Little Literacy Learners: September 2011

Honored-I Heart Your Blog

I want to send a big THANK YOU to Jacque from

for awarding me with the

Here are the rules for this award:

1. Give the "I heart Your Blog" award to your favorite Top 10 Blogs that have touched your heart and inspired your teaching by listing them on your blog.

2. Contact that person and let them know of their heartfelt award.

3. When you receive the award, copy and paste the graphic onto your blog and give a shout out to the person who nominated you.

4. Spread the LOVE by passing the "I Heart Your Blog" award on your top 10.

The following are my TOP 10, whose buttons I proudly display on my sidebar:

Teaching Blog Addict

The Moffatt Girls

Extra Special Teaching

Climbing the Monkey Bars

Thank you!

Short Books-Sight Word Instruction

How many of you have emergent readers who once they realize there is a predictable pattern in a book, they stop paying attention to the words and only focus on the pictures?

Well, I wanted to share a fantastic resource that I have been using for the past few years to support sight word instruction. They are called Short Books.

And they are just that, short little books aimed to help increase automaticity in reading the most frequent words of English.

What I love is that these books do not repeatedly use phrases such as, "I can..." on each page. Instead, the language structure is varied so that the reader has to pay close attention to the letters and words in order to read the text. For example, the following variations are used within "can": "Can I go..." "I can see..." "Can I see..."

The series of books are numbered and as a new word is introduced it is incorporated with the words previously introduced, so they build upon one another. I also love the last page of the book. It has several of the introduced sight words jumbled up on the page for the reader to identify in isolation.

Can you tell they were created by a teacher?!

Honored-Versatile Blogger

I want to send a huge THANK YOU to the following authors:

Jody from

Allison from

AND

Jody from

for awarding me the

I am so honored! Please be sure to check out their blogs if you haven't already!

After accepting this award, you are requested to do the following:

1. Thank the person(s) who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass this award along to 15 other blogs.

Here are 7 things about myself:
1. I was so nervous to begin my own blog because I didn't think my posts would be useful to anyone, but am happy and thankful I did! I have met so many wonderful educators from around the world and absolutely love the blogging community!
2. I love reality t.v.
3. I think the DVR is one of the best pieces of technology ever invented! (How else would I get to watch my reality t.v.?)
4. I absolutely LOVE being a mommy and am amazed by my daughter each and every day!!
5. I am a homebody and would prefer to be home over any other place in the world!
6. I am an early bird and usually wake up before my alarm goes off.
7. I hardly ever go to the movies because I can NEVER stay awake for the duration of one!

Here are the 15 blogs I would like to pass the award along to:

Kinderglynn

1+1+1=1

Turnstall’s Teaching Tidbits

Learning With Mrs. Parker

Totally Tots

The Write Handed Teacher

Literacy and Laughter

A Place to Share

Hello Literacy

A Place Called Kindergarten

Elle Belle’s Bows

Learning is Child’s Play

Heather’s Heart

Create Teach Share

Hart 2 Hart

Thank you for all you do!

Handout-Reading Aloud and Laptops

We will be celebrating Open House with our families this week. Last year I provided a handout about the importance of reading aloud to children to the kindergarten families. After seeing and falling in love with this amazing post on Dr. Jean's blog, I went ahead and tweaked it a little bit to incorporate the need for every child to have a laptop....not the electronic device, but a laptop to sit on each and every night!!

Click on the picture below to access the download through my Teacher's Notebook shop:

Enjoy!

What a crazy start!

This has been quite a crazy way to start a school year.

The students were sent home at 10:30 am on their first day of school yesterday and today the district is closed! This is due to the excessive rain, flooding, and multiple road closures throughout our district.

We have had some crazy weather for this area over the past few months. From small earthquakes to tornadoes touching down just a few miles away, both to the east and west of us. Of course Hurricane Irene visited us, who brought the initial set of heavy wind, excessive rains, and flooding. And now the rain just does not want to let up or give us a break!

I really hope it isn't an indication of what our winter will be, or a bad omen for what will happen this school year!

Prayers go out to my colleagues and families of the district, some who have water in their homes once again, others have lost everything. Prayers also go out to the members of our local communities who have been hit even harder!

Stay safe everyone!

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What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents

Just yesterday, CNN published a great article written by Ron Clark, the author of The End of Molasses Classes: Getting Our Kids Unstuck--101 Extraordinary Solutions for Parents and Teachers .

Click on the title below to head over to read the article if you haven't already:

What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents

It is well written and worth the read!!

Animal Syllable Cards

Since today was my first day back to school, I thought I would share these 39 Animal Syllable Cards to help your littlest literacy learners develop their ability to hear one, two, three, and even four syllables in words.

(Click on the picture below to head to TPT to download.)

I did provide some suggestions for use, but they can be used in so many ways! I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know how you will be using the cards!

I hope everyone has a happy and successful school year! I can't wait to share ideas with all of you throughout the year!

Enjoy!

Check these out...

Now it is my turn to share with you my top ten blogs!

Michelle shares many wonderful ideas

This blog is co-authored by two amazing moms. Amber and Madonna create and share amazing materials and ideas!!

Dana shares activities that range from Pre-K to 5th grade that go across the curriculum!!

Deedee creates AMAZING materials! I have purchased so much from her and my students love everything!

Laura, a retired Pre-K teacher and mom, shares her own ideas along with ideas found from other blogs. I look forward to each and every post!

Amanda is so creative and creates wonderful units!

This was one of my go-to blogs before I created my own blog. So many fabulous ideas!

Mrs. Larremore is a great resource! She shares her own ideas, along with recognizing other wonderful posts from other blogs.

Although she hasn't posted in a bit, she has shared some wonderful materials that I enjoy working with!

This wonderful blog is co-authored by two 1st grade teachers who share both ideas and materials.

I can't wait to see what this year has to hold for these amazing blogs!
Thank you for all of your inspiration!

I've been nominated!

Wooo hooo! So excited to receive a nomination from one of my favorite blogs Busy Bees, which is a wonderful blog co-authored by a kindergarten and second grade teacher!

Thanks so much ladies!

If you haven't checked out their blog before, simply click on their button below: