Freebie Friday - Dog's Colorful Day

I can't believe it's Friday again.  Where is the time going?

This week I'm offering one of the lessons in my Colourful Dog Activities for free.  

This is day 2's lesson. As you read the story, have the children colour in a spot on the dog.

Enjoy.

Work Station Wednesday - Dog's Colourful Day

It's work station Wednesday and I thought I would highlight one of my favourite books for the beginning of the year.

"Dog's Colorful Day" by Emma Dodd.

Now this dog goes about his day, getting a new spot on his body for every item he runs into.  It's perfect for working on colours and numbers.

When I do this book, I read it to the children every day and each day we work on a different skill.

I believe that it's very important to work on sentence structure with my non-verbal students as well as my verbal students.

This activity is perfect for that.  As we read each page, I have the children make the sentence "Now Dog has _____ spots.", changing the number each time.  I think it's important for the children to move the words to form the sentence, so that they realize that sentences are made up of individual words.

I love this activity.  As we read the story, I have the children put the correct coloured spot on the dog and put the number of spots in the box.

This activity also works on forming sentences.  We talk about what item is on dog.

As we move through the week, the sentences become more complex.  By now, we've read the book quite a few times and we talk about the object and the colour.

Testing Tuesday - Printing

Today's testing Tuesday is about printing skills.

I like to keep track of the children's printing skills throughout the year.  

Since a lot of my students have speech as their primary goal, most of my students come in with some printing skills but I do have children each year that have fine motor issues and we spend a lot of time working to improve their skills.

I needed a way to keep track of their progress and I came up with this little booklet.

This is a wonderful tool to show to parents.  

It really is amazing to see how far the children come.

Each year I have children who can't even print their name when they arrive and others who are already printing letters and drawing detailed pictures.

This book keeps everything in place and keeps me accountable each month.

I start by having the children colour in their title page. I have girl and boy covers and have ones that are already coloured in.

In the first week of school I have the children fill out each section of the month sheet.  

They print their name.

The numbers 0 to 10.

A self-portrait.

And the alphabet.

For some children, I want to know what they know, and I have them print from memory. 

For other children, I have them copy what I put on the board.

You can jot a little note on the page if you want to remember if you had them copy.

At some point during the first week of each month, I have them fill out their book again.  

I often do this in a small group setting.

As the months progress, I have them print some words, and even a sentence if they can.

It's all kept in one nice little booklet.  During parent/teacher interviews, I can pull them out and parents can see their child's progress.

Summer Storm

Oh my! 

While I'm enjoying the summer, I certainly did not enjoy the storm that rolled in on Sunday night.

This is what it looked like.

With a crash and bang, our power went out.  

And stayed out. 

 For 27 hours.

Thankfully we have a generator that kept our fridge going.

Not everyone is back up and running yet.  Some people will be in the dark for another night.

We were lucky.

Other than losing part of a dead tree at the bottom of our yard, we didn't have any damage.

Our neighbour was not so lucky.

He lost most of his barn.

So wherever you are, I hope you are having a safe summer.

Don't forget to stock up on some great deals in the back to school sale

and hopefully tomorrow will be back to normal.

Fun-day Sunday - "I have / who has" game

It's Fun-day Sunday and I'm so excited about today's game.

I'm teaming up with my friends from Freebielicious to bring you game of "I have / Who has".

To start the game at the beginning, click on the picture below.

If you have come from KinderGlynn, then you guessed right.

I have an interactive calendar book that even children with little fine motor or verbal skills can use.

I love my calendar book and I have found that the math skills of my students have improved immensely since implementing them.

You can find my post about the interactive part here,

and the printable part here.

Here is an example of the same activity being done by a child with and without the ability to print.

All three parts of my calendar book are available in this bundle.

And everything, including my yearlong calendar is on sale.

Now for my fun fact.

It's my house.

It was the original one room schoolhouse of our little community.

Of course it doesn't look like this anymore,

but I think it's cool that a teacher still lives in it.'

Now for your next mystery Freebielicious blogger in the hop.

Can you guess who this is?

Once you think you know, click on the picture below to find out if you are right.

Interactive Books - The Enormous Turnip

I'm so excited that I finally finished my newest interactive book.

"The Enormous Turnip" was a favourite of my students this past year.

We even did it as a play for the parents at the end of the year.

When I saw this beautiful clip art, I just knew I had to make it into an interactive book.

There are 6 books in total.  Two of the books just have the story, one more detailed than the other.  I read the detailed one to the children a few times.  The top edge of the book is cut out to reveal a new character each time you turn the page.  When the children know the story, I switch to the simple book, which is easy enough for the children to read themselves.

The next two books have movable words.  The first book allows the children to put the name of the character on the correct page.  The other book has the children working on the word "pulled".

This is my favourite book.  As the story is read, the children find the correct character and put them on the story board.

The last book has the children adding the whole sentence to the correct page of the story.

All 6 books, along with flash cards are on sale for 1/2 price until tomorrow.