Teach students how to have fun with figurative language by reading aloud these books with alliteration! What is alliteration? Alliteration is the purposeful repetition of the intiial sound - most often a consonant or consonant cluster - in two or more words of a phrase. For example: He spluttered and splashed. Why is it important to teach our students about alliteration? Alliteration is important ... Read More
Versions of the Three Little Pigs
Check out these fun versions of The Three Little Pigs! We love reading different versions of familiar tales! In fact we've already shared a number of book lists - The Little Red Hen, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Hansel & Gretel, and The Princess and the Pea. But I have to say that of all of them, we've seen the most variety in the versions of The Three Little Pigs. You'll definitely want to reserve ... Read More
Alliteration games
If you're looking for alliteration activities, you're in the right spot! I promised more activities for older learners, and today's game fits the bill! Plus, it comes in four different levels - so you can use it with learners in grades 2-5! What is alliteration? Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of many or most of the words in a sentence. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled ... Read More
Books about Christopher Columbus
In my first year of teaching, I taught a combined class of third, fourth, and fifth graders. In an attempt to teach critical thinking, I gave my fifth graders articles and books that were up front about Christopher Columbus and some of his not so heroic behavior. Just recently I had the opportunity to visit with one of my former students, and at 28 he still doesn't like Columbus! Columbus plays a big role ... Read More
15 Strong picture books for grades 3-5
This post contains affiliate links. Picture books? In grades 3-5? You bet! Many teachers find strong picture books to use as interactive read alouds - and you can, too. In fact, I wrote a post all about how using picture books to build comprehension in the intermediate grades - you can read it here. Today I'm sharing 15 strong picture books that you can use in your third, fourth, or fifth grade ... Read More
Versions of Hansel and Gretel
Okay, let's face it. As far as fairy tales go, Hansel and Gretel is pretty dark. The family is starving, so their cruel stepmother convinces their father to abandon them in the woods so they starve to death. Then they stumble upon a witch's candy house, and she captures them with plans to eat them. Finally, Gretel pushes the wicked witch into a flaming oven, where she burns to a crisp. Yikes. But believe ... Read More
Halloween books
This year I'm building up my collection of book lists. Have you seen them yet? As of this date I only have two holiday book lists, so I'm working to add a book list for each holiday. Even though our family doesn't do a lot to celebrate Halloween, I wanted to share a list of gentle, family-friendly Halloween books for kids. ... Read More
The ultimate list of counting books
My two and four-year-old have heard a lot of counting books the last few weeks! We've been working to find the best of the best - and these books have been perfect for reading alongside our preschool math curriculum. I hope you'll find new favorites in this list of counting books for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners. If you'd like to jump to a particular section of this list, just click on a link ... Read More
Clip cards for ending sounds
Teach your learners to identify ending sounds with these fun clip cards! My four-year-old does really well identifying the beginning sounds in words, but ending sounds are a bit trickier. My match the ending sound cards helped quite a bit, but I'll keep creating activities until this is easy for her. Today I'm sharing a set of free ending sound clip cards. But she struggled with words ... Read More
How to teach kids to have a good book discussion
Do 3rd to 5th grade teachers have time toread aloud to their students? Last week I talked about the importance of interactive read alouds with kids in the intermediate grades. One reader let me know that "this method of teaching is quite common and not something new." While I agree that discussing books with our students is nothing new (and I'm positive that some teachers do it often and well), I'm not sure about it ... Read More