Where I've Been, Shared Reading and a Quick Giveaway!

Why I haven’t been blogging...

This is the only part of the post that is personal, so for those of you who want to get to the school stuff (and I totally get that) skip to the next paragraph.  Anyway, I turned 40 and all you know what broke loose!  I’ve always been a migraine sufferer, but I suddenly stepped up into the chronic category.  We’re talking nearly every day.  I’ve tried eliminating my triggers, changing my diet, eliminating stress (as much as anyone can), getting more exercise, less exercise, yoga, meditation, more water, I’ve tried pretty much everything. Towards the end of the summer I finally dragged myself into a neurologist’s office (one of those “are you tired of living a maybe life” doctor’s from the TV commercial) and she’s doing her best to take care of me.  She put me on some medication that is supposed to prevent them, it doesn’t.  She doubled the dosage, it makes me sick.  On the bright side she ordered some tests to make sure that there are no brain tumors or anything scary like that(there are not).  We are now waiting for my insurance to approve the latest and greatest treatment-Botox! OMG!  I’m actually a little scared of it but at this point I will try anything.  So that is where I’m at.  Products and posting are kind of slow because when I feel good I put everything I have into my family and my classroom.  I have the greatest class this year! Fingers crossed that I will be feeling good soon (and wrinkle free)!

Shared Reading

I’m a big Fan of Shared Reading-It is a Daily must!  We do a Big Book and/or a poem absolutely every day.  The second week of school we always do Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Kind of funny, at the end of last year the librarian sold me her Brown Bear big book, so I gave mine away to a new teacher.  Well I didn’t realize that I had purchased the original version that included the pink elephant and the gray mouse until I started reading it to the children.  It worked out great though because most of my students have been to pre-school and new the story by heart so they really enjoyed the new version!  We read the book all week long. 

This is just a rough schedule with a few ideas- 

Day 1-I read, pointing to the words.  The students were able to choral read as most of them new the story.  We discussed the pictures and predicted what would happened next.

Day 2-We discussed which animals we remembered from the story.  We re-read the story, pointed to the swords.  Students were able to choral read.

Day 3-Students wore character necklaces and student when it was their part

Day 4-Students took turns pointing to the words on the page while the rest of the class choral read

Day 5-We re-read the story-I have puppets of the characters that I passed out for students to hold-up as we re-read the story

After reading the story students each got to sponge paint an animal from the story.  I used some of the animals to make our color wall.  The remaining pictures were used to create a class book.  I bound the book and read it as a read aloud during the following week, then placed it in the library (keep in mind I am not a photographer or very good at crafts, but the kids still love reading the book-and that is the whole point)!.  

This page just needs a class picture

I forgot to color the elephant, but you get the idea!-There is also a page without the elephant and mouse. 

If you would like a copy of this little Brown Bear pack, leave a comment below.  I will give away three.   I hope that you use them and do shared reading every day! Thanks for reading my blog!

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