Summer School

Summer has been wonderful. Sure it has rained here, but I still have had my sun and pool time as much as possible. I am enjoying my back patio as I type this!

I have been working in the summer program and it has been nice to teach without all the common core rules. It reminds me of my younger teacher days when we could choose read alouds and were trusted to do what was right for the kids. Sure - having accountability is good - BUT there are a lot of good teaching practices that no longer exist in the classroom. SO SAD! 

Reading aloud is crucial and a lot of teachers in NY are no longer allowed to even do that ! Lucky for me, I have been able to do it a lot in summer school!!

Here are a few cute pictures from my summer school lessons:

I love these books: 

After a read aloud, the kidos did some writing with a prompt: 

 Here is a cute example from one of the kidos: 

 

Here is the second read aloud from last week: 

 

I just love how this kidos added a disco ball! 

 

More read alouds from summer school:

    

Here is a sample of a kidos response. 

So cute ! 

 

 I also teach math. This coming week we are working on the word "greater." Both of my groups - the K kids and the first graders need the practice. Here are two pictures from the chart I made last week:

 

I also have to work on solving word problems with the kids. Each kido was given a word problem on a 1/2 sheet of paper. The kids a great job with addition, so I moved onto subtraction. We read it aloud and then circled the important parts - the numbers and the word "left." We also talked about the label for the number sentence. It floors me that you have to use the word equation with first grades! Here is my example: 

There has been a lot going on in summer school and I am loving it!

Happy Reading!

Target Dollar Spot

I have been seeing some awesome posts about Target finds, so I had to go check out my local Target....  I actually went to TWO Targets last week. SHHH!

First here is why my husband won't go to Target with me:

He sent me this picture from Facebook and I could not stop laughing! I said,       "Yep, this is why I am in Target for two hours sometimes."  It's one of my happy places. Below are some of the things I bought for school!

 

Perfect for me since I teach reading!

 I know I can find a use for these ! 

 

I can't wait to hang this somewhere! 

I found four of these cute books! 

 

I actually used the name take the first day of summer school!

I am sure I can think of a bulletin board theme for the speech bubbles. 

 

I opened a few of these to use in a reading group week.  

I can't wait to play this game with the kids in the fall!  

Happy Reading ! Happy Target Shopping, too!