Poetry

Poetry is the final part of my resource folder and quite possibly my favorite!  I think this might be the best freebie of the week so please keep reading!

I took a Literacy workshop a couple of years ago and learned about the power of poetry in reading development as well as it's role in creating a text-rich environment.  The incredible women (I'm not blowing smoke, these ladies were fantastic) who facilitated this workshop armed me with lots of new idea's and emailed me a ton of kid-friendly familiar songs and poems to start a poetry folder.  

I only use 10 of the poems and songs along with my sight word songs.  I re-did their poems, fanci-fy-ing the font and adding cute clip art (microsoft office) for students to color.   My students interact with these poems in two places during literacy centers.  We have a poetry center where they get a copy of the poem, color the picture, read the poem, and add it to their resource folder.  

They also interact with the poem in a pocket chart center where they put the phrases or words in order.  Sometimes they have their partner turn around while they mix the poem up and then the partner has to put it back in order.  

You can grab the Poetry Pack from my TpT store for the incredible price of FREE!

Sight Word Song

I'd like to recognize 3 things before I get to the sight word song.

#1-Today it 9/11, always a tough day to teach our students about.  My students weren't even alive when this happened and I feel like it was just yesterday.  Weird.

#2-9/11 is also my hire date.  Today is my 7th anniversary as a teacher.  Anniversary feels like the right word because I feel married to this gig sometimes.

#3-Today is Open House.  I've got a spectacular group of students this year, spec-tac-u-lar, I couldn't be happier.  But this evening I will again feel like a 12 year old giving my first speech in a middle school public speaking class as I address the families of my sweet little people.

Will this feeling ever go away?

If I could just have a few glasses of wine beforehand it wouldn't be so bad.  Right?

But I won't have wine, I'll go, soothed only by the water in my Nalogen.  Awkward and rushing through the presentation.  Probably sweating because they never seem to turn the air on for Open House.  Maybe it's because they want to rush the parents out?  Maybe it's because they are too cheap to pay for a couple extra hours of A.C.?  

I'd put my money on #2.  Wish me luck.

Now that I've gotten all that off my chest, let's get to the Sight Word Song!  I'm about to show you the cutest this you'll find on the blog-space-book-inter-webs today.  Are you ready?

Holy sweet-ness!  I got this idea from a workshop I sat in a few years ago.  I immediately went to my 1st grade HM theme 1-10 sight words and put them to work.  

As NH modeled for us, students point to each word as they read/sing them to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

Let me just say, I put sight word songs in the poetry section of their resource folder.  They are allowed to read their resource folder during both independent and buddy reading.  I get to hear sweet little voices singing their sight words everyday.  This might be one of the top 10 reasons why I have the best job in the world.

There are 6 sight word songs on 3 pages.  They are available in my TpT store for the piggy-bank busting price of $1!  Check them out today and let me know what you think!

I will send a free copy to the first person to follow my blog and comment on this post.  Don't forget to leave your email!