Thinking in Primary

Pin It I love the Little Bunny Foo Foo books.  I think they teach a great lesson and they are a perfect alternative when you can't teach the Easter Bunny!  Next week I'm planning to read all of the versions that I have.  We are going to compare the books and graph our favorites.  Here's the graphing worksheet I made to go with the unit!  You can grab it for free from my TpT store!

Pin It Happy St. Patrick's Day Sale! It's a great day to save some "green" at my TpT store where everything is 15% off!   Have a lucky day!

Pin It I just went through and added pocket chart cards to this product.  When I introduce a new sort I like to start it in the pocket chart before giving the students their individual sorts.  If you already purchased this product you can re-download it now on teachers pay teachers!  Just click on the picture!

Pin It All of the products that I create and sell are things that I make for my classroom.  I am not one of those super machine teachers who has everything prepared a month in advance.  So, that explains why I just now finished the things I needed for the week before St. Patty's Day!  Now I'm hoping that when I go into school today (Saturday) that the luck of the Irish will be on my side and there will be lamination for my pocket chart.  Keep your fingers crossed for me! If you need any last minute St. Patrick's Day items I've just uploaded my Little Leprechaun Song and Poetry Page and Pocket Chart  to my TpT store.  There's also a Little Leprechaun Write the Room  activity.  Here's a little peak at them if your interested.  Happy St. Patty's Day!

Pin It On February 29th my entire Teachers Pay Teachers store will be 20% off and you can get an additional 10% off by entering the TpT code L2P9Y. Happy Leap Day!

All About Mrs. Kalnicki-Mrs. K. has earrings, Mrs. K is nice to me, and Mrs. K rings the bells ;) Pin It It seems like the one thing that I always struggle with is writing.  I am always looking for new and better ways to teach writing.  This year I am focusing a lot of structure on my  star student writing.   That has been working great.  My kids are writing structured "because" sentences everyday and I see that skill transferring to their other writing as well.  Recently I came across a writing program by a woman in Nevada named  Jodie Black , nice first name, I know.  Anyway, she pulls from Ralph Fletcher and Lucy Calkins, among others. I've not used her entire program, but just recently I started teaching her "All About" posters unit.  Basically my kids are learning to write nonfiction posters.  They write fact sentences (very difficult) onto smaller pieces of paper and then combine them into a poster.  In my class we all...

Pin It So at the start of this year I planned to do Daily Five.  I had read the book several times over the summer and I felt that I was ready.  Then, it was the first day of school and guess what?  I couldn't do it.  I felt like my little babies would not be able to handle it.  So, I set a goal to begin in January.  It didn't take until January.  After 9 years of centers it was time for a change (at least for this class). I started Daily 5 with my class at the beginning of of December.  I followed the book very carefully, but I soon found that one day's lesson in the book often took me 2 or 3 days.  I also learned that sometimes I needed to modify the lessons (just a little) to suit my own needs.  It didn't matter though, because it worked!   We now have 2 sessions.  The first session is read to self and we are up to 14 minutes!  Our second session is read to someone and listen to reading (also 14 minutes). ...