Kim Norman visit

Okay, I said I was going to get this post up by the end of the week, and technically that's today! This past Monday, we had our Title I night, and it was a great honor to have a local author come and do a program for us! Kim Norman (from Smithfield, VA - the famous hams) has some great books, especially for younger children, and she did a few read alouds with the kids.

Her first read aloud was I Know a Wee Piggy (remember I said she was from Smithfield - this is a little play on her hometown), which my students were so excited about. This is the book I used to introduce them to the author a few weeks ago.

Anyway, it's about a little pig who makes a big mess of himself by rolling in lots of colors. For younger students, it's a perfect way to talk about colors, but it's also great for rhyming patterns. With my older kids, we predicted what the word would be with the rhyming pattern and also noticed that they used alliteration to help you predict what the color would be (i.e. yard of yellow, wash of white). It's saying a lot that one of my 5th graders told me this was her favorite book! And I was scared they'd hate it because it was too "babyish"...I guess you never can predict what a kid will think!

Then Kim read Ten on a Sled. She had LOTS of kids come up and help her with this one. It's basically the same as 10 on a bed, but it's so cute!

The kids really enjoyed helping her out with this story, and the illustrations are adorable! She had a powerpoint so we could all enjoy the pictures as she read.

And as promised, here are a few pictures from the night:

There were about 16 kids up helping her with this story, not to mention the kids she had pull items out of bags for I Know a Wee Piggy. Then she also used all of the older students who were willing to come up to do a reader's theater with her. They had a blast!

Kim made sure to emphasize to the parents the importance of reading with their child. She even sang the Storytime Boogie to Crocodaddy (I was a little bummed we didn't get to hear that story, but I did read it while she was signing books).

She almost completely sold out of books! I thought about buying this one, but it comes out in board book in January, so I decided to wait. Keagan would tear this book up in no time! I did, however, get her to sign my copy of The Great Christmas Crisis, which is her newest book! I plan on putting together some kind of unit to go along with the book because it's so cute!

Speaking of Christmas, I know I JUST posted my Thanksgiving literacy centers earlier this week, but I have already finished my Christmas ones and posted them yesterday! 

I wanted to make sure they were done before Thanksgiving so teachers could have them ready to go when they got back from break. This set has 5 comprehension centers and 4 word-knowledge centers. It's HUGE, and I love it! My parapro told me it was her favorite one yet. She may not still agree when she's helping me cut out all of this laminating when we haven't even gotten all the Thanksgiving centers ready yet!

Late night

After being home with my little one all but Wednesday of last week, today was hard. I guess it's better to get back into the swing of things now, though. Besides, tomorrow is a teacher workday.

Anyway, what makes tonight even harder is that I'm here late for our Title I night. We have an author coming, which I'm SUPER excited about!

Her name is Kim Norman, and she's from Hampton Roads, VA...just a little further down the road from where I teach! In the past, no one has really shown up for Title I nights, so we decided to change it up and pay a little extra to have her come visit. We're hoping for a big turn out. I should be posting pictures later this week!

And here are a few of her books:

October Tell Me Something Good

Jennifer at Rowdy in First Grade is hosting another Tell Me Something Good linky party, and I decided to yet again join in.

Something Good from School: I have been pulling my groups for about a month now, and things are going really well. I have a lot of children at this point (36, which does not make for ideal small groups), but I've made some adjustments and have started getting into a routine. I push in to classes in the morning, then I pull students back to my room for small group in the afternoons. I still have 16 fourth graders alone, but I think I'll be able to release 4 of them at the end of the nine weeks next month! That will mean I can just have a morning group and afternoon group for 4th grade to get them where they need to be!

Something Good from Home: My mom came to visit this past week (she left this morning), and we had a good time. She helped keep the house clean, which I was EXTREMELY grateful for. Then yesterday was actually my first Saturday without a band competition (next Saturday is the last one - praise God!), so we headed up to Carter's Mountain in Charlottesville to go apple picking. She'd never been before, and we didn't make it last year, so we were really excited to go.We loaded up on tons of apples - enough to make an apple pie, apple butter, AND have plenty left over to last us forever! I posted all about it with more pictures at my personal blog, The Dalton Gang, but here's one to enjoy.

Now go link up!

Halloween main idea, book of the month, and a bundle

Is anyone else just drained? Keagan's been sleeping through the night, but for some reason I feel like I'm completely out of energy. I'm blaming band competition this weekend. Hopefully I can find my energy soon. We're not even halfway through the week, and this weekend includes a football game AND another band competition. Can't wait until November gets here!

As far as my full time job goes, we're in week 2 of pulling students for Title I, and so far things are going well. I have so many kids that I've had to split them into smaller groups, but that made it easier to work with them on their most appropriate level. Fourth grade alone has 3 groups, and the others have two. I push in to classes in the mornings and then pull out mostly in the afternoons.

Third and fourth grade have been working on main idea and supporting details, so I've been trying to find activities to do with them. Yesterday, I made pumpkins with a different main idea listed on each one, and I gave it to my higher group of fourth graders so they could each come up with three supporting details. Then I typed them up (and changed a few to make better supporting details) and put them all into a file. Later, I'm going to give them back the pumpkins and supporting details all cut out, and I'm going to have students sort them to match the correct main idea.

You can download the packet here. I want to print my pumpkins on orange paper, and I'll take pictures to show after they've done it.

Then I also took this packet, my bat research unit (which I added more pages to), and my pumpkin writing craftivity, and I bundled them all together for one big Halloween literacy unit. It's on sale for the rest of this week, but the price will jump up $2 next week!

Oh, and I found a linky that I had to join! Tammy at 123 Teach With Me is hosting a book of the month linky that she'll have each month. For this linky, you need to choose a book that relates to the month in some way.

I have two books this month. One is the book I based my bat unit off, and it's quite old. Actually I realized while searching for the book that it is now out of print. I'm checking mine out from the library, but I think I may buy a copy from Amazon later.

This book is about a huge ball game (sounds like lacrosse, maybe?) between the birds and the beasts. The bat keeps trying to find his place, and both teams end up pushing him away. I remember reading this when I was in school, and it always stuck with me.

Chris Van Allsburg is one of my new favorites, and I found this book in the library last week when I was searching for a book. I haven't planned exactly what I'm going to do with it yet, but I had to check it out before it went missing.  Just a quick synopsis I found online: A witch leaves behind a broom that can't fly anymore, but it can still do chores for the lonely widow who befriends it. But the neighbors think it's evil and want to destroy it. 

I can't wait to see what other books people are posting!

Word Wall freebie

The past few days have been more word lists (I'm pulling every student in grades 3-5, although I have a WONDERFUL math remediation teacher who offered to help me). I did, however, also make new word wall words since I need them to be much smaller to fit on my white board. I used the Dolch word list and color coded them based on what grade in which they should be learned. If you would like them, I'm offering them for FREE on TpT. Click on the picture below to download. Have a happy Friday!!

I have a new blog!

Welcome friends and new followers (potentially)!

I've been blogging over at The Dalton Gang for a little over a year now, but I decided it was time to separate my personal blog from all of my teacher-y things. I want this blog to be a resource for teaching reading as I begin my new position as reading specialist for grades 3-5. If you would like to learn about what's going on in my life (and see cute pics of my adorable little boy), I will still be updating my original blog and welcome you to follow it as well!

I got the name "Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late" because I am a little obsessed with Mo Willems and all of his amazing books, especially the pigeon. And, like many other teacher bloggers, I tend to sometimes stay up a little later than I should and then wake up feeling grumpy the next morning. I am NOT a morning person, but when you teach 30 minutes away from home, you HAVE to wake up early during the school years. Plus, with an 8 month old, I'm up earlier even during summer and weekends.

I digress. If you have any questions or topics you have questions about (mostly related to reading, please, although I'm willing to take a shot at other things), let me know! I want this blog to help us all become better teachers of reading!