had Teeth
- I See, I See
- Bob & Rob and Corn on the Cob
I really enjoyed each of these stories and it was great having the week to share them! By the end of our week we decided to keep Color Blocked and Have You Seen Elephant? Those two, in particular, were a favorite of Greyson's. I loved how interactive Color Blocked was while teaching about colors. The illustrations were beautiful and the story was fun and has been on rotation since we received it! Have You Seen Elephant? is another beautiful story of a simple game of hide and seek. I've been wanting to include more multicultural texts at home as well as use them as mentor texts in the classroom.
Pricing
The awesome thing about Literati is that they seriously do the bargain book hunting for you. Not only do they provide you with awesome books each month to enjoy (or keep!), they make purchasing them super easy and straightforward. Everyone knows that Amazon fulfills almost everything so naturally it would be your first stop to price check each book. However, Literati does it for you!
On their pricing page they list the Amazon price and beats it! Also, there are always books included in your box that are not fulfilled by Amazon. But, at the end of the day the choice is yours - keep the ones you want, or don't, and ship them all back using their mailing box and prepaid return labels!
Ready to try Literati?
Head on over to Literati's website or grab my referral link right here to try it for yourself! I promise it's going to be a fun subscription and especially during quarantine their light blue boxes bring so much excitement and magic for such an uncertain time.
Why use my referral link? It instantly gives us both a $5 credit towards your box! It's just a great way to save some cash. If you have any questions, feel free to pop them right in the comments!
Happy reading!
May 13, 2020
Language Skills: Question Words
This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure here.
Being able to ask and understand questions is a cornerstone in any language. As an ELA teacher at French-American school, I get the unique opportunity to not only teach English to my students (a passion of mine!), but I get a glimpse as to how the French language is taught - which is fascinating. There's so much to learn and I love working where everyday brings something new and is an education, myself.
One of the first skills that are being explored at the beginning of the year in kindergarten are Speaking & Listening skills and Language. There are a number of different objectives within this domain, but the first one we'll tackle (and the one I'm sharing today) is being able to identify and understand question words.
These question words include:
- who
- what
- when
- where
- why
- how
To introduce this concept I love use mentor texts or read alouds. They are a wonderful way to reinforce the context by using real life author examples! Some of my favorites to include during this unit are:
Who: references a person or people
For this question word we can bring students' attention to the characters in a story. Any read aloud with strong characters and character traits will be best! Here are a couple of my favorites for the beginning of the year:
- The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. This is a great story for those perfectionist students we often get in our classrooms! It's a great story that highlights the "who" in a story - in this case Beatrice. She has so many character traits that are easy to pick out for little learners.
- Ruby Finds a Worry. This is a great book with a female lead character who navigates a new emotion: worry. It not only helps identify the "who" in a story, but is a great reinforcer of what to do when a worry sneaks in.
- Ravi's Roar. Another great story from the author of Ruby above and a part of the Big Bright Feelings series. Ravi learns to identify and manage his feelings and makes for a great "who" identifier for this question word.
What: specifies something
- What Should Darla Do? This is a "choose your own adventure" story, which is sure to delight young readers! Darla wants to become an astronaut and the reader must help her make good choices in order to reach her goal. This is also a great story to read with your Hopes and Dreams lesson!
- What Should Danny Do? Same authors as the Darla series (and Danny is cousins with Darla) also writes a similar story with Danny!
- Tuesday. This is a great story because there really is no story to tell - that is, with words. I love that students get to interpret what they want from the illustrations and determine "what" the frogs and animals are doing.
- David Goes to School. A favorite amongst everyone! This story opens the discussion of what David does and the consequences he faces for those actions. Another great book to read at the beginning of the year to reinforce positive behaviors.
When: references a time or circumstance
Similar to "who", these read alouds for "when" will help students identify the time (time of day, past/present, etc.) or circumstance (the setting, at a party, etc.) of a story.
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This is a great intro, and familiar story, for students to learn "when" with days of the week.
- The Good Egg. This book is a great way to ask students to identify what they can do "when" they feel overwhelmed like the Good Egg in the story. The egg learns that he can meditate, relax, and even paint to help relieve some of the stress he's feeling.
Where: references a place or position
Teaching to "where" can lend itself to more than just the setting in a book (although, a great place to start). I love expanding on this idea of "where" to include prepositional words like: above, below, beside, etc. Here are a few books that incorporate both!
- Where the Wild Things Are.
- Yellow Ball. A great picture book that tells of the adventures of a missing ball that goes missing - yet finds its way home. The text features positional words that describe place and position.
- We're Going on a Bear Hunt. This popular song is in story form in this favorite children's book! The text features prepositional words as the reader has to navigate around obstacles on their bear hunt.
- Up, Down, and Around. This story features "where" words while hanging out in the garden. Also a great book during a seeds & plants unit!
Why: specifies for what reason or purpose
This is another question word that lends itself to so many wonderful read alouds! It also happens to be a question that young kids ask, themselves, the most. Encourage their curiosity with these fun stories:
- Why Should I...series.
- Why? This tells the story of a friendship between Bear and his curious friend, Rabbit, who is always asking him questions.
- The Day the Crayons Quit. This story is a humorous tale that presents the problem of Duncan's crayons quitting! In the story, they leave him little goodbye notes, which is a great way to discuss why each color decided to leave.
How: references a way or manner
You can go in a variety of directions with introducing the word "how." It can be literal with "how-to" books (and even lending itself to informative writing!)
- My Mouth is a Volcano. This is another great story for the beginning of the year because it helps students learn how they can control their impulse to interrupt!
- How to Catch a Mermaid. A fun "how-to" story that is sure to speak to all the girls in class! This helps students identify the way or manner in which someone can catch a mermaid! This series also includes how to catch a: unicorn, dinosaur, dragon, and monster for learning all throughout the year!
- How to Read a Story. This is another great read for the beginning of the year and having students learn to identify how they can enjoy reading all year long.
- How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow. The world experiences a problem when the sun and clouds, best friends, get into an argument and refuse to be in the same day together. because of this, rainbows no longer have the chance to shine and therefore the colors start disappearing! Students learn about perseverance and teamwork as the crayons help save the day!
Question Words Practice
In this resource you'll find our question words as an independent activity. Students practice writing these words and using them in a sentence. It's simple practice that can be done as a whole group, small group, or centers. Introduce the words once a day or all at once - up to you! They can even be used as homework practice as well.
Using graphic organizers to chart thinking
I love introducing graphic organizers to my littles in kindergarten and this can be easily modeled and used throughout the year to think about their reading. Of course, in kindergarten it's important to model and practice before expecting students be able to use it on their own. I would use this as a resource during my whole group teaching or even print it using a poster printer, laminate, and use throughout the year. For the older grades, you can model it then have it in a center or during independent work. It really comes down to your grade and needs of your class.
Last, but not least...posters!
To complete this Question Words resource I've included these simple and minimalistic posters to use during your lessons and to display in your classroom. They feature the main question words: who, what, when, where, why, and how as well as a poster for the punctuation: question mark. In kindergarten we don't really begin using them, just periods, but it's almost a have-to during a question words unit. At the very least, an honorable mention ;)
Happy teaching!
May 7, 2020
The Flat Teacher Project
Have you jumped on the Bitmoji bandwagon yet? It's been one of the fairly recent trends that have hit classrooms everywhere and I'm just now discovering how to implement them myself. There are a TON of ideas already out there and I'm amazed at the creativity of fellow teachers who are using them to make their learning/classrooms more personalized.
One activity that I've always looked forward to in kindergarten (and even 2nd grade) has been our Flat Stanley unit. When I taught public school and had to incorporate a geography objective into our year, Flat Stanley was an easy way to do it - plus the kids really enjoyed it! Because I only teach ELA, I no longer have a reason use this unit. Such a bummer! But, with every classroom transitioning to distance learning, I've found a new way to connect with my kids and sprinkle a little Flat Stanley into our learning.
...but, instead of Flat Stanley...
...it's Flat Miss. Kelly!
Introducing Flat Teacher
One amazingly brilliant idea that has been floating around has been Flat Teacher. So many teachers around the country are using Bitmoji, their personalized emoji, and sending them to their students during quarantine. I love that there are so many ways to interpret this idea that fits the needs of every classroom. Today, I'm going to share with you how Flat Miss. Kelly is not only visiting homes and adventuring with students, but she's inspiring their writing, too.
For the last couple of a weeks our class has been working hard on building sentences and learning the elements of a sentence. We've watched videos together, unscrambled sentences, and they are beginning to write their own! To keep the momentum going, and offer up some variety in their activities, why not send them a little piece of me to spend time with?!
The plan is that over the course of 2 weeks students will spend time with my Flat Teacher and sharing their lives with it. It's a great way to remain connected, but give them the opportunity to share about their interests in a new way. After spending a week together, taking and sharing pictures, the second week will be all about using those experiences to create a sentence (or paragraph for older kids).
Creating your stickers
Bitmojis are so easy to make and use! Just a simple search on Pinterest will ignite so much inspiration you'll find yourself wanting to plaster yourself on everything. No, really.
All you need to do is create a free account at www.bitmoji.com. They'll prompt you to download their app for your phone or install an extension for your browser. Once you've done that, you can begin to build your avatar. This is the fun part because there's so many varieties of hair, makeup, clothing, and accessories to choose from. Once you're finished, your saved avatar will immediate populate into the thousands of sticker you see everyone using. Now, you're ready to insert your Bitmoji into my resource!
Adding your Flat Teacher
This step is as simple as dragging and dropping.
Once you've unzipped my product you'll notice there are two documents: a PDF and a .ppt file. I did that purposefully as to have you use the .ppt to edit and customize your own Flat Teacher Project that will be sent to your families.
When you open the .ppt you will see each that each slide has some blank spaces. You've probably guessed that those blank spaces are where you add your own text or Flat Teacher and you would be right! At this point, all you need to do is add text boxes where you'd like text to be and add images of your Flat Teacher wherever you'd like.
Tip: I recommend enlarging the version of the Bitmoji you would like your students to print and take with them during the activity. Having a small Flat Teacher runs the risk of not being seen in photos or getting lost.
Along with your Flat Teacher, I have these optional parent letters and student poem explaining the project. On these slides you'll once again drag and drop your Bitmoji stickers to make what you're sending to families a little more personalized. You can always place a text box over the "Dear kindergartners" and write in your own greeting. I've also included the names of the fonts I've used so you can seamlessly add your own text!
Happy creating!
May 5, 2020
Teacher Appreciation Sale | May 5-6
This school year, every teacher everywhere has experienced something pretty unprecedented. In a moments notice we all had to adapt to a new way of teaching meanwhile stepping up and being present for our students and their families. It was a fast and furious few weeks of trainings, meetings, and navigating new online tools like Zoom, Google Classroom, and Seesaw.
For me, we closed beginning March 13th. We didn't even finish the week with our students, which in a lot of ways looking back was heartbreaking. I wish I had just one more moment with my students, a moment to gather the tools and resources necessary to take my classroom online, and a moment to mentally ready myself for what the next few weeks would bring.
Closing schools also meant a closed school for my preschooler. So, as many can imagine, moving forward into this new normal was a challenge from the start and it often left me feeling like I was burning the candle at both ends. However, as I write this now (more than a month into distance learning) I realize I wasn't alone. Nonetheless, I buckled up and got to work; planning, Zooming, FaceTiming, emailing, and coordinating. Within a weekend my colleagues and I were not so ready to immediately implement a distance learning program for our kinders, but it was expected. We've since been refining and adapting our program and it's finally looking, and feeling, like it's working. Not ideal, but working.
I mention all of this because of the extra importance behind Teacher Appreciation Week coming up. This is a time to really thank and appreciate the teachers in our lives. This years' appreciation week definitely looks and feels differently, but you can nevertheless support your teachers in a lot of new ways considering these newfound circumstances.
Teachers Pay Teachers Sale
If you're a fellow teacher and looking for new resources for your online classroom, Teachers Pay Teachers is having an amazing Teacher Appreciation Sale! This year on May 5th and 6th you will be able to stock up on your favorite resources and my shop is participating. You'll not only be supporting your own classes by snagging some pretty great stuff, but you're directly support fellow teachers while they work from home.You can find me celebrating with 20% off my entire store! That's right, every single resource is at a discount which means this is a great time to find distance learning materials and even begin to look ahead to the beginning of next year!
Distance Learning
We are all adapting to this new online/distant learning and teaching so it's no wonder teachers from all over are adapting their lessons to accommodate such a transition. Many of my resources can easily be adapted to distance learning and here's a peek and what you can get!Spring Workbooks
We had to quickly move to distance learning in early March, which cut right into the beginning of our spring unit here in kindergarten. These workbooks are great tools to use in-classroom or out because it's a one-stop-shop for all the learning students will be doing.
End of the Year
The end of the year is looking drastically different than I ever imagined, but that won't get in the way of celebrating these awesome kids! Check out this pack of awards that can be printed and mailed to students or sent digitally!
Guided Reading
I don't personally do guided reading in my current position, however, I swear by these products I made back when I taught second grade. I used Jan Richardson's Next Steps in Guided Reading as a mentor text and inspiration behind the lesson plan templates. Take a peek for yourself and see how you can use these printables to get organized for guided reading groups!
Story Elements
We've been so busy in kindergarten these last few weeks really diving into the story elements and how they give us the tools for an awesome retelling. Check out these posters I still use (even if I'm not in 2nd grade anymore!) and are available on sale! |
| Note the change in blog name ;) |
Getting behavior under control
Managing behavior is always an area where I'm on the lookout for new methods and approaches. Our school has adopted Responsive Classroom so my colleagues and I have worked hard to implement a variety of approaches to behavior management. Here are a few of my favorite products that are on sale!
There's so much to get into! I'm personally excited to get out there and support my fellow teachers these next two days! Happy appreciation week!
May 3, 2020
Into the Woods | A Week of 5-Finger Retelling
Last week we kicked off our forest unit in kindergarten and although we're doing it at a distance, I still found some pretty amazing resources and tools to help bring it all together. I introduced inferring and connected it with the prior week's learning of making text-to-self connections. I was amazed to see that my kiddos were beginning to understand inferences in their reading.
This week we're heading into review.
With May officially upon us and looking ahead to the end of the year, I've decided the best course as we continue distance learning is to review those key reading skills that will be important for them as they enter first grade next year.
So, this week we're reviewing how to retell and I'm introducing them to a new method (one we all know and love): the 5-finger retell!
The 5-Finger Retell
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.1-3
This method of retelling a story is a great way for students to remember the key elements in any story. I found a number of great anchor charts online to use as a reference for my students and their families. One of my favorites is this one from Kira of the teacher blog, The Teacher with the Owl Tattoo.
 |
| Photo | The Teacher with the Owl Tattoo |
- Setting
- Characters
- Problem
- Events (B-M-E)
- Solution
This Week's Read Alouds
For my read alouds this week I stuck to our forest theme. All of the books we'll be reading and working with have settings that take place in the forest and the characters are forest animals. I love it when themes truly build upon each other! Although here in San Diego we don't have the luxury of a lot of forests (if any), it's been a lot of fun to introduce and build on my student's understanding with each passing unit.Here's a list of the stories we'll be reading this week to practice our 5-finger retells!
P.S. I know these days it's hard to locate all of the books you want to use for your distance learning lessons, so feel free to snag the link to any of these read alouds!
The Squirrels Who Squabbled
This is such a cute story and was one introduced by a student parent! I love learning about new authors and being introduced to amazing stories! I chose this story this week because it tells the story of two squirrels who went about preparing for winter in different ways. One squirrel, Cyril, spent his time partying and not gathering food. Bruce, the other squirrel, was overly prepared with a storage chock full of food for winter. However, they both spot the very last pinecone of the season and make a charge for it. It's a fun and silly story that discusses the importance of not only sharing, but how greed can get in the way of true friendships and relationships.
It's also a great story that lends itself to a ton of ELA skills:
- story elements and retells (what I'm using it for this week)
- character development
- character traits
- central messages
- predicting and inferring
- vocabulary (squabble, spontaneous, etc.)
- rhyming words
- visualizing
Bike On, Bear!
This is a charming story that incorporates a lot of forest animals as characters. Bear is a young cub who is pretty great at everything. He is smart, kind, and finds that most things come very easy to him. That is, until he tries to ride a bike. All of his friends can ride their bikes and even without training wheels. Bear becomes disgruntled, but learns a valuable lesson in being persistent and not giving up when learning something new.This week we'll be using this story to retell those important events from the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
Some other great ELA skills you can use this book for are:
- story elements and retells (what I'm using it for this week)
- character development
- character traits
- central messages
- predicting and inferring
- making connections
Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?
This classic story is one my class and I read at the very beginning of the year when learning about our senses. Now, I'm bringing it back so we can track our retelling! We all know this is a great story for a number of reasons and this week Brown Bear here is going to help us visualize how events progress. With such a simple story, it's a wonderful text to practice this specific skill.Tip: never hesitate to bring out the preschool stories kids love! Yes, the story has simple language and easy-to-spot elements, but that's what makes them so great as mentor texts for kindergartners - especially bilingual or multilingual students like mine!
By tracking and sequencing, students begin to understand that events happen in an order. This is also a great opportunity to refresh those English ordinal number words as well as vocabulary (color and animal words). The difference between using this story for sequencing and for retelling is that we aren't going to track every single animal that is seen. Rather students will be directed to share that:
- In the beginning, a brown bear sees a red bird.
- In the middle, more colored animals see other animals.
- and in the end, a teacher sees her students looking at her.
 |
| Photo | Mrs. Schmelzer's 1st Grade |
So, we aren't sequencing the order of each animal that is seen, but rather summarizing what happens at the beginning, middle, and end.
Writing Extension
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.K.2
Skill: Writing complete sentences.
One way I'm extending this story is by including it in a writing activity. In writing this week we're working on writing complete sentences with an emphasis on adjectives to describe the nouns we write about. Brown Bear is another great mentor text by giving students the starter sentence. If we were in class I would use this story as a mentor sentence and we'd spend the week using it more in-depth. However, for distance learning this simple activity of having them trace and write a color word and noun to complete the sentence.
I was inspired by Mrs. Schmelzer's class book and decided to make my own writing page for students to use during distance learning this week. You can pick my template up for free by clicking the link below! During one of our live sessions I'll work with students using this template. They'll be directed to brainstorm an idea for what they want Brown Bear to see. They will use their phonetic spelling as well as rely on their color word knowledge to finish the sentence. Then, of course, they'll draw a picture of what they chose and incorporate appropriate details.
Bear Snores On
Keeping up with the bear theme within our forest unit I found this story, Bear Snores On. I am using this video read aloud since I don't personally have this story. However, it's a great one to use when thinking and practicing our 5-finger retells!Again, we'll be discussing the key elements of our retell by remembering who the characters are (the forest animals), the setting (Bear's cave), and those important events at the beginning, middle, and end.
For all of these read alouds we're using a story map to track our thinking. I found this freebie and am using it both with students during our live sessions together, but it's a graphic organizer that is easily uploaded to Seesaw for additional retelling activities!
Story Map Freebie
 |
| Photo | Mrs. Byrd's Learning Tree |
Mrs. Byrd's Learning Tree offers this story map as a freebie! I love the open spaces for students to draw their thinking and it is to the point (without the frills of clip art and fonts).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Hey there!
