Froggy Party!

November is rhyming month! And working on rhyming skills with the students is always fun for me! And I hope it's as fun for my students as well. I would say we're off to a good start with this week's lesson! Lots of rhyming, and lots of fun!

We read A Frog In A Bog (Karma Wilson). It's a rhyming story and a counting story (as one of my students so keenly pointed out). A frog eats lots of bugs and grows bigger and bigger and bigger. It reminds me of There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, only instead of the frog dying at the end, he spits out all the bugs and escapes getting eaten by an alligator. Yesss!

We made froggies to help us remember this rhyming lesson, and the students LOVED them! I heard they were talking about them well after they returned to their regular classrooms.

I'm sorry I've been forgetting to bring my camera to class with me lately. I had to sub a photo I took at home after the lesson. :( From looking at the photo you can see the fun "tongue" each frog got. And on the end of the tongue? There was a fly, of course (plastic)!

20 Sites and Tools to Encourage Lifelong Reading (Guest Post)

Spigoo

Invoking a lifelong love of reading in the children in your life can be difficult but it is very important. Fortunately, the Internet provides a number of sites and tools that can help you encourage and inspire any child to be a lifelong reader. Here is a list of 20 sites to explore:



Reading Rockets - The Reading Rockets site offers tools and resources that can be used to encourage and teach children to read. Throughout this site, you will find information about reading instruction, classroom strategies, help for struggling readers, children's books and authors, videos, and podcasts.



ReadWriteThink - ReadWriteThink features a large collection of tools that teachers and parents can use with students to support strong reading and writing skills. These tools can be integrated into any K-12 lesson plan to build strong lifelong readers and writers.



Reading Is Fundamental - Within the pages of this site, visitors are provided with tips, tricks, ideas, and resources for motivating kids to read, choosing books, reading aloud, and much more.



The Stacks - The Stacks, a beta site provided by Scholastic, features books, authors, games, videos, and a blog for encouraging children to read as they get older. This site offers a wide selection of books for all ages, book clubs, a reading community, and more.



Highlights Teachers - For over 60 years, Highlights has been offering tools and resources to teachers for encouraging improved and lifelong reading in students. The Highlights Teacher site provides teaching resources, lesson plans, reading suggestions, classroom resources, online games, and interactive resources for kids.



Education World - Education World, a huge education resource center, offers tools, tips, lesson plans, and many more resources that teachers can use in their language and literature classrooms. Most of the resources listed discuss ways to encourage and teach reading, lifelong literacy, help struggling readers, etc.



Book Hooks - The Book Hooks site is a good site for students to share their love of reading with others. The site works by having students create book reports on the books that they are currently reading. Book Hooks also provides resources, games, links, and news that students will find interesting.



Enlighten Me - Verizon Information Services provides Enlighten Me, an interactive literacy site that offers a collection of informative articles designed to build strong readers and writers. Enlighten Me also has information on kid's books and an area for students to write their own book reviews.



Absolute Whootie - Absolute Whootie provides online stories, folk tales, and children's plays that provide positive themes and encourage children to read. The stories within this site are illustrated by kids and include links to fun games.



Cool-Reads - Cool-Reads is a book site where hundreds of books are reviewed by 10-15 year olds. This is an excellent place for young readers to get book recommendations.



Stories from the Web - Stories from the Web offers online stories for children between the ages of 0 to 14. Within this site, children can read and write stories that are reviewed by others.



Literacy Connections - The Literacy Connections site offers a wealth of resources and tools that teachers can use to promote reading skills in children and adults. Through this site, teachers can find information on phonics, word study, children's literature, and language experience.



Kids' Review - Kids' Review features book reviews written by kids for kids. The site gives students a reason to write about literature and helps struggling readers.



KidsReads.com - KidsReads.com provides useful tips and resources that teachers and parents can use to find books that students of all reading levels will enjoy. The site also features reviews, author info, audio books, series recommendations, and more.



Book Adventure - Book Adventure is a motivational reading program for children in grades K-8. Through this program, children can create book lists of over 7,000 titles, take quizzes, and earn points for literary success.



Growing Readers for Life! - This blog works to provide tools, resources, tips, and articles that anyone can use to inspire a love of reading in young children. The site also features a free newsletter that visitors can sign up for.



Jen Robinson's Book Page - Jen Robinson's Book Page is a blog created by a lifetime lover of children's books. Through her blog, Jen provides reviews, articles, and resources designed to inspire lifetime reading in all children.



KIDLITOSPHERE - This blog is actually a society of bloggers looking to promote lifelong reading and literacy ideas through blogging on children's and young adult literature. The society offers dozens of resources for encouraging lifelong reading in students.



Book-Pop - This virtual literature site offers animated web adventures for beginning readers. Throughout the site, visitors will find animated stories that children can read themselves as well as stories that can be read to them.



Seussville - Seussville is an interactive site with Dr. Seuss books, games, printables, storymakers, and more.



Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Spooooky Story Time... Wuuhhaa Ha Ha!

I received a request for Halloween story time ideas, so hopefully this post will be somewhat helpful for anyone in need of some spooktacular inspiration.

My October favorites include The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything (Linda Williams), The Teeny Tiny Woman (Paul Galdone), Go Away Big Green Monster (Ed Emberley), and Too Many Pumpkins (Linda White) & Pumpkin Pumpkin (Jeanne Titherington). The latter two, not so scary, but great October reads nonetheless.

These have been my favorites for a while now. As I'm typing this, I'm thinking it's probably time to branch out and add some new titles to the repertoire. So please leave your suggestions in the comment sections. I need some!!

Check out the photos below to see the fun time we had with our Little Old Lady inspired rebus readers last week. They had a fun pocket on the front for the children to store all their scarecrow pieces in. They each got to take their "book" (rebus reader) home and share the spooky story with others!

And read here and here for more info and ideas to correlate with my books suggestions above.

Delayed Post!

Been out of town. New post coming soon! Sorry for the delay!

Handmade Kid Lit Art Canvases For Sale!

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (Bernard Waber) - $20

Cinderella (K.Y. Craft) - $15

I've been wanting to begin making these treasures for a while now. The swiftly approaching holiday season provided the perfect inspiration for me to carve out some time in my schedule.

I'm selling these canvases to raise money for our Ethiopian Adoption! All the money earned from sales will go directly into our adoption fund.

The canvases are made using up-cycled kid lit books. :) A great way to celebrate a story and its art! Email me at watsonadoption@gmail.com if you would like to purchase either (or both) of these. They're ready to find a great home! I have priced the Cinderella canvas slightly lower since it was the first one I made. It's beautiful, but not as "polished" as those that followed.

Check back for more art to be posted soon!

And visit here for more beautiful handmade items (and coffee!) that all helps our adoption!

Autumn Adventures with My Little Reader!

It was such a beautiful day here today! Isaac and I went on a walk, and it turned into a bit of a nature hike.

We were crunching through the leaves, and then began finding some pretty ones!

We decided to take them home with us.

Isaac was particularly excited about this one.

We got home and found a book all about leaves to read (Lois Ehlert's Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf).

Isaac compared the leaves in the book to some we found on our walk.

He really like the leaf shaped holes in the illustrations.

Then we talked about how leaves fall from the trees. Here's Isaac being a tree and making some leaves fall.

And here he is comparing some leaves.

Then after dinner, we got out the felt board and played with some soft, colorful leaves.

Playing With the Alphabet

I keep forgetting to post this week. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm blaming the paper pregnancy!

So these photos I'm posting were from a couple months ago, but might as well have been taken yesterday. These are a couple of toys Isaac's been diggin' as of lately.

Today Isaac pulled out the mat for his Little People Zoo, pictured above, and threw up his hands and shrugged his shoulders when he didn't see the bag of animals sitting with it. So adorable!

I have a thing for alphabet toys. Anybody else have this issue? I think I need to broaden my horizons a bit.

Actually, I've been trying to incorporate print in Isaac's environment more, but am a little stumped as to how to do this. I don't particularly want to put labels on everything in my house. Anybody have any ideas or suggestions? How are you incorporating print in your little one's environment?