Tag Archives : Writing


An important lesson from my Reading Recovery days: Begin at the very beginning

Begin at the very beginning

I taught for a decade before I started my Reading Recovery training, beginning with kindergarten in a school where half of my students understood only Portuguese when they arrived. In those first ten years I moved between kindergarten, primary special education and grade one. My grade one students who struggled the most were lucky enough to have the Reading Recovery program in place, and I was astounded at the changes I saw in them in such a short time. Those teachers had some kind of magic and I was thrilled when I was able to take the position at my school. There was a mystery that surrounded what really happened in that little room.

Wait a minute – the kid learns nothing new and the teacher does everything for them?

I began my Reading Recovery training like my fellow trainees, enthusiastic, and in a hurry to get my students reading and writing! I was impatient with the ‘Roaming around the Known’ period: ‘Roaming’ being delicately consolidating (with ABSOLUTELY no teaching) around what the child already knows (the ‘known’), perhaps discovering more about what is known or stumbling upon areas of difficulty somehow missed in the testing process. It was a ten lessons, two week complete, no-stress, the-child-does-all-he’s-capable-of-and-you-do-everything-else period of (what felt like) non-structured, laziness. It drove us all nuts – at first.

But here’s what actually happened.

We had LOADS of fun. The kids, who at the beginning of grade one already knew they were ‘the worst readers in the class’ and had already been refusing to take risks and try anything new, gained confidence and trust in us, the process and themselves and started to try. They were excited to come to Reading Recovery every day, before we even started lessons.

What did we do?

  1. We read familiar books over, and over, and over again.
  2. We made our own story books, sharing the marker; the child writing the words s/he knew, the teacher writing the rest.
  3. We played games with the words and letters the child already knew. We painted (with water) on the walls of the school and the playground, in sand trays, and shaving cream.
  4. We practiced moving from left to right…and I could go on (and will in a future post)…

My point is, we learned that there is nothing wrong with EASY, especially when dealing with a child whose confidence needs a boost.

Most of the children I have worked with in recent years are these very children. For many of them, the little things are giant in their minds. Anticipation of a task can be more difficult to manage than the task itself. We need to start with success and build up one baby step at a time. You do remember Baby Steps, don’t you?


[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JPa2mvSQ4] Dr Leo Marvin TFRT

And, of course, humor keeps us all going when the going gets tough!

Here are a few links to help anyone who is starting at the very beginning of the literacy journey this year. Best wishes to you!


Fam Read Fun Th Dos & don'ts of motivating young children to write Th1 Reading Logs - rejigged!

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PreEmergent Sight-Word-Stages Readers (two words per page, also available in bundles):

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http://thatfunreadingteacher.com/

[email protected]

Click the symbol above to access my TpT Store! 😉

 


Classroom Commands- Play Simon Says in Spanish-Great ICE Breaker

BACK TO SCHOOL- SPANISH ICE BREAKER

 

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https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Classroom-Commands-Play-Simon-Says-in-Spanish-Great-ICE-Breaker-1381284

 

This worksheet set is extremely useful to teach students in Middle School and High school Classroom Commands. The vocabulary list with 12 commands and a work bank will allow you to teach them 12 basic expressions that they can use easily. In addition the second worksheet will allow them to review Classroom objects. Students can use a dictionary or their word bank to fill both pages. Once the vocabulary has been introduced students will use both pages to write their own commands. They can write individually or in small groups. They can present them to the class. This interactive package will satisfy Communication standards 1.1 where students produce information in the target language and 1.22 where they understand and interpret spoken language. One student can read the commands in Spanish and have the others perform them. it is quiet an entertaining an engaging activity. The vocabulary worksheet can be used for assessments and the command performance can give you a listening comprehension assessment grade. Enjoy these entertaining and engaging package.

Visit my TpT Store ” El Jaguar” 

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To PIN this Lesson

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/532550724664553110/

 


Science Haiku

Would you like a way to blend Language Arts and Science?   Introduce / review two poetry types and integrate science topics with Science Haiku.    Your students will be able to use this product for classwork, homework or assessment.

This product contains a Science Haiku and Acrostic Poem Format for each of the following subjects:

Science Haiku

Science Haiku

– Sun
– Butterfly
– Recycling
– Chameleons
– Circuits
– Plants
– Flowers
– Frogs

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Science-Haiku-1882013

 

https://www.pinterest.com/qrteacher/my-tpt-products/


Writing Behavior and Learning Goals Reflections

I Met My Goal!

I Met My Goal!

Do you ever need a quick and easy graphic organizer for behavior and / or learning goals?  It is important for students of all ages to be able to reflect upon the goals that they have met, the strategies they used and their plans for the future.    This set includes variations of graphic organizers which can be used to help learners reflect upon their goals met for the year, quarter, week, etc.  Includes space for a self-portrait or to color a picture of a girl or boy.   This was useful for Marzano; however can be adapted for other teacher evaluations.

 

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/End-of-Year-Learning-Goals-Reflection-1822453

 

https://www.pinterest.com/qrteacher/my-tpt-products/

 


A post to pass on to parents: Reading and writing through play!

Reading and writing through play!

 

Do you have a child who loves animals, may wish to be a veterinarian or doctor, and could use a little practice or writing his or her name? (Not that you would ever mention it…)


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How about one who does not see the point in learning to read or write, but has a fantastic imagination?


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A sociable child with boundless energy, an interest in the law, perhaps, and exploring roles?


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Maybe you have a child that likes to pretend to be grown-up sometimes, and receive the praise self-esteem boost that goes with it. I admit to feeling very important as a ‘waitress’ at summer BBQs growing up. (My brothers preferred to be ‘bartenders’). It was always more official and fun with a notepad in hand.

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And once the drinks are handed out, someone is bound to start telling stories. Perhaps your child is a fan of pirates, or a natural storyteller?

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The child in this post could be any child.

Children learn without even realizing it through play, and read and write for real purposes .

We learned this way when we were kids. We played. We helped out. We didn’t have the electronic distractions of today.

The templates above (and a few more) have been designed for today’s more discerning audience in a product called Summer Fun: Reading and writing through play. It is included in a bundle with another Writing for Real Purposes product: Fun Summer Lists, which I wrote about here. I have included the links below, and the original post that launched this line of products.

Kids love to imagine, create and role play. Thank you to those of you who do purchase these products. I hope anyone reading this post is inspired to play with their kids and discreetly slip in teachable moments where possible. The key is to have fun and let go of expectations.

It is summer time after all.

Best wishes to all of you!

I.M.

That Fun Reading Teacher 

Th TpT Store Prof pic circle

 

Related:

Thank you for being my Reading Buddy!

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R & W through play lg


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Language Arts Lessons: Monthly Writing Calendars

This past school year, I started using Monthly Writing Calendars with my second grade students!  They were perfect for writing homework or fast finishers, and the calendars were a hit with my co-workers, parents, and students alike!  Each monthly packet includes 20 different writing prompts (fiction, informational, seasonal, and even some opinion topics), tips for teacher use, seasonal writing paper, and an editing checklist for student use!  I’ve bundled all 12 calendars for a savings of $8.00!  These are fun, easy to use, and almost NO-prep for teachers!

Writing Calendar Pic 2

 

Writing Bundle Pic

 

Click HERE to Purchase the Writing Calendar BUNDLE!

Click HERE to buy Individual Writing Calendars!

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SPANISH END OF YEAR- MI VERANO- Verbs Power Point/Poster Project with Rubric

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This interactive End of Year Lesson will allow you to have a fun project with your class. The lesson was to introduce AR/ER/IR verbs and combine it with a list of summer activities that your students will be engaging on during summer break. It is a great review of verbs and daily activities. It also can be used to increase conversational skills as students can introduce each other in five minute presentations that can be read straight of their posters or Power Points.

It contains
– Summer Vacation activities including the translation keys
– Writing prompt in conjugated in the first person to create poster
– AR/ER/IR Word Search
-AR/ER/IR  Cross Word Assessment

Objective
1- Allow students to create a presentation in Spanish describing their
Summer plans
2- Develop Speaking proficiency as students read their presentations to the class
3- Develop Listening skills as the students hear other students’ presentations and take notes

Lesson
1- Go over activities vocabulary page with students. Let them work on translating themselves using dictionary /notes.
2- Ask students to complete the Writing prompt for all the statements. Explain to students that names of shows, artist, place and people do not require translation.
3- Ask students to pick 10 activities and to create a Power point slide for each activity. If they wish they can also do a poster using drawings, magazines cutout or clip art to represent activities.
4- Each student will share their Power Point for 5 minutes with the class. They can either show the Power Pointpresentation or show the poster. Grade the poster.
5- The class takes notes and students take turns to translate each presentation. Notes can be in English.
6- Collect projects and grade.
7- Students can compete for Word Search. Divide in small groups and first group to finish gets homework pass.
8- Criss Cross Puzzle- You can use it as a Quiz

Feliz Verano!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/SPANISH-END-OF-YEAR-MI-VERANO-Verbs-Power-PointPoster-Project-with-Rubric-1855337


Fun Summer Lists – Writing for Real Purposes!

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Many children today do not have much appreciation for the world of paper and pen. The electronic world is far more seductive and even the adults in their lives are likely spending time on laptops or smartphones. Guilty as charged over here.

While building writing skills may come easily to some children, it can be overwhelming and exhausting to others. What is in it for them? They simply must see a point to it for real-world purposes, and receive positive feedback.

Kids do see us make lists – even if we make them on our smartphones. And kids do what we do (not necessarily what we say!)

For our purposes today, writing will mean any communicating in print. We’re talking about Kindergarten to grade two or three students of varying abilities.

Our goal is to help them understand why they are learning to write, buy into it and know that they are contributing members of society, who are appreciated for the contribution they are making by doing so!

Think of the possibilities for planning a day trip, or vacation….

Packing Lists…


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11 Things to pack for Water Fun 12 Things to pack for Water Fun - lined

The Social and Wish Lists…


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4 Friends - boys.png - Copy 3 Friends - girls.png - Copy

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Lists about stories and games…or anything really!


16 Fav Stories 18 Stories I want to read 17 Books I read this summer

13 Games I really like 14 Games I really want 15 Apps and Games that help me learn

Whether our child / student draws or pastes pictures, dictates to us while we scribe, prints in hieroglyphics, or phonetically spelled words, we need to make this real world connection and commend them for making the effort. Especially in the summer!

Fun  Summer Lists is included in a WRITING FOR REAL PURPOSES bundle called Summer Literacy Fun Pack, with Summer Fun: Reading and Writing through Play pictured below.

These products were inspired by a post I wrote last summer (also pictured below) and by the effectiveness of these types of activities with my own children and students. I hope you enjoy them. Think Summer! It’s just around the corner!

Best wishes to all of you as we head into the final month of school!

I.M.

That Fun Reading Teacher 

Th TpT Store Prof pic circle


WRP Summer Bundle Long pin Summer Fun - Reading and Writing through play! cover.pngSumWrite

Some 

(almost)

Summer

freebies!

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Celebrating one year of Fine Motor Gains!

Watch this Awesome Guy show us his amazing growth in hand skills in one year’s time.  

It all began here when he learned to isolate his index finger, but take a look at him now!


Also learn an Occupational therapist’s trick for teaching pencil grasp to a child with low muscle tone and poor hand strength!

Read More:

Capitals First Blog from Print Path

Print Path @ Teachers Pay Teachers


10 Ways to Keep Students Learning Over the Summer

 By Deann Marin at The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs

 

Offering for Educators, Comprehensive Teaching Aides. If you’d like to see what else I have to offer please visit my store.

 

Summer is the time for fun, fun, fun! School is out no more hitting the books. The only problem is that much of what was learned during the school year is forgotten, “out of sight, out of mind.” Not so with these ten fun educational activities that will keep the children looking for more and not even realizing that they are learning.

 

1.   Have your child, if he/she is old enough, take pictures of different things that you do over the summer. This will be especially exciting if you travel somewhere. They can put their photographs in a nice scrapbook and write a few  sentences about them. Make sure correct punctuation and grammar are used. What a great memory to look back on. When the school  year begins, this book can be shared in class.

2.   Help your child make a summer calendar for June, July, and August. They can use crayons, pencils, paint, rulers to color them in and add special things that they did over the summer. This will help to reinforce number recognition and counting. An effective way to work on addition and subtraction would be to say: “How many days till we go to the beach? or how many days ago did we go to see grandma and grandpa?’ even “How many days till you go back to school?”(of course they may not want to think about that!)

3.   Make  musical instruments from materials that are found around the house. Use towel/toilet paper rolls decorate them with paint, then put small pebbles inside. Close each end with cloth, or paper then glue them on or secure with rubber bands. This can be used as a rattle or rain stick.  Other instruments that they can make are drums, a box guitar, or a maraca, etc. This is a helpful websitd:  http://www.howcast.com/guides/841-how-to-make-musical-instruments-  for-kids/

4.   Cooking and measuring the ingredients help with math skills. They will have to read the recipe and measure the ingredients correctly.These recipes look yummy: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/packages/recipes-for-kids/cooking- with- kids.html

5.  If your child likes the computer or tablet, take advantage of it. Have him/her become a web ranger. They will go on quests and learn about national parks. It will help enhance skills in history and geography because they will be asked to solve mysteries and puzzles, play games and more. Check it out on this website: http://www.nps.gov/webrangers/ 

6.  Start a family garden. Decide what type of garden it will be, flower,vegetable, herbs or a combination. Then read up on it. Learn about the particular plants that will be used, find out where they should be placed, in the sun or shade. What types of soil are best, etc.  They can use some math measuring skills to figure out how far to space each plant. They can also measure plants to estimate the growth.  They might also try a science experiment to see if seeds grow faster in sun or darkness and keep a written record.  You can go to this website for more information. http://www.kidsgardening.org/

7.  When riding in the car have your child read signs, names of cities, towns, parks, or look for license plates from different states and figure out what states are the farthest away from them, or they can count the number of license plates they see from the different states. Another game that is fun when traveling is to start with the letter A and name a city, state, or country that begins with that letter, go through the entire alphabet. A variation of this would be to say a state, city, or country name and the next person has to come up with a name beginning with the last letter of the place just said. Austin/Nebraska, Anchorage/Evansville, and so on. Everyone in the car plays to make it more fun.

8.  For those would be scientists, start a rock or critter collection. See how many different rocks/ critters they can discover and find information about them in a book or on the web. They can make a scrapbook with photographs and information about the rocks or critters that they have collected.This is a great site for rock collecting, your child will have loads of fun while learning. http://www.kidsloverocks.com/html/guide_to_collecting.html This is just right for collecting those critters. http://www.kidactivities.net/category/Science-Kids-Collecting-Insects.aspx

9.  Have a scavenger or treasure hunt. You will have to write out directions as to where to find something and your child will have to read it in order to find the prize. This website has printable check lists, 10 ideas for scavenger hunts as well as tips and tricks.http://www.mykidsadventures.com/scavenger-hunt-ideas/ This pinterest page has loads of ideas on this subject  https://www.pinterest.com/tiffanymoore2/scavenger-hunt-ideas-for-kids/

10.  Plan a family fun day. Have your child write everything down from the menu to the games that will be played.

Here are some ideas that can be written down

  • Describe the activity. What will you do? Will you play games, go for a swim, watch a movie?
  • How will you prepare ahead of time. Will you need tickets, a picnic lunch, or a reservation?
  • What supplies will you require.
  • How much will it cost?
  • Who will be invited?

Make sure that you or your child takes pictures and then he/she can make an online photo album, write a few sentences about each image and email it to all of those who attended.

 11.  You can play word games such as scrabble, to work on spelling skills, board games like Yahtzee to help with math skills, card games like war which will utilize number skills, or word bingo.  I’ve also included some items that you can purchase through my Tpt store to help reinforce math and word skills learned in school.

 

 

End of the Year addit,subt,mult,div board game for grades 2-4  8x8 Cover

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern’s Tpt Store.

 

 

Click image to visit Socrates Lantern's Tpt Store.

Click image to visit Socrates Lantern’s Tpt Store.

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern's Tpt Store.

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern’s Tpt Store.

 

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern's Tpt Store.

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern’s Tpt Store.

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern's Tpt Store.

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern’s Tpt Store.

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern's Tpt Store..

Click on image to visit Socrates Lantern’s Tpt Store..

 Check out these blogs for more ideas from some awesome educators

Blog Hop

1. DIY Farmwife-Sharing is Caring- Fight the Sum

2. Carberry Creations- Keeping Students Learning All Summer

 

 

 

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Language Arts – “Narrative Writing”

By Christina L

Grades 3-5

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This product includes all you need for a writing center and can also be can be used with a whole class when teaching Narrative Writing.

Includes
• 20 Task Cards with Narrative Writing Prompts
• 3 Graphic Organizers to choose from
• 1 Poster “Narrative Writing”
• 1 “Steps to Writing a Narrative”
• 1 “Narrative Writing Checklist”
• 2 Cheat Sheet lists “Transition words and phrases”

Check it out here for a better look!

Thanks for looking!

Christina L

My Store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Christina-L


FREE LANGUAGE ARTS LESSON – “Spring Homework Freebie!!”

by Casey Herling

PreK-1st Grade

 

Spring Homework Freebie Cover Page

Spring homework FREEBIE!! Two spring-themed homework pages (answer sheets included). If you like these resources, please check out the whole Spring Homework Packet here!

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“Caterpillar Addition” Mathematics/Writing
We learn to add groups together to find a total, write numerals, and write purposeful marks and letters.

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“Little Lovelies”
Reading/ELA/Fine Motor
We learn to match sounds in words to printed letters (phonics), and strengthen and refine our small muscle skills.

Bandicoot's Bumbershoot

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Bandicoots-Bumbershoot

https://www.pinterest.com/bandicoots/