Fall, Fluency, and Fancypants

Hey Diddley Ho, Neighbors!
Where have you been?
I've been looking for you!
Have you been looking for me?
There have been some "nutty" happenings in the Squirrel Household- so I have been just
a little busy.

I am currently working on getting kicked out of every room in the house as I try to start this post.
And I am debating leaving the one I am in because there is a fly in here- he waits until I think he has left-
(and I am pretty confident it's a male)
and then he buzzes right by me!
He even lands on my head!!!
He is making me crazy!!!

Speaking of crazy-
There has been lots of the regular crazy classroom stuff going on-
new students, students withdrawing 15 mins before dismissal, PTC,a college student observing, benchmarking in the building- so I have NO AIDES.
I miss them. I love them. I will tell them I love them when I see them again tomorrow.
Oh how I hope I see them tomorrow.

We did manage to get some great reading done!
And I am not talking about just me. It's them, too!
They are reading like crazy!

They can't wait to come to me on Monday morning and "cold read" and then they read throughout the week. And then Friday they come back for the BIG "hot" read- and man, they are excited!!!
I had parents come in at PTC and tell me how excited they are that their child can't wait to read with them at night.

And now you ask,
"WHAT ARE THEY READING, SQUIRRELS!???!?!??!?!"

(Well, if you'll quit yelling at me, I'll tell you).


I have started including fluency passages on the back of their newsletters. The week before they appear on the newsletter, the students  "cold read" them with me. They aren't for a "grade" or any type of testing like DIBELS ORF- but they are a great assessment tool for  me!!!
I included three of them this week- one is sort of a rhyme, one is non fiction, and the last is sung to the tune of a familiar song.
When parents came in Thursday night- they couldn't stop talking about them!

and now you ask,
"WHAT ARE THESE FLUENCY PASSAGES??? WHERE DID YOU GET THEM???"

(You are really going to have to keep it down, some of the Littles are already in bed).

They are from Jodi's (Fun in First) Fall Fluency Passages.

They are amazing!
We had a themed week of apples this past week- and it was great to have these little reading selections to supplement all of the trade books we used!

One particular passage we dissected- writing each sentence in different color Scentos Marker onto sentence strips.  (love those things- makes the room smell like Fruit Salad)  Then I placed them in five spots around the room and they raced to put them together again!

Man, they were excited! Especially because they had practiced them so much!

Not only are we just reading them- we are really working with them!!! There are vocabulary words and comprehension and phonics activities to go along with each passage!!!  Each passage also includes a seperate page of language arts skills. AND they are matched to CCSS!

Check out Jodi's Tpt store  for examples of them! You will LOVE them!
They are sold by theme, month, and season (I jumped in for the whole Fall Season!!!)

Okay- now on to non teachery stuff-

We had a wedding this weekend.
A chance to polish up my Squirrels and take them out in public.
The oldest son wins for "most polished" this time around.
He is at that stage where I think he believes soap and water will melt his skin off- so this was a nice change:

I LOVE love love that he wanted the bowtie!

Littlest Little was ring bearer- so he was all decked out in a tux.

The rest of us were as pretty as peacocks, too!

We tried to get a serious picture of the men in the family-
watch as my Littles ruin that opportunity and Chickadee photobombs the whole thing:
(Notice how the Mr never moves....creepy)

Gotta love 'em!


Alright- well it's on to finishing prep for the coming week-
hope this holds you over til Wednesday:

Smooches!