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Early Start and 50 followers!

12/30/2011
Okay, first of all, I am SOOOOO excited that I have 50 followers.  I started this blog as more of a journal and place to collect ideas.  Over the summer, I started reading some blogs and quickly became addicted!  That is when I started using this blog more as a place to share my ideas.  As a thank you to my 50 followers, I have a few freebies for you!  As 2011 comes to an...

2012 Resolutions

12/26/2011
I'm linking up with  Tammy at Live, Laugh, Love  Everyday in Kindergarten to post my goals for next year.  I'll be honest, last year I had no resolutions because I have a hard time keeping them so I'm going to try to keep it attainable this year.  Maybe sharing them with my readers will push me to keep them :) Personal: 1.  Eat better than I did in 2011 2.  Exercise...

Autism Tip

12/22/2011
Since this is a special ed blog, I figured I should probably post something special ed related every once in a while!  This year, one of my students with autism has been complaining about the lights bothering him.  Fluorescent lights can be very troublesome to students with autism and these lights are everywhere!  The lights hum and flicker all the time, not just when...

Ready for break!

12/20/2011
I am so ready for Christmas break!  Unfortunately, my first day off is Friday.  I had my plans all set for this week - a week of gingerbread activities from Erica Bohrer's unit BUT I took home all the game pieces to cut and ended up getting sick & not going to school for 2 days.  My poor students have had NO holiday activities this week and my poor substitute has to deal with...

Magnetic letters

12/16/2011
I'm a sucker for a good deal...who isn't?  A year ago, I found alphabet sets at a ridiculously cheap price (I don't remember what it was now but trust me, it was good).  I got carried away and long story short, I ended up with 20 alphabet sets in a big zip-lock bag.  No kid is going to dig through 520 letters to make words so this was obviously a terrible storage solution.  I finally...

Introducing New Reading Strategies

12/14/2011
I was writing a post about how I am using my readers's notebooks and I started to explain how I introduce strategies but I think this deserves it's own post! I stick to the Modeling, Guided practice, Independent practice layout.  First, I tell the students the name of the strategy and a 1 or 2 sentence definition of it.  Next, I model how to use the strategy with a picture book & a...

Reader's Notebooks

12/13/2011
A week or so ago, I posted about my new reader's notebooks.  I wanted to share with you how my students are using them.   First, I am introducing the notebooks slowly.  The first day we created Do's and Don'ts, took a tour of the notebook, and decorated the covers.  The next day, we read the Cafe menu and created reading goals.  Since I only have 5 students at a time, one...

Writing Center

12/10/2011
Every year, I say that I am going to focus on one subject (reading, writing, or math) and perfect it as much as possible.  Apparently, that is impossible for me to do.  Two weeks ago I decided to focus on reading, then I switched to math for a few days and now I'm working on writing.   So here is a picture of my updated writing center - it's nothing fancy but it was completely empty...

12 Days of Christmas

12/01/2011
Have you heard about the 12 Days of Christmas giveaways?  They sound AMAZING!  Head over to Oh' Boy 4th Grade to check it out!  Here is a list of the bloggers doing the giveaways: & Congratulations to both of my giveaway winners Gladys and Manda! &nb...