Word Family Houses

At Large Group time we created a list of the "at" chunk

Word Family House Set Two Word Family Houses

This Plus That

About the Book (Amazon)

What comes after 1 + 1? Just about anything! In this fanciful collection, Amy Krouse Rosenthal puts together unexpected combinations that always add up to something special. Whether it's "wishes + frosting = birthday" or "birds + buds = spring," each equation is a small delight. This Plus That shows again and again that life's total experience is always greater than the sum of its parts.

We made our version of This Plus That
This Plus That
Venn Diagram Looking at similarities and differences.

During large group time, we have been reading many 

Amy Krouse Rosenthal books! 

The following are WOW words we talked about from her stories.

Yes Day!

Writing Portfolios

I love this book No More I'm Done. I love the idea of keeping a few books each month and sending the rest home. In the past, I have always held on to all of their stories. This book suggested having a My Best Writing Book and putting the child's best book that month. I bound together a few folders and labeled the inside with the months. 

This is what the book looks like

 I got the labels from the Calendar Pack by Kindergarten Works. 

Below you can find a copy of the cover. I laminated the cover and stapled it to the front. Writing Cover for Portfolio

Sticky Dot Details

I found a great anchor chart on Pinterest that had the FEELINGS, WHO, and WHERE with the pictures. 

For the last few weeks, many of my mini-lessons have focused on Sticky Dot details. I got this lesson from Marvelous Minilessons for Teaching Beginning Writing K-3 by Lori Jamison. This is the best book!!! The book gives a ton of suggestions for lessons you can do using the six traits. I use this book ALL the time.

This mini-lesson uses a sticky dot as an incentive to add details to a topic. Once the child tells you the detail, you put the sticky dot on the back of their hand (as a reminder during writing time to add a detail).

When the child is writing they put the stick dot at the end of the sentence.

Class Name Charts

We are measuring our names at math time. We made a class name chart and a chart highlighting the vowels in our name. We are noticing many different things about the vowels AEIOU and sometimes Y.

Mo Willems

We are just finishing a Mo Willems author study. The kids love all of his books. This group especially loves the pigeon books and the Knuffle Bunny books. I hope to make a Voice Thread with the class about what we like/learned about Mo Willems. His website has tons of interesting things.
Words to describe the pigeon...

Don't let the pigeon drive the...

We made pictures of the pigeon with cray pas.

Favorite Books 

The Pigeon

Knuffle Bunny Special Object

Favorite Mo Willems Book
Trixie