Monday, September 23, 2013

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow, when the school year started I had no idea how busy I'd be this year. I had great plans for posting on the blog at least once a week. You see how that went! Overall, though, school is going great. I have a fantastic class and an amazing TA so I can't complain! We've just started to really get into Houghton Mifflin Reading and this is my favorite time of year with it. We started our reading groups and have begun to focus on high frequency words. I bought this resource pack from Made for 1st Grade and it has been a lifesaver! I've had it for three years now and by far the thing I use most are the Lightning Words. It's a weekly sight word homework sheet and the results are amazing! I love it! You can see it here: 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Houghton-Mifflin-Resource-Pack-1st-Grade-2004-edition-145234

 If you teach Houghton Mifflin this is definitely worth it! New for me this year is Reading A-Z. I put it on my order last year and the resource fairy delivered it! I haven't spent too much time with it yet but now that things are slowing down a little bit I plan to. I had a free trial last year for a couple of weeks and I really liked it. I like the decodable readers but...WOW...I love the reader's theater. I started doing RT a couple of times a week and the difference in fluency was amazing! I only had a limited number of downloads so I made a few of my own scripts using our decodable readers that come with the reading series. By the time we were done "rehearsing" and performing they had read the book at least 6 times and they loved doing it. Definitely not boring!!

Well, beef stir-fry and hungry children are waiting!!!

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