The Wizard of Oz: A Class Musical

Integrate literature and music with this musical reader's theater of L. Frank Baum's classic "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". With song lyrics written by Baum himself, your children will have the opportunity to participate in an experience they'll never forget. This reader's theater contains everything that you will need, including background information, 2 script versions, sheet music for each song, and 2 mp3s for each song (one that has vocals to help the children learn the songs and one that is accompaniment only). IMPORTANT: Because of file size limitations, some of the songs that go with this product are contained in the listing "Wizard of Oz Sample Songs" only. You will need to download both to have the entire product. Don't worry, though, the sample songs are FREE!




Rosie's Walk

In our classroom this week, we've been discussing the book Rosie's Walk. This is one of my favorite stories to use in Shared Reading. When introducing the book, I use Linda Hoyt's read aloud lesson to teach the children about foreshadowing. Today we used the pictures from this site scaled down 50 percent to make a storytelling set. Now the children can take Rosie and the Fox home to chase around, through, over, and across the whole farm.



Teaching Common Core Standards Using Fables & Folk Tales



Giants, Trolls & The Big Bag Wolf 
Common Core Curriculum Essentials!
Featuring: The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood,
Jack & The Beanstalk, and The three Billy Goats Gruff




Land of the Giants! 
A Cooperative Art Activity.


Check out our new thematic unit featuring The Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goat's Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk.





Table of Contents
Songs/Fingerplays
This Little Piggy
The Big Bad Wolf 
Scripted Literacy Lessons With Independent Options:
Up the Beanstalk: Writing Simple Words
The Three Little Pigs: Decoding CVC Words
Shake Little Piggy: Reading & Writing Sight Words
Big Bad Bingo: Identifying and Matching Consonant Digraphs
Cross The Bridge: Relating Verbs & Adjectives to Opposites
Shared Reading Whole Group Activities:
Identifying Story Elements
Beginning, Middle, End: Story Structure
Scripted Math Lessons With Independent Options:
Measuring-- Tall or Short: Comparing Size By Length
Measuring Giants and Trolls: Comparing Size 
Giants, Trolls & Wolves, Oh My! Writing Numerals
Going To Grandma’s House: Counting Forward From Any Given Number 1-100
Art Projects
Cooperative Giant
Shape Giant
Billy Goat Hat
Puppets: Story Retelling
Science Projects
The Giant’s Eyes: Using Scientific Tools
Writing
Word Wall
If I Met a Giant!
Up the Beanstalk?
The Big Bad Wolf
Geading Books
The Little Pigs





Spring Is Here!

Hooray for Spring! Time to work in the garden and enjoy the beautiful weather!


And, time to think of Springtime entering the Kindergarten Curriculum.

Check out our new "It's a Spring Thing" thematic unit. All activities are strategically linked to the Common Core Standards! The unit also includes Easter themed activities such as how to make an Easter Bunny Hat!




Common Core Assessments For Kindergarten

Are you looking for assessments that are authentic, strategic, and linked to Common Core Standards?  Are you looking for assessments that will lead you to be organized, effective, and powerful in your teaching.

These assessments gather information about the language arts and mathematic strengths and weaknesses of your students. You will be able to immediately use important information to guide your classroom instruction, strategically target intervention groups, and inform parents of individual student progress.

Additionally consider using ESGI, a secure assessment platform to digitally conduct your one-on-one tests, score, and report your assessments.  The digital and paper format are a great way for you to visualize your assessments and keep yourself organized!

You will love the ease that ESGI gives this assessment product. I have done the work for you; all of these tests are there: click, click, done. Simply click on the test explorer tab (within ESGI) and look for my name: Kathy Crane to find the correct tests. (Important: At the very end of the testing documents are screen shots of how to organize your tests on ESGI to correlate with the paper copy).

Even if you are not sure whether paperless testing and data retrieval is for you, you will want to take advantage of their free 60 day trial! Simply go to  https://www.esgisoftware.com/ESGI/ click on the orange button!

Please remember to enter promo code B7227 to receive $40.00 off the already low price.




             




                                      


    



What's The Weather Common Core Curriculum Essentials

Check out this 147 page unit today! All lessons as strategically linked to the common core standards!




Teach Common Core Standards with confidence!
The activities are clearly written, easy to use, and need limited amounts of preparation. The lessons (games or activities) included are scripted. They are written in a format that can be easily taught by the teacher or readily handed off to a parent volunteer or a classroom aide with complete confidence that objectives of the lesson will be reached. 
Shared Reading Lessons:
Clouds: Using The Books, Little Cloud by Eric Carle and It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw
Rain, Rain Go Away: Sorting Short & Long Aa Vowel Sounds
Oh What Will I Wear: Word Substitution
Scripted Literacy Lessons:
Tomorrow’s Weather: Decoding Words
Splashing Puddles: Sight Words
Blizzard: Differentiation of b and d
Raining Cats and Dogs Game: Final Phoneme Substitution
Independent Activities: 
Writing Sight Words
Scripted Math Lessons With Independent Options:
Temperature Takeover: Identifying & Comparing Numbers  
The Windy Day Mix-up: Building Mental Math Skills   
  Raindrop Recognition: Subitizing           
   The Terrible Blizzard: Practice Relating Numbers One to Another.          
Weather Toss: Collecting & Interpreting Data
                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                    
      Science
Creating a Weather Science Center
Water Drops: Observing & Exploring Water Properties
Water Flows Down: Observing & Exploring Water Properties
Water Painting: Observing & Exploring Evaporation
Wonderful Water: Observing & Exploring Water Properties
Art Projects
Clouds: Extending Literature
My Weather Book: Creating a Guided Reader
Songs/Fingerplays
Little Drops of Rain
The Weather
Mr. Sun
Rain, Rain Go Away
What Will I Wear Today
Guided Reading Books
Water Changes
Writing
Weather Word Wall
My Favorite Kind of Weather
What I Know About Clouds



Getting Nonreaders to Read

In January I gave the midyear Directed Reading Assessment to my students. Most of them did well, but a few of them really struggled. Despite all that we had done, they were still not looking at print. I needed to come up with a plan of attack and this is the result. I wrote a set of books containing only sight words and CVC words. There are no pictures in these books. Instead, I made the pictures separate, and then included them, plus the letters needed to make the sight words in the book, in a baggie stapled to the back.
Each week, my target kids work on these books. A typical lesson goes like this: First, they review their alphabet sounds. Second, they practice the sight words that will be in the book by first building the words with the die cut letters in the baggie and then writing them.Next, the child dictates a sentence to the teacher using one (or both) of the sight words from the book. The teacher writes the sentence, the child reads it, the teacher cuts the words in the sentence apart, the child puts the sentence back together and then reads it again.
Finally, we spread out all the pictures and the child reads the book. All of the sight words in the book have been practiced, and when they come to a CVC word they are required to sound it out using the "tap method". For each sound the child taps on their arm, then they slide the sounds together. For example, in the word "fat" the child makes the /f/ sound on their shoulder, the /a/ sound on their elbow, and the /t/ sound on their wrist. Then they say the sounds at they slide one arm down the other, blending them together. After they have decoded the word, they find the picture that matches the story and place it on the page.

This has really been working for most of my kiddos! I've really seen a lot of progress in them. They are actually looking at and through print now!! We'll see what happens come spring DRA :)

I have available a set of six readers 
at our TPT store!


Dinosaur Math

Today we played a game on the 100 chart called Hide the Dinosaur Egg. I took the chart off the wall and turned it so the class couldn't see it, then one child hid a paper dinosaur egg behind one of the numbers. Then we turned the chart around and the children asked more or less questions to find the dinosaur egg. For example, "Is it more than 59?" Then I answered the question and covered all of the numbers that could no longer apply. In this way we narrowed down the 100 chart to find the dinosaur egg. It turned out great, although, if you decide to play the game, make sure you already have tape on the strips you're going to use to cover the chart. I didn't and it took way too long to stick the strips on the first time we played.

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