CARPET! Reading Intervention! Thanksgiving Feast!

I have to say I am so thankful for Thanksgiving break!  It was one long day.  Another teacher and I were talking about the 3 longest, most painful days of the school year:  the day before Christmas break, the last day of school, and the day before Thanksgiving break.

I left school and went and got a manicure with a sweet teacher friend of mine.  Much deserved, if I do say so myself. ;)

Tomorrow I'm headed to Michigan to head to the grandparents.  My son and I are headed up in the morning and the hubs is heading up Thursday morning (he works tomorrow night...night shift...working for a Budweiser distribution center and loading up trucks...yuck...).  Are there any bloggy friends in MI?  I know this is totally last second, but we could get together for coffee tomorrow somewhere around Detroit!  Yeah, it's late.  This probably won't work.  I'll plan better next time. ;)  I guarantee I'll head up again in the summer at some point.  Besides, I live in Ohio.  You live in Michigan.  Technically, we can't be friends this week.  Hey, I don't make the rules.

O-H!!!!!!!

Ok, onto all things teacher-related.

First of all, on Tuesday afternoon, I had the biggest surprise!!!!  At least I think it was Tuesday...my days now run together.  Anyways, my firsties INSISTED on doing their morning work at their new carpet!  When they came in they went straight to the carpet and sat down.  I had to ask them to remove their coats and get out their morning work.  Seriously.

THANK YOU, AGAIN, TO ALL THOSE WHO HELPED FUND OUR CARPET!  WE ARE LOVING IT!!!!!

Today we had our annual 1st Grade Thanksgiving Feast in the hallway.  I stayed up last night making popcorn and cranberry muffins.  At least they ate it all.  Our class was designated as Pilgrims, so we spent all morning and afternoon making our garb.  Then after music we shut the doors and let the feast begin!

I've mentioned this before, but I teach the 1st grade Reading Intervention class.  We meet once a day for an extra 30-minutes of reading instruction.  This is in ADDITION to the Title I services they receive.  So basically, they're taught reading skills in the classroom, in Title for an extra 30 minutes, and then another 30 minutes for RI.  I take the bottom 10 or so kiddos in the 1st grade.  These are the ones that are in jeopardy of repeating.

We keep data with AIMSWeb, if any of you are familiar with that program.  My kiddos are tested weekly with AIMSWeb for progress monitoring.  I have really started to try and target the skills that they are assessed on.

I give you...READING INTERVENTION KITS!  That's right, folks.  I have 5 sets of materials to target all the necessary early literacy skills for the firsties.  Nonsense words, rhyming words, letter recognition, phoneme segmentation, and fluency.  I make all the cards based around the same idea for each month.  I just switch them up a tad so that they get exposed to different words, sounds, phrases, etc.  And it's always fun to change up the graphics so they're not staring at the same thing for weeks and weeks and weeks.

For nonsense words, I made nonsense word cards (6 for each short vowel).

I've suggested 4 different games/activities for each target area to use with the cards.  On this particular day, we used the nonsense word cards and sat in a circle.  I played music (Ohio State marching band music...it IS football season, after all!) and the kids passed their card clockwise around the circle.  When the music stopped, they had to read the card that they ended up holding.  They LOVED this!

Another day we played with rhyming words.  I made a T-Chart with two words (in this case, "cat" and "dog") and gave each of the kids a word card. They had to decide if it rhymed with "cat" or "dog".  They came up and stuck it on the board.

For letter recognition, I gave each student approximately 3 cards.  I asked "Who has the letter that makes the /a/ sound?" and so forth.  Then I gave them time to line them up in order.

One of the activities for phoneme segmentation was to have the students create their own 3-letter words.

To practice fluency, I put several Fry Phrases on cards.  I split the class into two teams.  I would show one team a card and have them try to read it.  They got 2 tries to read it correctly AND they could help each other out (remember, these guys are pretty low...they struggle...we have an open, loving, encouraging classroom where they don't have to be ashamed to get it wrong!).  If they still couldn't get it, the other team had a chance to steal.  Whichever team was able to read the card got the point.  My kids love anything competitive.

I can hear you now..."But Sarah, Thanksgiving is over..."  Fear not!  I already have my December Kit up in my shop.  ;)

CLICK HERE TO SNAG A COPY!

Alright, friends, time to knock out a little more on my December Math Centers and then I'm headed to bed.  Long day ahead tomorrow!  Enjoy your turkey and time with friends/family!