Inferencing Pictures!

I have many students on my caseload working on inferencing.  I try to target this skill at all levels (pictures, sentences, paragraphs, and stories).  I often run out of materials to target inferencing at the picture level.  Well...I created a new activity to fix that!

Using this activity:
-Print (and laminate) all picture cards provided.

-Show images to students.  Have them describe what they see.  Then have them read and answer the question provided.  42 cards included!

-Visual aid provided to assist in understanding how to infer.


-Graphic organizer is included to help generate responses as well.  Spaces included for writing about 10 cards.

You can access this activity in my TpT store by clicking HERE!

Having A Reader's Notebook - Guest Blogger!

Today I share with you information from a literacy teacher/blogger/TpT seller.  As SLPs we are often collaborating with reading specialists since they typically see similar weaknesses and are working on similar skills.  Keep reading to learn more!!

I like to use many strategies and techniques in my reading classroom.  One such technique is a reader's notebook.  Having students complete a reader's notebook really allows students to interact with a book. It gives them the opportunity to reflect and record their feelings about what they are reading, as well as giving them the chance to analyze the story and how its written.  

I find this important because students often just rush through their reading assignments rather than really trying to understand the text.  My students are often reluctant to begin a reader's notebook but I often find it is something they eventually enjoy doing because it lets them be honest about their feelings without the fear of being judged by their peers. This benefits me by really being able to see what they understand and what they are struggling with.

I like to have my students glue the checklist in the front of their readers notebook.  It is important to me that my students use different prompts so I like the checklist because I can quickly monitor how often they are using a specific one. 

On Fridays I have my students complete an exit ticket response page that they turn in.  I respond to their writing and return the page on Monday.  This gives me the opportunity to monitor the responses and I get to respond to their entries on Monday they glue the response page into their notebook. Sometimes I have students work in pairs or triads on Monday to discuss the prompt they chose and their responses.  It is great watching their skills grow as they become more involved with the book and their discussions become more in depth.

How does this effect SLPs?!  Well, I often see students struggling with being able to:

• discuss with their peers/myself
• follow directions to complete this task
• use a wide variety of feelings words
• comprehend what they read in order to reflect
• understand that others may have a different opinion
• ability to write long responses/communicate in complete, complex sentences
• understanding of common core vocabulary concepts

It is important for students to develop these skills so they can participate during ELA/literacy activities such as this above.  It is important for SLPs and ELA teachers/reading specialists to work together to achieve this goal and to build our students' reading comprehension abilities!

Beach Bum Literacy Chick is a reading specialist in an elementary school.  She uses up to date techniques and shares her hands on approach on her blog.  You can also find her on TpT, Pinterest, and Instagram!

The Curriculum Challenge (PART 2!!) --- freebie plus a giveaway!!

Did you catch my previous post regarding the "curriculum challenge?"  I have received amazing feedback from it!  I have also received several questions...so...I have answers and more!

What are some places you go to for curriculum materials/resources?

• Ed Helper:  This website has great reading comprehension activities.  I have taken short stories and created speech/language activities with them.  Like what?  Pull out articulation words, make Venn diagrams to work on compare/contrast using facts from the text, and creating timelines to work on sequencing.
• Reading A-Z:  This website has leveled books.  They have books related to curriculum content areas.  You can print out ones at your students' level.  It can be used for working on vocabulary.  It can also help you understand what vocabulary words students are expected to know related to that curriculum topic.
• Teachers pay teachers!  Just search for the topics your students are working on!!  You will be surprised how many resources you can find!  I have found great sorting activities for vocabulary concepts, cause/effect activities, and other graphic organizers!

How is this different than what a resource room teacher or classroom teacher will do?

We have a different approach!  We work on skills first, then carryover.  For example, work on compare/contrast, make sure students understand how to and can express responses using complete sentences, then give them two science terms to compare/contrast.

We can break down the concepts and see where our students will struggle with our knowledge of their difficulties.  If your students can't answer wh- questions, they are going to struggle answering questions about a text read in their classrooms.  What can we do to help?  Make visual aids to help them recall the different wh- questions.  Pull out the text and show them how using their visuals can help them!

What kind of form do you use to keep teachers informed or to ask what they are working on?

I have created a newsletter template that can be easily completed to keep parents or teachers informed on what is going on in your therapy rooms.  It can be difficult to touch base in person with EVERY teacher you work with (especially if you are in multiple buildings).  You can find this newsletter resource in my TpT store by clicking HERE!

I also have a standard form I use to easily complete and place in teachers' mailboxes.

How do I use these?  I make several copies, cut them apart, and store in a file folder on my desk.  This way I have them ready to go!  All I have to do is complete for a student or place in a teacher's mailbox for them to complete regarding a student.  Although some teachers don't like extra paperwork, others have found that by completing these, I am able to help them and their students more and found it worthwhile!  You can access this freebie in my TpT store by clicking HERE!

I hope these posts have helped you with the curriculum challenge!  How about a giveaway of my speech newsletters?!  Enter to win below!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Curriculum Challenge!

As an SLP in the schools, it is always a goal each year to incorporate the classroom curriculum into speech therapy sessions as much as possible.  Many speech and language students have curriculum vocabulary goals or comprehension skills goals that correlate to those skills necessary in the classroom environment.  As SLPs, our overall goal is to teach our students strategies in order to be successful academically and socially, and to eventually no longer require speech and language services.  But how can we incorporate the curriculum as much as possible into our speech sessions?

One way to battle this challenge is to use the classroom themes into speech sessions.  Are the classroom teachers using holiday, seasonal, or themes in their classrooms?  Design your lessons using storybooks and activities that use that same vocabulary.  It can be difficult to find common time to plan with all teachers on your caseload.  You can send monthly e-mails or make a form for teachers to complete with concepts and themes they plan on using that month or week.

Do you work with older students?  They may not be working on seasonal vocabulary but science and social studies concepts.  Again, you can send monthly or weekly e-mails or have a form for teachers to complete with what they plan on working on.  Another trick, walk around!  Many teachers hang student work in their classrooms and in the hallways.  Take a look to see what they are working on.  Another trick, ask your students!  You will be surprised how much they can share with you.  I like to ask them early in the week what they are working on and I will have activities ready to go the next time they come in with vocabulary concepts they told me about.  Use the internet to research vocabulary lists related to the topics they are working on if you do not have access to curriculum maps or textbooks.

Those are just some tips and ideas to help battle the curriculum challenge.  It is important for us, as SLPs in the schools, to incorporate the classroom curriculum into our therapy sessions as much as possible.  It helps make our therapy sessions relevant and promotes carryover of learned skills into the classrooms.  It also impresses and pleases our colleagues, which is always a bonus!

SLPs & Close Reading!

"Close Reading" have you heard that term?!  If your district/school is working to achieve the common core standards, then they might have trained the classroom teachers/reading specialists in this term.  I know in my district/building, this concept is HEAVILY promoted.  What does it mean and how does this effect SLPs??  ** DISCLAIMER: I AM NO EXPERT IN THIS!!  THIS IS JUST MY EXPERIENCE AND UNDERSTANDING AND HOW I USE IT!

According to Learning A-Z, "close reading" means that students get involved actively with texts they are reading.  They should notice text features and language used by the author.  They should be actively thinking while reading.  They are required to evaluate and think critically about the texts they are reading.

What skills are required in order for our students to be successful with close reading in their classrooms?

• Asking and answering questions
• Understanding of common core vocabulary concepts
• Ability to infer and predict
• Perspective thinking: understanding what others would think
• Understanding text features
• Understanding author's purpose
• Understanding main idea and supporting details
• Ability to retell or summarize a plot
• and more!!

When teachers expect students to use this skill, they are expecting students to read passages about 3 times!  I know my students struggle to read things once!  It is important that students understand why they should use this skill and how it can benefit them.  Well, how can it benefit them and why is it important?!

• Demonstrates understanding
• Can help predict comprehension questions that one may be asked
• Improves reading comprehension skills
• Uses the full range of Bloom's taxonomy
• Makes students active in the learning and reading process

How can we as SLPs help our students?!  We work on skills necessary in order for them to be successful in the classroom.  We can help improve these skills and then teach them how to use them during close reading tasks!  I have several products in my TpT store that can help build these skills.  Below are just SOME of them!:

Building Language Skills Dice Game for older students

Character traits fun

Common Core Vocabulary Pack Grades K-4

Common Core Vocabulary Pack Grades 5-8

Graphic Organizers for SLPs

Inferencing Detectives Fun

Main Idea Games

Predicting Pirates

Ready, Set, Go Comprehension Fun

Sock Hop Story Comprehension Card Game

Speaker's Purpose

Summarizing Fun

Tricky Comprehension Question Card Game

I have also blogged about VARIOUS DIY ideas that can be used to work on these skills as well:

Nonfiction Fun

Comprehension Question Guide

4 Square Writing Approach

How My Activities Are Related to common core

Cause/effect DIY idea

Remember, carryover carryover carryover!!  Once skills are learned and mastered, if students aren't shown how to use these skills independently in the classroom, then the jobs not done!!  We can model and practice with our students the art of close reading.  You can take passages read in their classrooms or use your own, high interest texts you can find.  You can elicit conversations with your students about the texts read.  What are some ways you can do this?!:

• You can use conversations starters. Show them how to start conversations about the text.  For example, "I think the author wanted to tell us about..."
• You can model how to use post-its to write questions about the text or to highlight the key points.  They can use their knowledge of main idea and supporting details for this one.
• Discuss the characters, their character traits and how they felt in various parts of the story.
• What connections can the students make to their own lives?
• What were the key story elements (setting, characters, problem, solution, mood)?  Why were they important?  Did the author explicitly say it, why or why not?
• Model for students to explain how they know what they know?  Can they locate the evidence in the story?
• Be evidence detectives!! Who can find the most evidence to back up their opinions and analysis?!

Those are just several ways!!!  There are so many ways...how can you teach your students to think about their thinking about texts read?!

I know I hope to attend some workshops or view some online webinars on close reading this summer.  How do you plan on learning more?!

Nonfiction Comprehension Fun!!

I am always looking for better ways to work on nonfiction comprehension with my older students.  The teachers are always complaining that the students aren't carryover the skills into their classrooms.  But if you can tell my style by now, I don't like to do things traditionally!

I will show you how I took one motivating nonfiction story and targeted multiple goals over several sessions!

Have you heard of the book, "Hi-Lo Nonfiction Passages for Struggling Readers: Grades 4–5: 80 High-Interest/Low-Readability Passages With Comprehension Questions and Mini-Lessons for Teaching Key Reading Strategies?"  I definitely recommend it for those working in a public school with school aged students.

I found this great story on the  history of video games!!  Hi, motivation!!  Even the title of the story targeted goals: past and present!  We started off using this story by comparing/contrasting past and present, using the different verb tenses (2 goals right there!!).  We generated a list on my dry erase board with what my students thought video games were like in the past.  They got to predict what they would learn in the story.  We left this list up as we read the story.  They got a kick out of who was closest to the truth and who was very far off (I threw in some silly responses just to make them think and laugh like "I think only 6 feet tall men could play video games").  

I have many students working on expressing main ideas, recalling details, and using note-taking techniques/graphic organizers to organize thoughts/help recall/express summaries/etc.  I took some post-it notes and cut them up into strips.  I placed the pile of post-it strips in the middle of my therapy table.  As we read the story, we stopped after each paragraph and my students had to generate a main idea of the paragraph read.  We used my strategy "what was it mainly about and what happened to it?"  This helped guide them to narrow down all of those details into ONE sentence!!  We wrote these sentences on the post-its and they stuck them onto their papers next to the paragraph it went with.

Once we were done reading and writing/expressing main ideas, my students had fun verbally telling summaries using their "notes," expressing sequences, and answering recall questions.  They loved that their post-its helped them locate the answers in paragraphs they couldn't automatically recall on their own.  It definitely reduced the "I don't knows" and "I can't find its."  My students even got a chance to come up with their own comprehension questions and challenge each other!!

We then used my dry erase board and completed a Venn diagram to compare video games from the past to today.  My students did great pulling out the details from their story and using their own knowledge of video games!  They felt so successful!!  We also had discussions about what we think will happen to video games in the future!  Some got to draw and write about it too!  It was a great way to work on descriptive writing and using future tense verbs!

The stories in this book come with comprehension/vocabulary/grammar questions.  But who wants to answer questions with boring pencils?!  I took out my fun Crayola Stamper markers and let them stamp the answers!!!  So much more fun and motivating!!!  They didn't mind doing boring worksheets!

Since I used this story over several sessions and we read this story over and over and reviewed our post-it notes over and over, we focused on a different comprehension skill each day.  One day we worked on answering higher level thinking questions.  Students knew they had to use their notes and their own knowledge to generate answers, they couldn't just look back to find it!  Another day, we worked on using context clues to generate word meanings.  We looked at what the paragraph was about, what we knew about the topic, looked for clue words before and after the unknown word, and substituted all of the multiple choice answers into the sentence to see which makes the most sense!  My students did great using their strategies!!  

So, let's recap, how many goals did I target with this activity?

• Past, present, future tense verbs
• Sequencing
• Main idea
• Recalling details
• Inferencing
• Compare/contrast
• Predicting
• Descriptive writing
• Generating questions
• Context clues
• Expressing summaries
• Note-taking
• Conversational skills

WOAH!!! Now that is a lot!!  I am a huge fan of this book and recommend it!  I also recommend some of these strategies to target these common core skills that correlate to speech and language goals!  I hope you can use some of these ideas if not ALL in your therapy rooms!!

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

Origami - Learning So Much More Than Paper Folding

This year, we have been blessed to have a mom of one of my students come in to teach origami.  If it were not for her, my class would not be learning origami because I am definitely not blessed with the talent of being able to intricately fold paper.

She and I have both joked about how we could "justify" the origami lessons - the students are learning about symmetry, angles, following directions, etc.  But, truthfully, the students and I have learned some important life lessons.

I have always been blessed to be "book smart".  School was easy to me and I have easily scored in the top 10% of just about every standardized test I have ever taken.  However, back in high school when I took the ASVAB, I scored at least two standard deviations below the lowest possible score on the spatial reasoning section ( well, not seriously, but I was definitely in the bottom ten percent).  Origami lessons are the time when I REALLY identify with my struggling learners! I have to have the directions repeated OVER and OVER again.  Often another student has to take my project to re-do the errant folds I have made.  They love being able to teach the teacher.

But, I am not the only one with this experience.  Most of my higher students have learned that they also struggle.  But... just like me they persevere!  They try it again and again until they get it.

My struggling learners have also learned what it feels like to be GOOD at something!  Many of these students are naturals at hands on learning.  Some of them don't even need to hear the directions, they just know how to do it!

The origami lessons have even inspired my students to become teachers!  A few of my boys have been reading the Origami Yoda series and taught us all how to make Origami Yodas!

And... even though I struggled and needed after school tutoring - I FINALLY made my own spinners!

Even though I believe strongly in the Common Core Standards and academic rigor, I am glad that I have been able to share a learning experience with my students that will never be on a standardized test, but will most definitely be a lesson that they will never forget!

4 Square Writing Approach for SLPs

Many teachers in my school use the "4 Square" approach to teaching writing.  I have been sitting in several workshops to learn more about this.  One of my personal goals for the school year is to learn more about the classroom curriculum and figure out ways for me to supplement those skills in my therapy room.  As I learn more about what the students are expected to learn and comprehend, I can easily see where my speech students would struggle.  

I also see overlaps in the skills they need and their IEP goals.  I decided to create a supplemental activity pack for SLPs.  Whether your classroom teachers are using this method or not, this approach may be beneficial to your students' writing skills.  They also may still benefit from the building block skills that I have created activities to learn and practice.

This packet explains the writing strategy and how to implement the different building blocks of skills. Great way to target classroom skills in the speech therapy room. Common core aligned!

In this file:
-Topic vs. Supporting Detail Sort: Students must sort the topics into one category and the supporting details into another to recognize which is which. Then they can sort the details that go with which topic. A review worksheet is provided.


-Guess The Topic: Each card has a 4 square with the details filled in. Students must express the topic using the details provided. If they respond accurately, they can hold onto their cards. Each card has a point value. At the end of the game, students can add up their points to determine a winner. A review worksheet is provided.

-Let’s Express A Wrap-Up Sentence: On each card, a topic and three details are provided. Students must use the visual provided to express a wrap-up sentence. Once they respond accurately, they can hold onto their cards. If they pick the “lose a turn” card, they will lose a turn. The student with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner. A review worksheet is provided.

-Transition Words Sort: Using the 4 Square visual provided, students must determine which “box” each transition word would work best in.


-Let’s Add Even More Information: Using the model on the visual provided, several worksheets are included so students can get practice adding information or specific details into each “paragraph” box or under each detail category.



-Using Vivid Language Practice: Using the model on the visual provided, students will practice writing “like what?” lists to describe the objects and events.



-Practice Writing Using a 4 Square: Two levels are included. A completed 4 Square is provided. Students must use their understanding to write a paragraph or an essay using the information provided in the graphic organizer on the lines provided.

You can access this packet in my TpT store by clicking HERE!

Graphic Organizers for SLPs!

My seasonal graphic organizers has been a huge hit!  I have been asked by several if I was planning on creating a pack with generic themes that can be used at any point!  Well, I pushed to get this bad boy out before the HUGE back to school TpT sale!

This pack contains TONS of graphic organizers (vocabulary, auditory comprehension, sequencing, and more).  This pack is great for SLPs to teach these skills but can also be used in the classroom, ESL, or with reading specialists.   Activities to teach how to use these graphic organizers are provided as well as blank ones for use with your own vocabulary/stories! 

Generic themes/backgrounds/vocabulary is used.  Targeted common categories and vocabulary!

In this pack:
-Basic Sequencing Chart
-Listening for Wh- Questions 
-Cause & Effect:  Either use the sample provided or the blank form to use with stories or own concepts
-Main Idea & Supporting Details:  Use the two samples provided to teach determining a main idea and details based on information provided.  A blank form is provided to use with own stories
-Key Story Elements
-Venn Diagram:  Sample compare/contrast for common items  are provided and a blank for own use
-Compare/Contrast Matrix
-Vocabulary Frayer Square:  Sample pages provided and a blank for varied use as well
-Inference Chart:  Use to help identify and use schema and clues
-Words That Describe Web:  Some sample pages are provided with common nouns.  A blank form is provided as well for varied use.
-Author’s/Speaker’s Purpose
-Asking Questions During Reading Process: This will help encourage students to express questions  based on what they have read/heard and develop their own answers.
-Character Traits: Graphic organizer with to use with any story
-A Vocabulary LINCS table

-Multiple Meaning Words: for any word, students can write the 2 definitions, use in sentences, and draw pictures using word meanings!

You can access this pack in my TpT store by clicking HERE!!

Like these?  Interested in learning more about my other seasonal packs? Click below:

Fall Graphic Organizers for SLPs

St. Patrick's Day Graphic Organizers FREEBIE

Spring Graphic Organizers for SLPs

Valentine's Day Graphic Organizers FREEBIE

Winter Graphic Organizers for SLPs

Winter Graphic Organizers Preview Freebie

And don't forget about the upcoming back to school super sale!! I'm participating!  Use promo code BTS2013 on August 18-19 to receive up to 28% off!!!

Fall Graphic Organizers for SLPs!

You asked, I answered!  Many have contacted me to ask if I was making a graphic organizer pack for fall!  Here it is!!!  An entire file filled with graphic organizers with a fall theme!  Activities included to teach students how to use them, ready to go activities, and blank forms to use with your own activities!  Great for incorporating common core state standards in a speech session!

How to use it in your speech rooms?  You can just print pages based on your need when you need them.  Or you can print and entire pack and laminate (or use a binder with page protectors to make the pages dry erase!  This way you only need 1-5 copies based on group sizes and use them over and over!  No need to waste printer ink!

In this file:
-Basic Sequencing Chart

-Listening for Wh- Questions 

-Cause & Effect:  Either use the sample provided or the blank form to use with stories or own concepts

-Main Idea & Supporting Details:  Use the two samples provided to teach determining a main idea and details based on information provided.  A blank form is provided to use with own stories

-Key Story Elements

-Venn Diagram:  Sample compare/contrast for fall items/stories are provided and a blank for own use

-Compare/Contrast Matrix

-Vocabulary Frayer Square:  Sample pages provided and a blank for varied use as well

-Inference Chart:  Use to help identify and use schema and clues

-Fall Word Hunt:  Students can try to determine a fall word that starts with every letter of the alphabet.  Can be used as a game, vocabulary practice, or even articulation.

-Words That Describe Web:  Some sample pages are provided with fall nouns.  A blank form is provided as well for varied use.

-Author’s/Speaker’s Purpose

-Asking Questions During Reading Process: This will help encourage students to express questions  based on what they have read/heard and develop their own answers.

-Character Traits: Graphic organizer with a fall theme to use with any fall related story

-A Vocabulary LINCS table

-Multiple Meaning Words: for any word, students can write the 2 definitions, use in sentences, and draw pictures using word meanings!

You can access this HUGE fun-filled activity pack in my TpT store by clicking HERE!

How My Activities Are Related To Common Core Standards! K-5th Grade

I have been asked, "I know you have specific activities related to common core but how do the others align?!"  Well....here is the list you have been waiting for!  I took the standards that align and gave you links directly to my TpT activities (free and for sale)!  Keep in mind, there are many activities that can overlap into another age group as well as multiple standards.  I kept it mentioned only once to save space!

Kindergarten:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.K.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Pirate Pragmatic Pack

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.K.2 Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood.

Superhero Sentence Comprehension

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1b Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs.

Movie Parts of Speech

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1d Understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how).

Dino Dash Question Fun

Candy Question Fun

Wh- Questions at the Farm

Wh- Question Train Fun

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1e Use the most frequently occurring prepositions (e.g., to, from, in, out, on, off, for, of, by, with).

Preposition Picture Scenes

First Grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Potato Pragmatic Peeps

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.2 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

Listening for Details Variety Pack

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.4 Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.

Describing Superheroes

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.6 Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation.

Transportation Expanding Utterances

Space Sentence Scramble

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.5a Sort words into categories (e.g., colors, clothing) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

Cowboy Categories

Second Grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.2.1a Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts
under discussion).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.2.1b Build on others’ talk in conversations by linking their comments to the remarks of others.

Monsters Make Sense Topic Maintenance

Topic Maintenance & Turn Taking Variety Pack

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.2.2 Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media.

Auditory Memory Magic

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.2.4: Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences.

Baseball Sequencing

Pizza Party Sequencing Games

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1a Use collective nouns (e.g., group).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1b Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1c Use reflexive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1d Form and use the past tense of frequently occurring irregular verbs (e.g., sat, hid, told).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1e Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

Gator Time: Past, Present, Future

Groovy Grammar

Grammar Uno-Like Games

Pronoun Scout Sort

Pronoun Scouts

Third Grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.3.2 Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Main Idea Monsters

Main Idea Flip Flops

Main Idea Games

Money Main Ideas

Mustache Main Idea

Main Ideas & Supporting Details Wonderland

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.3.3 Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.

Building Language Skills Dice Game Fun

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1h Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1i Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Ice Cream Conjunctions

Spaghetti & Meatball Conjunctions

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.4b Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).

Wild Word Fun: Prefixes

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.5c Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered).

Synonyms & Antonyms for Older Students

Fourth Grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.4.1d Review the key ideas expressed and explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.4.2 Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.4.4 Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Summarizing Fun

Superhero Story Recall & Comprehension

Sock Hop Story Comprehension Card Game

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.4a Use context (e.g., definitions, examples, or restatements in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Wild Word Fun: Context Clues

Context Clues Games

Top Secret Context Clues Fun

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.5b Recognize and explain the meaning of common idioms, adages, and proverbs.

Tooth Fairy Idioms

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.4.3 Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points.

Speaker's Purpose

Fifth Grade:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.4 Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Sequencing & Recall for Older Students

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1d Review the key ideas expressed and draw conclusions in light of information and knowledge gained from the discussions.

Predicting Pirates

Pizza Predicting Party

Inferencing Detectives

Inferencing Detectives Part 2

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.5.4a Use context (e.g., cause/effect relationships and comparisons in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Cause/Effect Wonderland

Cupcake Cause & Effect

Top Secret Cause & Effect Fun

Note: I will continue to add to this list as I find the standards that align most appropriately with my products!  I hope this list helps you as you plan how to use these products and impress administrators with your common core connections!

Common Core Unit Revision Training - Or How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I had the opportunity to work on revising the Common Core Units that our district has developed last week.  I was assigned to 4th grade math.  The workshops were set up with a morning training followed by several hours of work time in our teams.  I learned so much and came back with a lot of great takeaways from both the trainers (we worked with West Ed) and my teammates. I wanted to share some of the things I learned as well as some of the things that I am chewing on for my own teaching practices this year.

Our training was kicked off by our Curriculum and Accountability Director.  She gave a mini-pep talk to get us ready to begin the work. (She had been the principal at the school where I first worked as a teacher and I LOVE her)!  She told us that she wanted us to start looking at the state tests not as an end all be all, but rather a snapshot in time of student performance.  She compared it to taking a blood pressure test.  You could prepare for that blood pressure test right before your appointment (by taking deep breaths, relaxing, etc.), but it would not have nearly the effect that exercising and eating healthy all year would have on the results.  She told us to look at the tests that way - if we provide the right instruction, the test results should match.  We shouldn't focus on last minute test prep, but rather long term maintenance.

The trainers showed this Dan Meyer TED talk which I had seen (and used) as a 7th grade math teacher, but I had never looked at it under the lenses of an elementary teacher.  I got to thinking, I could really apply the same ideas and concepts to teach problem solving to younger students as well.

They also showed this video on the second day.  It really made us pause and we changed up several of the units we had started.


 We decided to integrate standards throughout rather than following a model that resembled text books with each standard taught separately.  I am really excited about the changes, and I can't wait to share how I implement it in the classroom next year!

If you would like to see the old units that we were revising you can find them below:

Lyon County Units

The new versions have not been posted yet, but I will let you know when they are finished!  Fourth grade is going to be dramatically different!

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