READ-O...Updated Version!

Do you remember this READ-O????

Steve and I've had such a huge response...and we heart you so much, we've made a READ-O for the school year! 

READO-O can be used in a variety of ways to keep your students practicing important skills at home during each month of the school year. READ-O is especially useful for helping parents practice important literacy skills with children and offers a fun effective way to keep kids engaged in academic activities...especially during winter, spring, and summer breaks! We've scaffolded the ELA Common Core month by month in a black and white template, easy for printing for each of your students!

• August/September: Reading Foundation & Reading Literature
• October: Reading Foundation, Reading Literature, & Language
• November: Reading Foundation, Reading Literature, & Language
• December: Reading Foundation, Language, & Speaking and Listening
• January: Reading Foundation, Reading Informational Text, & Language
• February: Reading Foundation, Language, & Writing
• March: Reading Informational Text, Language, & Writing
• April: Reading Literature, Language, & Writing
• May/June: Reading Literature, Language, & Writing

Our TpT Store

Head on over to our TpT Store to download a free sample and purchase our year long READ-O! Please leave us some feedback and let us know what you think! 

Write-O

We've had lots of feedback from our "Read-O" and "Math-O" that was posted a few days ago and so I wanted to post the "Write-O" that I made a few years back! Hopefully you will find this as a great take-home activity with your kiddos. If you download it, leave us some love and let us know what you think!

Download Write-O

Writing Folders

Yeh, I know most of you probably have writing folders already implemented in your classroom seeing is how it's almost the 50th day of school (for us at least) but it's taken me a while to develop an easy system for my first graders to stay organized...Until now!


A few weeks ago a (wonderful) parent volunteer glued and taped all of the folders for the whole entire first grade class! (A monster thank you!) Each child has two different colored pocket folders that were glued together from the back of on folder to the front of the other folder. Scotch tape was placed around the edges for durability. Now students have four pockets to use for their writing!


In the first two pockets, students keep their writing "Tools". These are items like Topics I Can Write About, Words I Use When I Write, or our Vocabulary Dictionary that will help them generate ideas or work on writing conventions. These two sections are labeled with a toolbox (the link to print is below!)  


In the last two pockets, students keep "Work in Progress" and "My Completed Work". On the weekends, I will be able to take home their folders and assess the writing that students are working on...I have some rubrics I will post (soon) to show you how I can assess where a child is in their writing process. I'm also hoping these folders will be helpful when I pull kids back at the table for Writer's Workshop.  

Letter to Families

Writing Folder Labels (Avery 5163)

My kiddos took their folders home and "decorated" them with pictures and words that are meaningful to them that might "spark" some writing ideas. I think they turned out pretty fabulous...Although this pic would have been better if I would've used my camera! 

I'd really like to know how you organize writing folders for your kiddos...Please share!

What a Hoot

After yet another look-see on Scrappin' Doodles I came up with another take-home book for this coming school year. Click on the link below the pic to download. 

What a Hoot Take Home Book

Take-Home Books

It's been a couple years since I taught first grade and this coming school year I get to go back! I am very excited to be working with kids at the early stages of reading and writing. One way I like to encourage writing at home is to provide many "take-home" bags. I've spent some time the past few days revising some of them with new fonts and graphics! (Browsing through blogs lately has encouraged me to ditch my typical Word fonts & graphics and purchase new ones...I'm kinda obsessed!) I use one-inch binders with a clear cover and add the pages in as they are needed. I'll add more of my take-home books later, but here are a few that I've finished. Click on the links below to download! Enjoy.

The Boo-Boo Book

The Tooth Fairy Journal

The Birthday Book