Carl the Cantankerous Cat by Donna Paul and Karen Patel

If you are a cat lover like I am, you need to read Carl the Cantankerous Cat by Donna Paul and Karen Patel.  I first heard about Carl the Cantankerous Cat in a teacher group on Facebook when some elementary school teachers were raving about it.  I downloaded it from Amazon to see what the hype was about and became an instant fan!  Not too long after that, I received a copy of Carl the Cantankerous Cat and some swag from the authors.  I entered one of their giveaways on Instagram and won a prize bundle.  Yay!  What did I win, you ask?  Keep reading to find out!

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Goo on My Shoe by Jacqui Shepherd

When teaching reading to young or struggling readers, teachers often use poetry as one of the strategies to help them.  There are a lot of reasons why we use poetry:

🍎 Poems tend to be brief and easier to read.

🍎 Repetitive reading and mastery of poems build students' confidence.

🍎 Choral reading of poems encourages hesitant students to read out loud with the others.

🍎 Teachers can use poetry to teach word recognition skills and build vocabulary.

🍎 We feel emotions when we read poetry.  Talking about those emotions helps to build a better understanding of ourselves and others.

Goo on My Shoe by Jacqui Shepherd is a story for young readers that is written in poetic form.  It has a likable main character and a storyline that will keep students engaged and motivated to read.  Read on to learn more about Goo on My Shoe and how you can integrate it into your language arts lessons.  There is even a simple goo recipe for you to make with your students!

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Great Cape o’ Colors by Karl Beckstrand

Great Cape o' Colors... fully known as Great Cape o' Colors - Capa de colores... is another fun book written in English and Spanish by Karl Beckstrand.  In this book, Karl Beckstrand introduces new colors and professions to children.  He also encourages children to use their imaginations and indulge in a bit of make-believe.  Keep reading to learn more about Great Cape o' Colors and how you can use it as inspiration for making a class book.

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It Came from Under the High Chair: A Mystery by Karl Beckstrand

It Came from Under the High Chair... fully known as It Came from Under the High Chair – Salió de Debajo de la Silla Para Comer: A Mystery in English and Spanish... by Karl Beckstrand is a funny book that children who speak either English or Spanish can enjoy.  It features Ivan, a messy baby, who drops food under his highchair.  Somehow this food magically comes to life and becomes an icky, ooey-gooey, slimy food monster.  Read on to learn more about It Came from Under the High Chair and to find an ooey-gooey slime recipe inspired by the book!

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Grow! How We Get Food from Our Garden by Karl Beckstrand

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog post called How to Grow Celery from Food Scraps.  In that post, I talked about the disconnect children have about their food and described a science activity you can do with them.  Since then, I learned about a new book hitting the market in October 2020.  It's called Grow!  How We Get Food from Our Garden by Karl Beckstrand.  Grow! would be a good book to read with your students to help them realize where their food comes from.  Yes, food does come from the grocery store.  But before it gets to the grocery store, it was grown in someone's garden.  Read on to learn more about Grow! and to get ideas on how to use it in your classroom.

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What is a Word Spree?

One of the first writing assignments I have my students do at the beginning of the school year is something called a word spree.  A word spree is a short, 10-minute assessment that checks students' abilities to recall words they already know by heart. . . or in more professional terms. . . how many words they can control with automaticity.  (Automaticity comes from the word automatic and refers to the ability to do things without occupying the mind, without thinking about them.)  To do a word spree, all you need is a blank piece of paper and something to write with.

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Creative Ways to Practice Spelling

Are you tired of the same old, same old when it comes to spelling practice? Are you tired of having your students write their spelling words five times each or having them write their spelling words in sentences? If so, keep reading. In this post, I present to you four strategies that have helped my students with spelling over the years. I didn't invent these strategies... these strategies have been around for years. But these are the strategies my students have enjoyed the most and have gotten the most benefit from. I hope they'll help your students too. Enjoy!

This is an updated version of a blog post I wrote in 2015.  Disclosure: Affiliate links to Amazon are included in this post.