Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Parade of Readers and Syllables!

Long time, no blog...because of Parade of Readers!!!

Parade of Readers is a 5 week, 31 book challenge that our first graders participate in.  Its a REALLY big deal.  The kickoff included our first graders, the high school band and cheerleaders, and costumed characters from the community.  The kickoff was last Friday.  My mom and I spent hundreds of hours preparing the decorations and all of the behind the scenes stuff.  The theme is "Oh The Places You'll Go With Reading" so we are decked out in Dr. Seuss!  Here are a few pictures!

Hallway Decorations:




The first grade teachers and I in our cute Reading Rocks shirts! 


Now that we've kicked things off, the kids are reading like crazy!  Each time they read a book, they fill out a paper link to form chains so that they can have a visual reminder of how much they've read! We also have volunteers coming to listen to our kiddos read twice a week and a special guest reader each Friday.  Also, the kids receive prizes for working hard to meet their challenge goal.  We decided to have "Reading is Fun Friday" each week and plan our prizes around a fun reading activity.  Tomorrow is Fox in Socks, crazy socks day.  Don't tell the kiddos, but they are getting another new Dr. Seuss book for their prize.  They will also kick off their shoes and read a good book for their fun time.  



Now you see why I've been SO BUSY!
I'm adding to my Syllable Type Interactive Notebook a little bit at a time.  On Monday, we finished up Rabbit Patterns.  I love how cute the "Rabbit Basket" turned out! The kids had to analyze each word to determine if it fit the Rabbit Pattern.  If so, they glued the word in the rabbit basket.  If not, they had to glue the word outside the basket.  After this lesson, I felt like we were finally ready to move on to our next syllable type!



Today we started discussing open syllables. In keeping with the door theme, I used an open door to explain open syllables.  After we talked about their characteristics, we analyzed each syllable and glued them inside the open door.  The kids picked up on the fact that when we studied closed syllables, we glued them underneath the door.  I was pretty proud! :) As soon as I have open syllables and the tiger division pattern all complete, I'll add the next section to my TPT store! :)  I'm thinking that I will add it for free, so you can try it out and see what you think! 



Here's a link to my TPT store:

Hope you have a great rest of the week!