The read aloud. It’s a teacher’s dream. The students all sitting quietly, listening, learning, enjoying the book! That’s what we all hope for right?!   Now don’t get me wrong, these moments exist and they should be cherished! But sometimes, I wanted to make sure I was making the most of my precious read aloud […]

It is no surprise that I love a good read aloud. I have written numerous posts about why I love interactive read alouds and spent years finding the perfect picture books to use to teach different skills in my primary classroom. It wasn’t until later that I began to dive into some of our favorite […]

What is an Interactive Read Aloud? An interactive read aloud is a planned and purposeful read aloud that you can incorporate into your daily and weekly lessons. Interactive read alouds help build students’ fluency and comprehension while teaching specific skills. Students are involved and engaged in the read aloud process instead of passive. These planned read alouds […]

I love teaching nonfiction to my students. My students LOVE to learn all about animals, space, nature, etc. It is real and attainable to them and they just seem to seek that knowledge on their own. I like to let my students know that with nonfiction they know what they’re in for. If they want […]

Later in the fall and heading towards winter, we begin to really focus on problem and solution and cause and effect in our stories. My first grade students by this point have been introduced to these ideas, but now they will dive in and not only identify each of these in a story, but also […]

I recently blogged about the books I read in August and September as we focus on illustration, print concepts, and characters.   As October rolls around we focus on setting and story elements and I wanted to share some of my FAVORITE picture books I use to teach these skills:     Owl Moon by […]

These interactive read aloud lessons are the perfect way to teach your students all sorts of comprehension and vocabulary skills during reader’s workshop.     Read aloud has always been one of my favorite parts of teaching. When I was in college, it is what I imagined doing most of my day. Sitting in a […]

Do your students read Stone Soup around Thanksgiving?! I love these activities to go along with some versions of Stone Soup. I have done this unit 4 of the 5 years I taught first grade and both my students and I L-O-V-E it! I always complete this literacy unit the week before Thanksgiving and we […]