Stuff I Made, Plus the Olympics

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. I LOVE it because I have gotten a BAJILLION new ideas for my classroom. I HATE it because it really annoys me when pins pop up under the "education" category that AREN'T education. Like chicken recipes, quotes with bad words, pictures of bathing suits, etc. I also hate it because sometimes, it's just the same dang stuff and I'm looking for something new. There was a while last fall when I felt like I wasn't getting anything new from Pinterest, so I took a break for several months. I actually just started checking it out again a couple of months ago. So, I've definitely found some new ideas!

Here are some things I've made this week.

First up - Open House
We have Open House before school starts as a way to meet the students and parents. We start school on a Friday this year, and our open house is the Thursday right before. I LOVE it because I love setting up the classroom: cleaning, organizing, decorating, labeling! I also love laying out their folders and picking out the snacks! I'm such a dork nerd.

Here are the snacks I'm serving.

(this is the original photo I pinned)

Every child will get one of these on his/her desk. It's just a bag of microwave popcorn with a sticker. I have seen all the pretty stickers, but we don't have any color ink right now, so boom - the kiddos are gettin' this lovely B+W sticker. I have an air popper for popcorn, so I bought some kernals, and I'll be fresh popping popcorn at Open House! It's going to smell and sound WONDERFUL! I have 60 small cups from the Dollar Tree in colors that match my class color scheme (turquoise, red, orange, green). I always provide enough snack for the students x2 so that siblings can have some if they like. Not everyone brings siblings, so I just do the amount x2. If someone comes in with a large set of siblings, I keep bags of candy nearby and offer them each one small piece of candy instead :)

I made these a couple of days ago and I L-O-V-E them!

(original pinned from here)

Yes, they are juice box robots! The original pin has really cute ones with Nerds for the head, Starburst for feet, and looks like Laffy Taffy for arms, but I wanted to cut down on the candy, so I used boxes of mini-raisins on top. If you go to Publix and buy their mini-raisins, the boxes have smiley faces on them! My plan was to hot-glue googly eyes on them, but these didn't need them! Juice boxes are BOGO right now at Publix, too, so I got these for cheap! I opened up all the juice boxes as my hot glue gun heated up, then laid out the raisin boxes and the smarties. I just hot glued all the raisin box heads first, then the smarties arms. It took me 30 minutes to make 48 of them. It wasn't bad at all! I'm not going to add feet, though (again, just trying to limit the candy).

Check out the original pin and look at her website. She has a LOT of great stuff for a robot themed classroom. My class theme isn't robots, but I couldn't pass these up. They are too cute!


Next - Organization
There are lots of these on Pinterest and on teacher blogs, so I'm just one in a million making one of these. I believe that the one I linked to in the caption below is the original poster. I made this to organize all those odds-and-ends we have in our classrooms!

(original pined from here)

I bought the 22-drawer organizer from Lowe's for about $17. I used bulletin board border and colored paper to make these. If you click on the link in the caption, you can download her labels to make your own!

 I was able to finally get in my classroom on Saturday, so I went in for several hours and sweated to death worked really hard to start getting my room in order! Upon going through some boxes in my classroom, I realized I had a lot more "stuff" that I hadn't thought about when I made my 22-drawer organizer. So I went back to Lowe's last night, bought this 18-drawer organizer (all big drawers) for about $20.

I didn't have any more of the bulletin board border and the school supply store was out, but I have leftover scrapbook paper from the pages I'm using to make pennants that are going to hang in my classroom. I figured that would still all tie in together, so I just used that. I cut the scrapbook paper into the right size - 4 1/2 " x 2 1/8" - and I added labels that were 1" high that I just created in a Word document.

(If you do it that way, be sure that you set your paper layout to have 0" borders on all 4 sides. Then create a table, 9 rows and 2 columns, center your text, set the height of each row to 1", and you're good to go!)

Last, but not least, the Olympics
Here's how I feel about the Olympics overall = eh. They're okay. I like gymnastics and diving. I've never really spent time in my life getting excited long before the Olympics start, or blocking out time to watch all the different sports, or learning about Olympians and their records. I just never did that growing up. I'm definitely a "Go USA!" person, but I haven't ever been super-stoked about them coming on TV.

Until I got married.

My hubby and his mom are HUGE Olympic nerds fans. My husband has the app on his iPhone that tells him what to watch when. (Don't ask me about it - I don't have the app.)

During our first year of marriage, I made the mistake of trying to watch something on TV that wasn't the Olympics. Whoopsie. I won't do that again! ;)

After 6 years of marriage, I've decided - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So I decided to throw an Olympics Opening Ceremony party this year.

I found these from several places and modified to suit our needs.

Above, we have our Olympic torches! The original website I saw had popcorn, but I thought Doritos made more realistic looking flames. Plus, my hubby and son love them some Doritos. (Who am I kidding? I do too.)

Above, we have the Olympic Ring appetizers. Note that each item in each ring correlates with the color of the actual ring. (Sort of.) Top - blueberries, chocolate chips, and raspberries. The original one had olives (not a fan). I like to put chocolate chips in the center of the raspberries, so that's why I went with chocolate chips. If you are a realist, you could have dark chocolate chips. Bottom - Doritos and green grapes. Another purpose for that bag of Doritos (yeah, I know they're more orange). The original post had guacamole for the green. Also not a fan. You just have to suit this to the tastes of your family and party guests.

Above, these are just sugar cookies with vanilla icing and M&Ms. These were FABULOUS!

My son decided that we needed decorations about 15 minutes before our guests started arriving. Let me say that I made the decision to do this on Wednesday evening, and the Opening Ceremonies were on Friday evening. We had a busy Thursday and Friday, so this was going to be low-key. We had out our American flags, but Ashton thought we needed something else. Of course, he did. ;)

I grabbed my scrapbook paper, scissors, ruler, markers, and my new circle cutter, and had these made in about 10 minutes They aren't perfect, but they sure will do! I used double-sided tape to stick them to the door frames. (I LOVE double-sided tape.) We want to leave them up for the duration of the Olympics, but when I take them down, I will laminate them and attach them to a ribbon so we can use them for future Olympics, Fourth of July, Veteran's Day, whatever.

We start school on the 10th, and the Closing Ceremonies are on the 12th, so I'm thinking about doing something with my students on the Monday, the 13th. Maybe something easy like the torches or the cookies? Might be fun!

Leave us a comment! What are you preparing for Open House? What is your favorite part of the Olympics?

In Case of Emergency

I feel like this has been a recurring theme lately - emergencies, what with the emergency sub folders and the Guest Teacher Binder... but here's another helpful tidbit.

It seems like this scenario happens to at least one of us in my grade level every year, and it's happened to me a few times for sure. Let me set it up for you:

You're at school, and you get word that there is an emergency with someone in your family. You need to leave school. NOW. No waiting on a sub, no waiting on someone available to come down to your room. You must leave pronto.

It makes you anxious as you wait for someone to come down to your room. You can't just WALK out on your lovelies, but you need to get going. It's a terrible feeling!

Last year, my mother-in-law had a case of REALLY high blood sugar, and she tried to call my husband and her other son, but she couldn't get ahold of anyone. She was very dizzy and close to going into shock. I had to take her to the doctor or hospital, and it really needed to be quick.

The office was trying to find someone to come in my room so I could go, but even though it may only be a few minutes, when you know there's an emergency, it feels like a lifetime.

We decided to just split my kiddos up amongst the other fifth grade teachers. My sweet teacher friends just took my class and helped me split them up. But what happens if someone's mom comes to check her out? The office needs to be aware of where everyone is at all times. It takes time to make out a list of who went to which classroom. Even more angst in a dire situation!

That's why I made this:

We haven't even started school yet, but if an emergency should come up, then I've already gotten my students separated out. I just went down the list in order, and I divided them up among the other teachers in my grade level.

I made 7 copies of this list, and it will go on my emergency clipboard (which hangs by my outside door; easy to grab for fire drills, etc.). One copy is for me, one is for the office, and the other five are for the other teachers so everyone knows which students are in which teachers' classrooms.

I'm hoping I won't need to use these this year, but if an emergency should arise, I'll have the peace of mind knowing that I can safely disperse my students quickly and be able to take care of the emergency situation as soon as possible.

I'd STRONGLY encourage every teacher to do this. It's fast and easy to do, but if it's needed, it will give you a HUGE comfort!

Contest Winner!

I have been so excited to have our first Nerdy contest! I wanted us to reach 50 followers, and now we're almost at 70. Woohoo! That may sound small to some people, but that's pretty HUGE for us :)

There has been a lot of positive response to our blog posts, so thank you to everyone who became a follower and commented! It's nice to have interaction when you blog, so we appreciate everyone who took the time to read our posts and leave us feedback.

There were 30 total comments from followers (old and new!) on various posts. I kept a spreadsheet of everyone who commented in the time order in which the comments were published. I'm sure there's an easier way to do it, but this worked for me this time. (Veteran bloggers, if you use a different method, would you please let me know?)

Then I used Random.org to randomly select a winner. Here's what the random number generator... um... generated...

And the lucky number 8 commenter was.... (drumroll please..........)

Linda Dunnavant from Tales of a Fifth Grade Teacher! Congrats, Linda!

Again, thank you to everyone who commented. Each time my email made a little BING! sound with a comment, it just made my day :)

We start back to school soon; teachers officially report back to our classrooms on August 6th, but I would love to be back in my room a little sooner to set up the furniture. Anybody out there starting sooner than that? If you start later, how late? I'd love to hear from you!

Detailed Sub Envelopes

I've had a lot of interest in my Sub Binder and the envelopes I use for sub plans. I thought I'd give you a photo description of what I use!

If you missed it, here's my Guest Teacher (aka sub) Binder:

Click here to see more pictures of inside this binder.

I have a fabric bin labeled "Sub Tub" with 5 envelopes, and each envelope has everything in it a substitute (or guest) teacher will need for one full day (so I have 5 envelopes, which is enough for one full emergency week or 5 separate emergency days). Let's take a look.

(Above) Basically, this is just a big ol' manilla envelope with a label on it. These are really intended for emergency sub plans. If I know far enough in advance that I'll have a sub, I'll lay out more detailed plans. The Guest Teacher Binder will still be helpful, though.

(Above) I include a few office referral forms and nurse passes in each envelope.

(Above) I always include $0.75 in a snack-sized ziplock baggie with instructions for the guest teacher to have a Coke! It's just a nice gesture. I was taught in the methodology that if you ask for something from the office that's out of the ordinary, you send a note down with a little piece of chocolate. If someone does something extra special for you, you send a little sweet treat with a thank you note. This is just another thing along the same lines. I also include a ziplock baggie with 3 band-aids in it. Inevitably, someone always needs a band-aid when I'm out!

(Above) I leave nametags already written out for the substitute. I figure it'd be easier for the sub if the names are already written; plus, he/she will be able to read the name, see the face, and hopefully make a little bit of an association.

(Above) This is a sheet that gets copied and put in all 5 envelopes. It's a description of every instructional period of the day. It has a section for materials needed and procedures. I've left the same TYPE of lesson plan for all 5 emergency envelopes. Each activity is different, but it's the same type of activity. Does that make sense? These are just broad directions.

(Above) I include old issues of Scholastic News Magazine that are interesting for reading sub plans. I then include 4 activities with the magazine that will be standards-based and a good review of what we have worked on. There are 3 good activities along with one for "if there is extra time." Better to have too much than not enough, in my opinion!

(Above) Here is another shot of the detailed plans for that magazine, plus 30 copies of each activity.

(Above) This is the lesson I leave for language arts. It's a "What Would You Do?" story prompt that I bought from my EdHelper account. It's worth the $20 a year if for nothing else than easy, ready-to-print sub plans! This one is a story about a girl who had a busy weekend doing family things (a cousin's wedding, her soccer game, etc.) and forgot to study for the big end-of-unit science test! Her friend offers to let her "sneak a peak" at his test. Should she?

The plans for this ask the substitute to read the story out loud, then ask the questions below.

(Above) These are the questions that go with the "What Would You Do?" story. The guest teacher will read aloud one question at a time, let the students discuss some possible answers, and then move to the next one. The questions are designed to get the students thinking about consequences of some possible actions and different viewpoints about the problem. After that, the teacher will read the question for the writing activity aloud. For the rest of the period, students will write their "What Would You Do?" story. There are lots of great ones I've printed out this year that I think the students will really enjoy!

For social studies, the students will have an interactive notebook this year, so the directions are just for the students to work on that using computers, textbooks, and nonfiction books available in the classroom.

By the way, Target is having a pretty good promo this week - if you buy 3 boxes of Band-Aids (discounted, btw), you get a free first aid box! I think this will make my Band-Aids a little easier to find in the closet!

I hope this glimpse into my sub packet has been helpful. Let me know if you have any questions, or leave me a comment telling me what you do in emergency sub situations!

*There's still time to enter the contest! Click here to see details. It closes on Monday!

Contest Update!

LUCKY DAY for my followers who have entered the Erin Condren Giveaway! What I thought was a $10 gift certificate is a $25 gift certificate!


What a lucky winner we will have!

If you haven't entered yet, here's the contest rules:
1) Become a follower if you aren't already (click the "Join this Site" button under Followers on the right)
2) Comment on any post!


The contest closes July 23rd. Good luck!

Blogger Awards and... My First Giveaway?

Like I said in my last post, I've been a bad blogger! I didn't blog for ages, but I'm in a "good blogging place" now, so the blogging continues!

First, some good news!
We have 49 followers! That's so exciting! We are just ONE away from 50 followers! That feels like a milestone to me, so let's have a giveaway!!! My first one :)

Here's what I'm giving away... a $10 gift certificate for Erin Condren! I L-O-V-E love her stuff! If you read my last blog post, you saw my fabulous teacher planner I got from her website. Check out her website here: Erin Condren Store

You can use it toward the purchase of ANYTHING. You could spring for one of her big ol' planners, or you can get a personalized pack of notepads, or anything between! You choose! (It doesn't have to be a teacher item.)

Here are the rules:
1. Follow this blog (if you haven't already; click on the "Join this Site" under Followers on the right)
2. Leave a comment on ANY of the blog posts

That's it!

I'll leave it open for a week. On July 23rd, I'll close the contest and randomly select a winner! Remember, you've got to be a follower and leave a NEW comment.

Yay!

More Good News...

Nerdy, Nerdy, Nerdy has received a few awards over the last several weeks. I just have been so busy I didn't have any time to investigate! I've spent a long time this morning looking at blogs, reading posts, and finding some AMAZING ideas. So now, it's time for me to thank some folks and nominate some other ones!

Most of the awards below require me to nominate 15 other blogs. Since I have 3 awards to nominate for, I'm nominating 5 bloggers for each award. That works out mathematically, right? 15 total bloggers will just have to do for this morning!

The first blogger I'd like to thank is Erica, from Shepherd's Shining Stars, for the One Lovely Blogger Award! I love her blog, and I'm happy to be her follower! I love her ideas and her teaching style, so you need to go follow her blog!

Here are the rules for the One Lovely Blogger Award:
1. Follow the blogger who nominated you
2. Link up to that blogger
3. Pass on to 15 new bloggers (well, I'm doing 5...)

I nominate the following bloggers for this One Lovely Blog Award! Please go check out their blogs and follow them if you haven't already!

http://teachinglifeandeverythinginbetween.blogspot.com/

http://beachykeenvankampen.blogspot.com/

http://faithfulfullycaffeinatedfifthgrade.blogspot.com/

http://funinfifth.blogspot.com/

http://everynewbeginningblog.blogspot.com/

Next, I'd like to thank Mrs. Henderson at The Teacher's Workroom for the Versatile Blogger Award! She has so many great ideas, so you better check her out so you can see them for yourself!

Here are the rules for the Versatile Blogger Award:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you

2. Include a link to their blog

3. Include the award image in your post

4. Give 7 random facts about yourself

5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award (like I said, 5...)

6. When nominating, include a link to their blog

7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated

Here are my 7 Random Facts:

1. I have 2 dogs and 2 cats. The cats are named after Star Wars characters, courtesy of the hubby. (Chewbacca and Jabba)

2. I love Diet Coke. It's an unhealthy addiction, really.

3. I begged my husband to buy me a Bluetooth because I REALLY needed it, but I rarely use it. Whoops.

4. I have reread all the Harry Potter books at least 4 times each, some of them more than that. I'm listening to book one in my car.

5. I wanted to change my name from Dallas to Rainbow Bright when I was four.

6. I drive a minivan. I have one child. He's almost 8.

7. I don't like seafood or seagulls.

These bloggers are so fun to read, so I have nominated them for the Versatile Blogger award. Give these a read, too!

http://fifthgradeteacher-ld.blogspot.com/

http://techteachtalk5.blogspot.com/

http://thepolkadotowl.blogspot.com/

http://ramblingsofa5thgradeteacher.blogspot.com/

http://5thgraderocks5thgraderules.blogspot.com/

The last blog award Nerdy, Nerdy, Nerdy received was the Liebster Blog Award! A big thanks to Pam at P.J. Dots for the award! She's got a great blog, too, so be sure to hop on over there. This award is for bloggers with under 200 followers, and that suits our little blog perfectly!

Here are the rules for this one:

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you

2. Post the award to your blog

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers (whew! Finally a reasonable number!)

4. Let other bloggers know they have won.

Here are the bloggers I've nominated for this award! I love seeing other bloggers like me, so give them some love too!

http://smithinfifth.blogspot.com/

http://interactivewhiteboardideas.blogspot.com/

http://www.bremersbrainiacs.blogspot.com/

http://teacheable5thgrademoments.blogspot.com/

http://teaching-tweens.blogspot.com/

THANKS, Y'ALL!

A Summer Nerd

I have been a bad blogger. I haven't blogged once since school got out except to blog about something that happened BEFORE school got out. Please accept my most humble apologies! Somehow, though, I managed to get some new followers anyway! Welcome to all of you!

Even though I haven't been blogging, TRUST ME - I have been working. See?

This is my desk as of this morning!

To make it up to all of you, I thought I'd write a REALLY LONG post to show you what I've been working on this summer. Be astounded by my nerdiness, if you please <wink, wink> (KIDDING!)

So, my room was ugly last year. I'll admit it. It wasn't cute because I didn't really try last summer to make it cute. I was busy in workshops last summer, so the cute factor totally slipped me by. I was determined not to let that ugly mess happen again, so I started looking for something fun and new for my room.

I have always been a black, red, and white kind of gal. I've had that color scheme for years. So imagine my TOTAL surprise when I was inspired by a classroom that was turquoise, green, and yellow! Yikes! But the room I loved was POSITIVELY GORGEOUS!!!! Take a peek here at the blog post that inspired me from School Girl Style. This woman is pure talent. She creates the most beautiful and welcoming classrooms, and even though I don't know her, I'm proud to know that she's recently teamed up with Carson Dellosa to create even more beautiful classroom projects! Yay, Melanie! (I kinda hope she reads this.)

Here's one of the pictures of her classroom. Just fab.

Well, mine WON'T look like that. Not even in a million years. Partially because I'm lazy. Well, that's probably the major reason. But I was worried that I couldn't fully embrace such an earthy-toned classroom because it's so far from my color comfort zone. So I looked until I found something similar that I loved. And I found it at Creative Teaching Press!

This is the Dots on Turquoise theme!

I love, love, love this! It's got the greens and blues. It's got orange. And it's got my favorite color ever - RED! Woohoo!

So, here are the things I've created this year to go with that color theme.

The 4 stools there will be joined with a black and a gray one for my reading table. I'll be able to store guided reading materials in them. GEEKING OUT OVER THESE!!! I'm basically too lazy to make the create seats from the tutorial I found on Pinterest. There are also fabric bins here. The bins have labels on the front (I have like 18 of them - not joking). I have big black cubbies from Target that these will fit in. It'll be so pretty :)

A rolling cart for each table to house their independent reading books, folders, composition notebooks, and markers/supplies. Each rolling cart will slide under each table. This makes me so excited that you have no idea...

I LOVE these! Paper lanterns from Target with a table number suspended from each one to hang over each table (I've replaced the metal with something blue and prettier to attach!) I also have turquoise lanterns.

Pretty calendar. Sorry for the glare.

Really crooked shot of the birthday chart...?

and bulletin boards!

I love puns. This one just cracks me up. *sigh...

I made a few posters in Word and had them blown up at our local school supply store. I went to school, hot glued those bad boys to the walls, and - ugh. Boring and stupid looking. So I just added some border. I had the curly border and the pennant border, so I used both. I used the pennant border over bulletin boards that already had the pennant border.

Using ASL as hand signals, and alternatives to the ever-dreaded "IDK"

Gigantor version of the Guidelines for Critical Thinking printout that students will get for their reading notebooks

Then I wanted to create some other things in that color scheme, but I needed some straight border and couldn't find any. So I found another border that has the same colors in it. I'm not 100% thrilled with it, but we'll see how it looks overall.

Hanging by the front door with forms the students will need to access. Got this bad boy for 40% off at Michaels - woot!

I love these things. I just sliced the straight bulletin board border to fit the front of the drawers, attached 2x4 Avery labels with what will go inside, then used double-stick tape to adhere them to the drawer from the inside. Bam. Looks neat, plus you won't be able to see all my CRAP inside.

SO. That's the pretty stuff. Now on to the business side of things. I've made some binders. I love binders. I made 3:

• A Guest Teacher Binder (aka sub binder) based off something I pinned from Pinterest (here's the original link)
• My "Everything Binder" - it has pretty much everything except lesson plans and grades 
• My Reading Binder - it has my reading stuff in it (shocker)

Here are photos of the insides of each:

The Guest Teacher Binder

I keep a sub binder handy just in case it's needed. Usually, it's on a shelf and my students know where it is in the event of emergency. I read on a few other blogs that teachers lay it on their desk each day when they leave, just in case. I like that idea!

I keep emergency sub plans in big manila envelopes in a Sub Tub. Each envelope has every form, worksheet, magazine, or whatever in it that a sub would need for each day. It's got behavior forms, nurse forms, a lunch and attendance form, student name tags, an extra copy of the schedule, plus all the plans. I have several days worth (I try to keep a full week in case of a big emergency) in the tub at all times. The tub is just a fabric bin (from above) that will go in my big black cubbies that I got from Target. It's got a label on the front that says Sub Tub.

I already had a sub binder, but it needed a revamp. I found Ms. Ogletree's blog on Pinterest and thought I'd just set mine up the same way she did. Here's a look.

For the sub to fill out at the end of the day. I have several copies in here.

The Everything Binder

The everything binder pretty much has, well, everything. Except for grades and my general lesson plans. That's because I bought my Erin Condren teacher planner! LOVE!!!!!!!! Here's a link. They're expensive, so that's why I bought mine in May - she gives a 10% discount then for Teacher Appreciation. Woot! (She does more than just teacher stuff, too.)

Here's the cover and Table of Contents for my Everything Binder. It's pretty self-explanatory, except for perhaps the Happy File. EVERY TEACHER NEEDS A HAPPY FILE. It contains positive notes from administrators, parents, or anyone else that reaffirm WHY you teach and why you love it so much. Every time you get a great evaluation or a nice note, hole-punch it and stick it in your happy file. When you have a bad day (and we all know those happen), you can flip back and realize that you do a great job and that all your efforts are worthwhile. We all need those reminders!

I did go back in and add a section with all the new Common Core standards at the back. But I didn't change my Table of Contents. Told you I was lazy.

The Reading Binder

I keep all my forms in here, and this binder GROWS more than any other of the ones I have ever had. It starts as a 1" and graduates to a 3" every year. I don't start with a 3" because it looks lonely and weird. I enjoy "graduating" my binders :)

Note: I would LOVE to offer a download of all of the forms I use, but most of them are copyrighted :( HOWEVER, I can give you a couple of them. Scroll down to the bottom and I'll provide a link!

I haven't used this before, but I thought with the new Common Core standards, I'll use it just to get myself in the habit of planning lessons the way I want them so they match the standards. I don't know how long I'll use them, but I think they'll be handy to start with.

This is on the back of the Status of the Class page divider. It's just a list of questions I can use to determine comprehension each time I do a Status of the Class 

Status of the class is one of my favorite things in the WHOLE. WIDE. WORLD. Each day (or so), I go from student to student, asking them the title and page number of their book. I get to half the class each day during their independent read time. I can tell what page they were on the last time (about two days prior) and tell if they are reading enough or not. I'll ask a question or two to determine if they understand the book (see a list of sample questions above). If I need to write down any notes about what they said, I'll just use the line(s) underneath. If they don't seem to understand, we have a conference right there about book choices! It's WONDERFUL. (Thank you, Franki Sibberson, for that!)

A Miscue Analysis sheet. I only use this for kids who are struggling with decoding. It helps me pinpoint their weakness. You can google this and find a variety of them to choose from.

Another piece of Franki Sibberson gold. Give this out once a quarter as a story elements assessment. It asks good, in depth questions.

This is an Informal Reading Inventory form. It looks scary. I don't do them frequently, but it's good information to have, especially for below grade level readers and on grade level readers.

 The two FREEBIES I can give you are the READ! Questions and the Informal Reading Inventory form. Enjoy!

So, I have been working hard this summer. Sorry for not blogging more frequently! I have had several amazing teacher bloggers leave some awards on the blog, so my next blog post will be devoted to thanking them and highlighting other teacher bloggers.

Happy summer, everyone! Three weeks left for us. How about you?