Happy 107th Birthday, Dr. Seuss and other literacy stuff :-)

Today would have been Dr. Seuss' 107th birthday! We had a fun day celebrating by wearing Cat in the Hat hats, making birthday cards featuring each child's favorite Seussical character ("zower in the shower" from There's a Wocket in my Pocket was the class favorite), reading books written by Dr. Seuss, and watching a video of Hop On Pop. I am featuring his books all week long, and the kids love it! It is a terrific author spotlight incorporating rhyming and reading with expression. They are really beginning to understand how much fun books can be when you read with feeling!

In February, we have been working on reading grade level texts and independently taking Accelerated Reader (AR) comprehension tests on them. The babies think they are hot stuff getting on a computer and making "5 out of 5 and 100%!"



Another activity we have had fun doing is working with magnetic letters on the ELMO. I call each child up and assign them a sight word. They rummage through my letter box to find the correct letters to spell their word. This is a hard game for some of them, but they always work hard to figure out the correct answers!



First try to spell "of"



2nd time's a charm!



Read All About It!

When the second semester begins at my school, kindergarten gets ready. Ready to read that is! This year, I am blessed with several 'natural readers' and several more that are 'eager readers.' I am so excited to be their teacher!

The natural readers have just picked up the necessary skills more or less on their own and were reading in August and September. The ones that I call 'eager readers' are the students who are just on the cusp and they know it! They are like race cars with engines revving in anticipation of the take-off. This week, three more have shot forward!

We have worked on blending phonemes for the last two weeks, and began working on CVC words in particular this week. Our focus is on the short vowel sounds for the most part, although the natural readers have begun working on silent /e/ and long vowel sounds. One activity that the class really enjoys is making their own mini-books. We have made two books for each short vowel sound.

In the beginning there is a sheet of paper. The babies illustrate (color) the story and then cut the pages apart. The next step is a bit tricky for them, as they must put the pages in order. If the book pages do not have page numbers on them already, we add them before cutting. When they have the pages in the correct order, I staple their book together. Finally, when all books have been assembled, the 'class reader' tells the story by decoding and reading the words. The final result is a bit like this...