Loving Literacy Blog Hop

Welcome to...

With Valentine's Day approaching, our group of reading specialists, coaches, and teacher bloggers decided it was the perfect time to share our love of literacy with you.  Each of us is passionate about helping children develop a love of reading, and what better way to love reading than through our favorite books.  Each blogger participating in this weekend's hop is sharing materials for his/her favorite book, book about friendship, or for Valentine's day.  We hope you'll enjoy using them and sharing your love of literacy with your students.

When I was young, I learned to read with little difficulty, and it was something that I enjoyed very much. As a child some of my best friends were book characters. I would get so lost in a book that when I sat it down to eat dinner, brush my teeth, etc. I would run back thinking that I had missed something. When I read I see the story playing in my mind like a television show. I've never been one to watch much TV and I think it's because I love reading so much that I never needed the TV to play movies for me when I could just create them on my own! 

As much as I love reading I never dreamed of becoming a reading teacher. Why, you ask? Reading was something that I learned without really being taught and when I sat down and realized how hard it is to teach kids to read I just knew that I would never be good enough to make them love reading as much as I did. When I accepted my Title I position I was told that I would be teaching primarily math and a few classes of reading; boy how the tides change. Within a month I was teaching only reading and loving it. I still wish I could teach math (one of my favorite subjects) but I have developed a new love of reading. I love watching my students blooming into beautiful readers. They may still struggle but they are coming so far. This is my 2nd year as a Title I Reading teacher and I know that as the years go forward I will become a much stronger teacher. I'm planning on pursuing my masters degree and hope to complete it in Elementary Reading and Language Development. Who would have ever thought that Little Ol' Me would love being a reading teacher? I just can't get enough of it and my passion for reading is beginning to rub off on my students (a teacher's dream come true)!

One of my favorite books to teach this time of year is Martin's Big Words. This book is wonderful for February since we celebrate Black History Month this month. I just love teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. He was such a wonderful man and did so many wonderful things for our country. My students really enjoy learning about him and the Civil Rights Movement. They are always shocked to find out that Mr. King used peaceful protests instead of violence to reach his goals and this is the perfect opportunity to talk about bullying, friendship, and respecting one another no matter our differences. 

The product that I'm sharing with you is a product that I use with my own Title I students while reading this book. It includes lower(1-3) and upper elementary(3-5)  activities such as flipbooks, word search puzzles, and thinking maps. This unit is available for free this weekend only and exclusively on my blog. Just click the picture above and you will be taken to the product. It will convert to a paid product after February 2nd.  I appreciate you dropping by today, and if you are new to my blog and love literacy, I hope you'll take a moment to follow my posts on Bloglovin.  

Countdown To... Loving Literacy Blog Hop

 

I am excited to announce a blog hop coming the weekend of January 31st starting at Comprehension Connection.  If you love great literature for modeling vocabulary and comprehension skills or for introducing/modeling writing traits, then we hope you'll join us for a celebration highlighting great literature.  Each blogger will share materials to go with their favorite book and explain how they developed an interest in literacy instruction.  For details, check out the flyer below.  A listing of the participating blogs are listed in the order of the hop. 

These wonderful ladies and I have teamed up many times before to offer your hops such as: The Gift of Reading, Super Sleuths, and I'm so Thankful. This is sure to be just as amazing as all of the others! We look forward to sharing with you, and we hope you'll invite your colleagues too.  Have a great weekend!

Do you Educents?

I love sharing with you all. I love sharing products, ideas, strategies, and everything in between. Today I want to share Educents with you.

Educents is an online store that offers educational products for a discounted price. You may have seen some of the amazing bundles that I've posted recently, on facebook, that are deeply discounted. Right now, if you area a new customer and sign up for a free account you will earn $10 off your first purchase! Just click the image below to sign up!

This $10 off offer will make for some amazing deals! 

Classroom Management, Decor, and Organization Pack 

    Only 99 cents after $10 

Math and Language Arts Complete Curriculum 

Only $10 after $10 discount 

There's so much more than you could use your credit on! Use it now or save it for a later purchase. Educents is always adding new bundles, products, and software that you can use in your classroom. 

Trading Spaces Tuesday - Comparing and Contrasting

Welcome to Trading Spaces Tuesday! Shanon is not at "home" today. She is off visiting Teaching with Nancy to share about her really cool vocabulary strategy. So she left me in charge of her blog! I'm Stacy from Teacher's Take-Out. I've taught 2nd-4th grade for the past 16 years. 3rd grade was my favorite grade to teach. I now run my own tutoring business and work with students one on one. I wanted to THANK Shanon for letting me host today and for all of you for letting me share with you today! I am sharing my Comparing and Contrasting Writing.

Here is a fun little activity to do with your students to brush up on their Comparing and Contrasting writing skills. Students can use the Venn Diagram to help them compare/contrast the two penguins or they can use the writing page to write out full sentences. These printouts are perfect to put at a writing center, to use as part of your comparing and contrasting lesson or to send home for homework!  Either way, your students will love comparing and contrasting! Now what can be better than that? Thank you for letting me share with all of you today! Shanon will be back soon!

 

First Currently of the New Year

It's that time again... Time to link up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade for the monthly Currently linky! These are so fun and I love letting you all have a little glimpse into my personal life. If you want to link up just head over here, save the blank template, open it in a Power Point presentation and insert word boxes to tell us what currently happening in  your life! 

Ringing in the New Year!

Happy New Year!!!! Can you believe that it's already 2014? Where did 2013 go? I must say that 2013 was one of the craziest years of my life but I loved it! I can't wait to see what 2014 holds for me. I have a few professional and personal goals that I hope to meet this year.

1. Become a stronger reading teacher
2. Obtain a job closer to home (this 80 miles daily commute is killing me)
3. Stop stressing over things that I have no control over and just do what I have to do to make sure my students get the best education I can give them
4. Live a healthier lifestyle
5. Take care of myself, even if that means I have to call out of work
6. Love and support my husband and family 

I don't think any of those are unreachable goals. I want to better myself so that I can better my students, my co-workers, my family, and my friends. "Be the change you want to see in others." 

Also, if you're not a facebook fan, or you just happened to miss it, I'm having a huge sale on all of my TPT products to celebrate the new year. Everything in my store is $2 or less. Hurry though because the sale ends at 11:59pm EST on January 1, 2014.