Harcourt Trophies Basal III: Here and There

This download offers Harcourt Trophies "Here and There" Basal III supplemental activities for guided reading groups and centers. You will find supplements that correlate with the rigor of Common Core Standards for Harcourt Trophies Basal 1-3, which includes the stories: I Am a Butterfly, Did You See Chip?, Tomas Rivera, On the Way to the Pond, Friends Forever, and The Fox and the Stork. Materials can be used in a writing center, reading center, phonics center, pocket chart center, game center, & art center. 

Each story has customized:

-Teacher Talk cards

-Focus Skill graphic organizers 

-Writing Prompts 

-5 in a Row: Word Fluency Game

-Reading Tic-Tac-Toe Game

-Scrambled Sentence activity

-Pocket Chart materials

Also included:
*Bonus writing templates, graphic organizers, and flip books that can be used interchangeably with each of the basal stories.
**Directions, Harcourt Trophies Focus Skill outline, and Common Core Standards List. 

End of the Year Memory Book

As the end of the school year approaches, help students reflect by creating their very own End of the Year Memory Book. This keepsake includes the following pages:

• Memory Book Cover 
• About this Year 
• My Favorite Things 
• My Favorite School Lunch
• My Favorite Recess Activity 
• My Favorite Subject
• My Favorite Book 
• My Favorite Class Activity 
• My Favorite Field Trip 
• I Will Never Forget When 
• The Funniest Moment 
• Special Letter to My Teacher 
• What a Friend 
• Next Year
• Autographs

There are 18 pages in all. As students (and teacher) anticipate summer break, start wrapping up the year by writing about the journey. 

Click {here}!

You Are Now Entering...

If I told you that this school year has been one of a kind, let's be honest...we both know that is such an understatement! I feel like a first year teacher all over again. Welcome to...My Twilight Zone.


When I flash back to my first year of teaching, those feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and inadequacy come flooding in. These emotions are fresh, as if it happened yesterday. I remember spending weekends and long hours lesson planning, scripting out what to say, and preparing materials for instruction. In hindsight, I unsuccessfully tried to control my chaos.


So, upon starting my 9th year of teaching, I felt confident. My familiarity with first grade curriculum, procedures, and expectations was second nature. I was excited to learn about the new Common Core Standards. I welcomed the notion of a consistent and rigorous curriculum to stimulate and guide student learning. Of course it was going to take effort, training, and diligence to successfully implement. My desire to teach students focused, challenging, and useful material justified the effort. 


Well, things are never as they appear. Now, I don't know about your district, but the Common Core is NOT the only new item on the table. We have thrown out older systems and procedures to clear the way for brand new Common Core resources. Since the start of the school year, I have participated in continual training and directives to learn how to implement new systems for: formative assessment, summative assessment, online lesson planning, report cards, and data analysis reports. 


Of course it makes sense that new standards would require new assessments. However, it is natural to question the integrity and validity of our newly compiled systems when they are causing such confusion and stress. When focus is spread too thin, it seems inevitable that communication and clarity of vision will falter. 


So, this begs the question: Are we trying to do too much at once? Is quantity interfering with the quality of student learning? Are we working against ourselves and producing the opposite desired effect? If districts create faulty and misaligned systems, how will this affect the implementation of the Common Core? 


For me, the most stressful feelings come from lack of communication, not knowing where to start, finding the time, and doing right by the students. Communication and collaboration can be a school's saving grace. Or, maybe things just have to fall apart so other things can fall into place. I totally think Pete the Cat was written for teachers. "Does Pete get upset? Goodness, no. Instead, Pete continues along singing his song about his" positive, focused, and flexible attitude. 


With that said, I try not to complain without offering a solution. However, we all know there is not a quick fix. So, I offer up a resource that I hope you'll find useful. It is a list of CCSS text exemplars from the North Carolina Department of Education. Not only are the exemplars sorted by grade level and genre, but you will find links to some of the poetry and short passage exemplars online, ISBN numbers, and prices at Amazon.com. This list mirrors the resources listed in CCSS Appendix B. Use the list as an example and reference for increasing text rigor. 

Harcourt Trophies Supplement: Catch a Dream

Now available Harcourt Trophies "Catch a Dream" Basal II supplement for guided reading groups and centers. Stories include: Dan's Pet, Boots for Beth, Space Pup, Where Do Frogs Come From?, Try Your Best, and Fun with Fish. Activities are specifically geared towards the rigor of Common Core Standards. Materials can be used in a writing center, reading center, phonics center, pocket chart center, game center, & art center. 

Each story has customized:
-Teacher Talk cards
-Focus Skill graphic organizers
-Writing Prompts
-5 in a Row: Word Fluency Game
-Reading Tic-Tac-Toe Game
-Scrambled Sentence activity
-Pocket Chart materials

Also included:

*Bonus writing templates, graphic organizers, and flip books that can be used interchangeably with each of the basal stories.
**Directions, Harcourt Trophies Focus Skill outline, and Common Core Standards List.

Lesson Planning in the 21st Century

Lesson Plan Example {click pic to download}

This is kind of strange to say…but, one of my favorite things to check out are other teacher’s lesson plans. I like to see different templates, components, details, etc. Each teacher has a style, making each plan unique. I enjoy seeing how others approach the craft of teaching. Maybe it’s just the administrator in me. That’s when I find myself looking too closely at the details and evaluating! School districts typically outline certain features that must be present in a teacher’s lesson plans. 
In our District, we are required to follow the Components of an Effective Lesson when lesson planning and teaching students. Click the picture for a download that defines each component.  

pre-Curriculum Engine

The Clark County School District is the fifth largest in the nation. With the implementation of the Common Core Standards this 2011-2012 school year, all teachers in our District have online access to the curriculum. The “Curriculum Engine” was created by our District to provide a more efficient method for accessing the curriculum, downloading pacing guides for assessment purposes, creating calendars, locating resource downloads, and here’s the cherry on top…lesson planning!

Calendar Layers {subjects}

One of the key advantages of lesson planning in the Curriculum Engine is the option to share and collaborate with other teachers. For each subject, you create what is called a “calendar layer”. You can determine who is able to view your lesson plans. The three viewing access options are: Private - the calendar layer can be viewed by you and, of course, your administrators. School - the calendar layer can be subscribed to by any other teacher at your school. Public - the calendar layer can be subscribed to by any teacher in the entire District. You can also allow colleagues to edit your layers. What a great way to collaborate and plan with other teachers in your grade level. Gone are the days of lesson plan collaboration via email attachments!! 

Find and Drag Standards

The vision of the Curriculum Engine was to provide tools for lesson planning. My favorite feature is the user-friendly “clicking” and “dragging” of the standards directly into your lesson plans. I find the standard(s) that I am covering, click the notepad icon, drag the icon over to the calendar or lesson plan, and then let the mouse button go. It "drops" that specific standard into my lesson. Standards are listed at the bottom of each subject's lesson plans. 

Calendar View

Online Lesson Planning View

In the Clark County School District there are over 18,000 educators, who have an incredible amount of knowledge about teaching. My District asked the question, “Imagine if we could somehow harness this collective knowledge into an enormous filing cabinet?” It was decided that the Curriculum Engine would provide a way for teachers to store and access our District’s knowledge about the standards and how to unwrap them. Unwrapped standards are the essential concepts and skills that students must know and be able to do in order to meet {and even exceed} expectations.

Unwrapped Standards Features (Live Links)

Unwrapped Standard RI.1.9

To say the very least, the Curriculum Engine has changed how I lesson plan. I type my lesson into the CE, click & drag the corresponding standards, and then print. Plans print in an easy-to-read list format. My administrators have electronic access to my lesson plans. The Curriculum Engine has made my job easier (and less time-consuming). An efficient planning tool is all an overworked overachiever like me could ask for.

Graphics by ThistleGirlDesigns & Scrappin' Doodles

How have the new standards changed your lesson planning?

Trophies Basal & Common Core Correlation

In this download, you will find activities that correlate with the new Common Core State Standards to supplement Harcourt Trophies Basal 1-1, which includes the stories: The Hat, Sam and the Bag, Ants, Jack and Rick, Todd’s Box, and All That Corn. 

You will find materials to use in your guided reading groups and centers. The activities lend themselves to utilization in a writing center, reading center, phonics center, pocket chart center, game center, and art center. Clipart by ThistleGirl Designs. 

Over 70 pages to take your basal 

to the next level!! 

CCSS Reading Foundational Skills {Onset & Rime Awareness}

The study of onset and rime is crucial to the development of reading and writing in K-2 students. "An onset is the consonant letter before the vowel in a given word or syllable, and a rime is the vowel and consonants that follow the vowel in a given word or syllable" (readwritethink.org). For example, in the word cat, the onset is the letter c and the rime is the letters at. 

Today’s download offers two interactive songs to foster skills for “Blend[ing] and segment[ing] onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words {Common Core State Standard RF.K.2c}. Graphics by Lettering Delights. 





In addition, I have included links to interactive onset and rime games on readwritethink.org and free classroom materials that are immediately useful in implementing independent student center activities at fcrr.org. Click on the pictures to access these links. 

CCSS Reading Foundational Skills {Syllable Counting & ID}

To teach syllable counting and identification (Common Core State Standard RF.K.2b), start with some fun whole group songs using student names. Both the “Name Song” and “Super Duper 1, 2, 3” will model how to segment syllables. The “Name Song” is sung to the tune of BINGO. Choose a child (I like to pick sticks for fairness), and then add their name into the song. After singing “Super Duper 1, 2, 3” whole group and counting syllables together, you can have each student try counting the syllables in their name independently. 

Another activity to practice segmenting syllables is with a “Syllable Bar Graph” sort. Using a pocket chart, picture cards {included}, and number cards {included} (1-4), model how to segment and count syllables. After counting the syllables, place the card on top of the corresponding number. This activity can be done whole group, and eventually placed into a center activity. 

Finally, practice segmenting syllables using Skittles!! Each student will need a “Skittle Scoot” board {included} and Skittles. The teacher will say a word (or student name) out loud. Students will segment the word and scoot the corresponding number of Skittles in the boxes. 

To practice blending syllables, the teacher can choose a picture card. The teacher says the word, pausing between syllables. Students will say how many syllables they heard and then say the word. For example, the teacher chooses the card “spider”. Teacher says, “spi-der”. The students respond, “2, spider.” After plenty of whole group modeling and practice, this activity can also be placed into a center activity. 


For more activities, The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) provides free classroom materials that are immediately useful in implementing independent student center activities. For specific activities that related to phonological awareness, check out book one. Clipart by Lettering Delights.

CCSS Reading Foundational Skills {Repetition & Alliteration}

Common Core Reading standards place emphasis on an integrated model of literacy. As I mentioned in the prior post, the standards also establish a “staircase” of increasing complexity.

Within this model, it is vitally important that teachers are teaching foundational skills using actual text that is the appropriate complexity. To ensure that all teachers are using a complex range of on-level texts, CCSS provides text examplars for “grade bands”. The grade bands are K-1, 2-3, and 4-5. Text examplars are example texts that students should be exposed to and engage with. CCSS offers text exemplars for Reading Literature and Reading Informational Texts. While these lists are not all encompassing, they are a great starting point for teachers to teach from and then identify similarly rigorous texts.

Today’s downloads include repetition and alliteration activities and CCSS K-1 Text Exemplars for Poetry. {For nonprofit educational use only!!} These downloads will allow you to promote the phonological skills of repetition and alliteration awareness, and then extend into using complex text.

• RL.K.4 Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.
• RL.K.5 Recognize common types of texts (e.g., storybooks, poems).
• RL.1.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. 
• RL.1.4 Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.
• RL.1.10 With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.

Stay tuned for more activities to support the CCSS Reading Foundational Skills. Clipart by Lettering Delights.

CCSS Reading Foundational Skills {Rhyme Recognition}

For the first week of my break, I have been privileged to attend our District’s Common Core State Standards Summer Institute. While it has been hard to wake up even earlier than a normal school day, I am glad that I will have a head start for the new school year. It will also be my privilege to take what I have learned and instruct my staff. Since I am so excited about this new phase in education, I figured I would share some of my new learning. So here it goes…Summer To Do List: Understanding CCSS Reading Foundational Skills.  

The standards establish a “staircase” of increasing complexity. A great starting point in English Language Arts will be with the Common Core’s “Reading Foundational Skills”. These skills include: Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, Phonics and Word Recognition, and Fluency. Researchers Lyon and Alexander state that “phonological awareness is the single most important factor in learning to read.” Phonological awareness is an understanding of language at the spoken level. It is the ability to perceive and manipulate sounds of spoken language, such as words, syllables, onset & rimes, and phonemes. In the CCSS, Phonological Awareness standards are only addressed in grades K-1.

To promote the lower levels of phonological awareness, students must be aware of sounds. Here are some rhyme recognition activities called “Draw a Rhyme” and “Rhyme Away Story”. These activities have been floating around for some time. I have used them for the past 9 years, (even with third grade ELL students), and all of my students have loved them!! During training, I was surprised at how many teachers have never heard of them or incorporated them into their own classrooms. So, here is a download for you to use in your own classrooms to cover CCSS RF.K.2a 

Stay tuned for more activities to support the CCSS Reading Foundational Skills.