Happy New Year and Welcome back to school!
We hope all of you had a great holiday and a well-deserved break! It is hard to believe we are in 2019 now!
We got some very exciting news, Brittany is pregnant and is expecting to deliver late June! How is that for timing? The school year will have been completed. They plan on doing a gender reveal in Feb., so we will let you know what she is having then:)
“ba-by bump, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo”
This would be a great time of the year to try out our Daily Concept Builders if you haven’t already.
I starts my morning with the vocabulary calendar. I introduce the word of the day and a sight word a day. The students love trying to come up with sentences using the two words together! Then they talk about the pattern that is on the calendar pieces.
The calendar is divided into 4 0r 5 themes to help with connections and writing. As you can see from the writings above, the themes keep students focused and they stay on topic. You will get more ideas on how to use these calendars in our teacher guides.
After the morning routine, students go to their seats and complete their own student calendars during literacy centers. They write a sentence in their calendar notebooks using the calendar word and the sight word. We have included a journal page in this calendar resource for each student to reflect on the vocabulary. My students keep their materials in a folder like this:
You probably noticed that there is a book in the folder. That is one of the thematic books that we have in our monthly book bundles. All the books are sold separately if you just want certain ones. We recently bundled January books together for a discounted price. These books include our calendar words.
Pam likes to use these books in her guided reading groups. The students read the word of the day and use highlighters to highlight the word. They discuss the word parts they notice and use the empty box to write other words with the same patterns. It is a great and quick way to teach phonics everyday! Her students love brainstorming other words. You can also use the books in centers, and we have a teacher guide on other uses for your classroom.
The last January Center I want to share with you today is our popular Cut and Paste Activities.
One teacher said, “I really love this resource – the graphics are so cute and I like the fact that it is not just worksheets. I like the fact that it is interactive and the kids are engaged in cutting and pasting and re-ordering the words to make a meaningful sentence – thank you 🙂 Kylie” and another teacher said, “This is an awesome resource. My students have really enjoyed the calendar activities and have been exposed to good vocabulary”
There are 3 types of word order sheets using the calendar word and the sight word of the day. These sheets make a great and easy to prep center, just print and go! Teachers like the interactive aspect of these sheets. My favorite part is the bonus question at the bottom of each sheet because it encourages critical thinking. I love to see what the students write!
Here is a sample from one of my students.
You can also collect all the answers from the bonus questions and make a class book with them.
We have all 3 resources on sale for 50% off just this weekend, so it is a great time to try them!
So if you’re thinking, I just have to have all of them right now, we would like to reward your enthusiasm. You can purchase the January Daily Concept Builder bundle, which includes all 3 of the above resources, as well as some awesome games we will be featuring next week.
I Need This Bundle, It’s Awesome!
We will be back next week to share the Daily Concept Builder games we created using these calendar words, so be sure to check back next week!
Pam and Brittany
