Currently and Eric Carle

Okay, so this week in our Basal we are reading The Mixed-Up Chameleon.  Technically, its the first story but I held off, thinking I wanted to do a big author study on Eric Carle.  Okay, so now it's a four day week and I'm doing it.  Sigh.  If you do Harcourt Trophies, you'll understand this next part.  

We actually do guided Reading groups, so I use the basal on Mondays to introduce a new story and vocabulary each week.  My focus wall is well, focused on this story and vocab for the week.  In their homework, they are working with the vocabulary as well.  In this way, even my lowest readers are being exposed to second grade skills because of course, the standards are soooo friendly towards kids not reading on grade level, right???  (yeah, that was sarcasm).  I do find some useful phonics/phonemic awareness tips in the teacher manual (remember at college how they said to NEVER use the teacher manual???  I finally opened mine a few years ago and thought hmm..these aren't some bad ideas!).  Also, when I have higher readers, its great to use the books that come with the series in our "Reading Comp" literacy center, complete with activities (you can check this out on one of my wiki pages which is all about my reading focus wall!).

Anywho, I have put off doing ol' Eric because I wanted to plan something spectacular. This summer, I even devoted a Pinterest board to him.  It was going to be a bang-up, blow-out type of unit!  

Well, life gets in the way (doesn't it always) and so, I borrowed some Eric Carle books from a Kindergarten teacher friend of mine (because I have maybe two!) and came up with some read-aloud activities to do with each one.

Oh, and have I mentioned how in our schedule this year, just by moving our lunch time, it messes up the whole day?????  If Math runs over, there goes my read-aloud time because after lunch, its full speed ahead with writing, content, and reading!  So, I also had to do things that would either a) relate to a GREAT conversation, but maybe not too time consuming or b) could be incorporated with writing.

Okay, so here is my Eric Carle read aloud activities.  I wanted to include one of my faves, The Very Quiet Cricket, but alas, my book is broke and my head is out of ideas.

If you're interested, email me for a copy.  I'm going to throw it up on TpT and TN, but for those of you reading the post, just comment below with your email and I'll send you a free copy! :)  

Sorry...Pandora's playing pretty slow, depressing songs no matter what station I'm hitting, so I'm a little bummed...that and my lovely three days "I'll get so much work done this weekend!" is coming to an end with a still-unfinished to-do list.  Sigh.

So, on that note, let's try to cheer up the post a bit (besides the freebie) with Farley's September Currently.  I love the blog posts that are like "really?  It's really September??" over to the side.  Hah hah.  Feel the same, and we're going into fourth week of school (yikes! Interims!).

 

Okay, just to explain a few (I always try to fit it in the frame...mine never looks as cute as others!).  Internet:  the wildblue people say its because things are trying to update....and the fact that we have too many devices that use Internet! My solution? Turn the router off when we're not home/at night.  We have 15G a month for satellite internet.  Here's hoping things get better when it comes back on Sept. 11!

Favorites:  the iPod touch I haven't had as much time as I'd like to play with it, but we were funded for it through Donors Choose!  Woo hoo!  I'm going to try to get a few more through a PTA grant so that I can use it with more than one student at a time! Haven't introduced it to them yet, but it's coming soon!  Think reading groups would be best.

Sleeping in this past weekend...'nuff said :)

Another favorite:  our PTA  is hosting a yard sale (we live out here in the boonies....so yard sales can be hard to find) and I have a TON OF STUFF to get rid of!  I'm hoping it'll make our house look less cluttered as well as the garage...not sure if that'll happen, but maybe make a few bucks off of it as well! (to pay for my daughter's birthday party!).

As for Maggie's birthday party...I have kinda sorta planned it.  Fortunately I don't have to clean the house for it...we're using our church's fellowship hall (good thing since it's the day after the yard sale!).  We're doing a cupcake themed party...you know, decorate your own cupcakes, etc.  Found some cute ideas and started a board on Pinterest if you're interested.

Okay, well, don't forget the rule of 3!  I'm off to do that and then get back to work since I told my husband I'd be back by 2...whoops! :)