Glow Day Reading Reward

We are big fans of flashlight Friday!  Typically speaking if my students stay engaged in their reading work and work silently during silent reading time, we get to switch things up by reading with flashlight on Fridays.  We get the flashlights from our science kits.  Students who don't meet the criteria go to a neighboring classroom to read while we use the flashlights.  I love Flashlight Friday because it's engaging, it's free and students get excited about reading! What's not to love?

Even better than Flashlight Reading is Glow Day Reading! A few times a year we set reading goals.  If students make those goals we have an extra special Friday with glow sticks.  For Glow Day I bring in a couple of my camping lanterns too.  We also use our flashlights.  Students can use the sticks as fluency trackers, light sources or just for fun while they read!  This takes place during our normal reading block so no extra time is used.  Students work so hard to earn this day.  It's engaging and the best part is students are so excited to read! I buy the glow sticks at the dollar store.  It usually costs me just over $3.  If you haven't figured out by now, my plan is usually to engage students, help them learn to their full potential and save as much money as possible.  Feel free to email me at amylabrasciano@yahoo.com if you have any questions!

Spring Fluency Practice

Nothing makes us happier then spring! It's time to brush up on our fluency. In order to do this we make fluency tappers out of spoons. It's quick, easy and my personal favorite, cheap! We use the tapper to tap out poems whole group to different rhythms.  We do repeated readings of the poems throughout the month in order to increase our fluency.  Students use the tappers individually to point to words while they do independent timed readings of poetry.  This keeps the classroom quiet during guided reading.  There are two different insects that we have made.  For one spoon we make a bee.  You can see it on our Poet Tree up top. 

You'll need: paper plates, spoons, yellow paint, black sharpie, glue and wax paper.

1.  For bell work students paint the spoon yellow on the paper plate.  When they are done they paint the whole plate yellow.  We let the spoon dry on top of the plate over night.

2.  The next morning students use black sharpie to draw lines, eyes and a stinger on the bee.

3.  The students cut wings out of wax paper and glue them to the top of the spoon.

4.  Students then cut the plate into a flower shape and add pollen to the middle.

5.  The teacher cuts a small slit in the plate so that the spoon can be stored on the flower.

When we are finished practicing with the tapper, it is put on display in the shape of a Poet Tree.  We place our poems from writing around the tree.  You can see my poetry unit down below.

Ladybug tappers are a personal favorite! They are used the same way as the bees above.

You'll need:  clear spoons, red sharpies, black sharpies

1.  Students color the spoon with the red sharpie during bell work.  I use bell work for a lot of our creative projects that might not please everyone during instructional time.  We allow the spoon to dry over night.

2.  The next morning students use the black sharpie to add the wings, dots and face to their ladybug.  Once it dries they are ready to start having fun while they read!

While we are practicing our fluency in reading, we practice our poetry writing during our writing block.  You can see the unit that I developed by tapping on the picture below.