Friday Books and Fall Centers

It has been a busy weekend here in the Payton house.  I spent today working on my Fall centers pack for week after next, which I just posted to TpT.  Head over there and grab the freebie by clicking "Download Preview."  Did I mention I was having a 10% sale for the rest of the night?  Stop by and take a look ;)

Kindergarten has been BUSY!  I forget every year how exhausting this time of year is.  I am sure very soon my sweeties will be more independent and it will take less energy, but in the meantime I am going to bed early and enjoying every moment with them :)  On Fridays, I do not do Guided Reading.  We worked on Color Words last week so in place of Guided Reading on Friday, we made a book. (This is what we do every Friday.)  I do this for a number of reasons. 1. I can integrate our unit with Language Arts 2. The kids have to use a number of skills to make the book (Coloring, Cutting, Gluing, Positional Words and so many more!) 3. The kids have a book they can take home that day and read to their families.

Have you ever read this book?

I have to be honest and say that I haven't, but one of my colleagues interns a few years ago came up with the idea to take the sentences to make a book with.

To make the book:

1. Type the sentences up with lines in between them so they can be cut out.

2. Staple the correct amount of half sheets of paper between construction paper.

3.  Have the students cut out the sentences and glue them to the bottom of each page. (We do this STEP BY STEP to avoid anymore grey hairs in my head....I model it on the document camera and walk around to make sure they have it.)

4. Have the students illustrate the book.  We used construction paper to illustrate this book because of the colored cakes.

When we finished, we practiced reading it and since my Kinders are still learning to point one to one (I'm pretty sure 1 or 2 of my grey hairs came from trying to teach them this) we used "old lady fingers" to point.  Here are some pics of them reading :) 

Next week for us is apples.  I can't wait for my Kinders to try all the fun apple foods on Friday.  Hope everyone has a great week!