Thinking in Primary

Pin It When I first started teaching kindergarten the report card that I was using didn't really even cover sight words!  It was part of the standards but I just don't remember it being on the report card.  Slowly but surely things have changed.  For a long time students had to know about 25 words by the end of the year.  I felt like this was a pretty good minimum number considering some kids come in knowing zero letters.  But, this wasn't a good number for all kids.  I solved my issues with the  Dolch Kit  from a website called The School Bell.  This sight has tons of great ideas and I really love the sight word program.  Not to mention it's free, you just have to download and print.  The best part of this program for me is that it allows students to work at the pace that is best for them. This year our district gave us a list of 100 words.  Students need to know the first 50 to get meets standards and they work on the second 50 to exceed standards.  Most of th

Pin It It's been a while!  Sorry about that!  This has been one of those years that I'm just on my toes, running around and working like a dog!  Thanks for hanging around this little blog and not giving up on me!  We've been working so hard!  We started daily 5 but we are taking it very slow.  One of the lessons in the book might take me 3 days to get through.  But, we are up to 6 minutes of reading to self and 8 minutes of reading to someone.  Not to mention that my students groan on the days that I tell them we aren't doing daily 5! We have also been working very hard on our writing!  We read all of the Tacky the Penguin books that I could get my hands on, then we wrote about Tacky. My bulletin board could have used a title, but reality shows that I am not the bulletin board queen.  Sorry! After writing about Tacky we starting our non-fiction penguin study.  Next year I think I'll do Non-fiction first, I think it might flow better.  But this wa

Pin It Thank you so much for entering my giveaway!  I am so excited!  Here are the the winners!  Please let me know what items you would like!

Pin It Don't forget about my  giveaway! Here is a sample of some of my newest stuff that's available on Teachers Pay Teachers ! Thanks for following my blog and entering my giveaway!!! Jody

Pin It I could not even believe it the other day when I opened my blog and found that I had reached over 200 followers!  Thank you so much.  This year has been a tiny bit tougher than I had anticipated and so I have to admit that my little blog has suffered.  That makes me all the more grateful!  So....I think that 200 followers is a perfect reason to have a giveaway!   I will choose a winner on Sunday, January 15th with the random generator thingy.  The winners can pick 2 items from my Teachers Pay Teachers store .  I am thinking 2 winners! I'm all about making things easy, so I here goes.. 1 entry- follow my blog and comment about it 3 entries-blog about my giveaway and comment 3 times Yay!  And thank you all for following!!! Jody

Pin It I've just finished my Valentine's Day Write the Room center.  There is one version for writing the numbers and another version for writing the number words.  They are both free on Teacher's Pay Teachers!  My kids love this center.  I hope your's will too! Number Words Numbers 1-6

Pin It You know what I'm talking about right?  That first day back after a break or long weekend when you open the door and let in those sweet little angels, and they actually stay angels!  I actually had that day today, well for the most part anyway.  I think they must have missed the place. NOBODY had to turn their card... well, one kid did, but not until the last hour of the day.  Plus they read for FIVE whole minutes during daily five (we just started about 2 weeks before break).  I changed our schedule up a bit.  We have specials in the morning so I moved math to the morning and put just about everything literacy in the afternoon.  Close to the end of the day one little sweetie actually said "I can't believe how fast this day went"!   Please let the honeymoon last forever!