Concerning Cats and Freebies

"Bad Kitty" Book Cover

Hi everyone!  Do you ever feel like you really want to blog but your life is just so intense and crazy that you don't have time?  Well, I have one more week of summer school, then one week off, and then regular school starts.  Summer school has been pretty nice, though.  We have 22 kindergartners who are going into first grade, and we split them so they can receive more attention.  So really, my highest amount of kids at one time is 12.  This allows me to have full conversations with the children and find out unique things about each and every one of them.  Many of the children told me that they had pets at home, and how much they enjoyed taking care of them.  We did one complete day about dogs, another complete day about horses, and last week we did a day about cats.

I looked through my things for a funny book about cats, and found Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel.  Summer school is overloaded on boys this year, and they really loved the naughtiness of the cat.  See, in this alphabet cat book the owner runs out of cat food and tries to substitute A to Z healthy foods.  Kitty reacts badly, performing a complete list of bad A to Z actions around the house such as clawing curtains and hurling hair balls.  After that, the mother comes home with A to Z appropriate foods for the cat, who is so grateful that it carries out nice A to Z actions around the house.  I would definitely use this book over two days, because it is a little long to read in one sitting.  But if you're looking for a great alphabet book which is humorous, this is it!

I made a guided reading book to go along with the cat theme, focusing on position words.  Now, you may think "Why would kindergartners who are going to first grade still need position words?"  I was surprised too!  But I found that some of my ESOL children did not know the words "between" or "above", for example.  The book also helps them to see it in context.  Here it is:

Cat Positions by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

During our morning message, we also talked about cats and what the students would do if they had one.  I made sure that every student was able to express their idea, in a complete sentence or two.  Then we used this paper to write about our ideas:

Cat Writing Prompts by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I didn't use it last week, but there's a great song by Dr. Jean called "Kitty Cat Position Scat" that completely ties in with position words.

Finally, I've been thinking more and more about Common Core and writing for the beginning of the school year, so I created an ABC folder with hollow letters, dotted fonts, pictures, and words.  I'm really satisfied with the way it turned out.  Let me know what you think.

What are you doing to get ready for school, or what new products have you created for the upcoming school year?