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First Day of School Activities for Kindergarten & 1st Grade
The first day of school is exciting—and a little nerve-wracking, too! These first day of school activities for kindergarten and 1st grade will help you have a clear, simple plan to start the year off right. In this post, I’ll walk you through my exact first-day schedule, with activities that build community, introduce routines, and…
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6 Critical Steps to Launching a Smooth Writing Workshop in Your Classroom
If you’ve been here before, you know I LOVE teaching writing. I think there are so many benefits to incorporating a writing workshop into your kindergarten or first-grade classroom! If you are not familiar with the writing workshop model, it is a method of teaching writing that consists of four main components: The goal of…
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How to Make an Easy Yearlong Writing Portfolio
You don’t have to wait for the end of the year to make a memory book! Make a yearlong scrapbook that doubles as a writing portfolio for kindergarten and first grade! It’s so great to see how your students’ writing progresses throughout the year and doing this little by little avoids trying to cram it…
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Tips for a Smooth Meet the Teacher Night
Meet the Teacher Night. Do those words make your palms sweat and knees wobble? I have to admit that after 17 years, I still always felt sick to my stomach just before parents walked in! Once I got talking, everything would go smoothly, though, and fortunately, I never had any disasters. Well, if you also…
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Back-to-School Read-Aloud for Phonemic Awareness
Don’t you love when you find a great book to read aloud? I am always looking for amazing read-alouds and when I found The Hungry Thing by Jan Slepian, I hit the jackpot! It’s such a funny story that’s perfect for rhyming and phonemic awareness. If you don’t have the book, I included links in…