I love using plastic screens for introducing and practicing letters and sight words.  Plastic screens can be found in any craft store (Michaels or JoAnn Fabrics) or in the craft section of most department stores.  When I use the screens for teaching letters, I typically cut one sheet into quarters and then for the sight words, I’ll cut 3 long strips.  You can use ready-made templates of letters or sight words or you can simply write the letters/words on paper yourself.  First have your students place the paper on top of the screen and, with a crayon, trace the letter or letters of the sight word.  When they remove the paper, the letter/word will be “bumpy” on the paper.  If

Oh…. it’s officially winter!  Winter in Northern Michigan is tons of fun!  There’s skiing (both downhill and cross country), sledding, ice fishing, snowmobiling, but most of all…SNOW DAYS!   I can’t say that I’m much of an ice fisher-person or snowmobiler, but I do love to ski and I absolutely love the occassional snow days.  Well, for activities, winter makes me think of mittens, snowmen and of course, penguins.  Kyle (fabulous artist) created these adorable penguins.  Here’s a little penguin ABC order freebie for you to welcome the season. Click the following link to download the FREE upper- and lowercase ABC order penguins ABC Penguins Here are a few other penguin activities that would be perfect for either small group instuction or as a

My good friend, Jen, teaches a college level reading assessment class and asked if I could talk a bit on aligning intervention with data.  Of course, I was thrilled she asked.   I decided to take a grade level and focus on the assessments typically administered in the winter.  All of our schools use the DIBELS Next as a school-wide screening assessment.  So, I wanted to take that assessment and analyze individual student performance to see what information we can glean from this particular assessment and what type of “digging deeper” assessments and decisions for intervention we can make. If your school administers the DIBELS Next and you subscribe to the online data system, you’ll receive a print out of your student’s performance.  The distribution report and the

  If you’ve been reading my blog for a bit now you may know that I’m a pretty big soccer fan.  Although I never played, my three children played soccer ever since they were 4.  I even coached for several years.  I loved every minute of it!  My youngest daughter, Lizzie, will be heading off to college in the fall and I will soon be “an empty-nester”.    So not only will I miss the craziness of traveling to sporting events, I’ll to get used to a very quite house.  Creating these soccer-themed activities has brought back so many wonderful memories of evenings and Saturdays spent at the soccer fields (sniff, sniff).  I’m hoping your little soccer fans will enjoy

Teaching students to identify “chunks” in words is an important step in learning to read.  Identifying these “chunks” helps to build fluency as the student will not have to stop and blend each individual sound.  Word families are groups of words that share the same ending.  For example, the words: can, Dan, fan, man, pan, ran, tan, and van all belong to the “-an” word family.   Learning these “chunks” and patterns within words also helps students spell when writing words.  Word Sliders and Word Wheels are helpful when introducing word families.  Try this little freebie when teaching word families in your classroom. To assemble the word family sliders you will need: 6  8 1/2x 11 full sheet labels (Avery 48165) 18

I’ve been having so much fun with the Cookie Sheet Challenge!  For those of you just joining me, I set a goal to see how many fun activities I can make using cookie sheets purchased at Walmart and a can of metal spray paint.  The challenge is to make as many activities as I can until I run out of paint.  So far I’ve painted 6 cookie sheets–that means 6 different activities– and barely made a dent in the can of paint.   I’m going to be quite busy with this project for some time. Cookie Sheet Activities Volume 2 activities are activities targeting early math skills.  All activities allow for differentiation can be used during small group instruction or as activities within your

Well, if the cookie sheet activities are my all time favorite, the Write-It cards come in a very, very close second.   The Write-It cards are great for either small group instruction or as an independent activity for your literacy centers.  The cards are ideal for working with specific phonics skills.  Each packet contains between 30-52 colorful and engaging pictures.   Simply copy the pdf on cardstock, laminate and bind together with a 1″ ring and you’re all set.  Students write the letter(s) on the card with a dry erase marker.  After they’re done, wipe the cards clean and they’re ready for use again.  You can use these cards for years! The Write It Phonics Cards are available through the Make, Take &