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?

Amusement Park Writing

Book Cover of "Tickets to Ride: An Alphabetic Amusement"

I'm so excited about this post, because I simply love roller coasters.  The anticipation, the stomach-dropping fear, and the spontaneous laughter when you shoot down the tracks at high speed feel so awesome!  You might say "Why do a post about amusement parks?"  Sounds a little strange, right?  But it all started when I got back from spring break and my kids were talking about what fun they had at Six Flags and Kings Dominion.  Actually, they couldn't stop talking about amusement parks.  We spent about two minutes doing a turn-and-talk, and then every single child wanted to talk about their favorite ride.  It was just one of those times when I knew I wasn't going to get to what I actually had planned for that day.  Then I stopped and thought "Wow!  They are so into this!"  So I asked them "Hey guys, would you like to write about amusement parks?"  They started clapping, cheering, and shouting "Yes!  Let's write about amusement parks!"  I knew I didn't have the materials for that day, so I told them to give me two days, and that we would do some special amusement-park-centered projects.

The first thing I found was the book pictured above, Tickets to Ride: An Alphabetic Amusement by Mark Rogalski.  This is an alphabet book, but it also has lots of hidden treats in it.  There's a highlighted animal and a concealed number in each illustration, and a surprise map at the end.  This is to timely because I'm teaching about maps right now in social studies.  I really enjoy showing the kids maps about things they care about, such as parks, zoos, and fairy tale maps.  I think it's so much cooler than showing kindergartners maps of their state.  I've tried doing state maps, and the kids just don't understand and don't care about what they're looking at; it's too abstract.  I notice with picture maps they really get into them and even start asking each other really great geography questions.

There's a song by Jack Hartmann called "Roller Coaster Ride" that offers an opportunity for your children to role play going on a roller coaster ride.  The song really tells you what to do, step by step, and the kids will catch on quickly because they've been on roller coasters before.

I made a brand-new amusement park writing folder with all of the rides and treats that the children could think of.  I was extremely happy with the way it came out, and decided to bundle it in a Warm Weather Writing Package on TPT.  Here are a few samples of what my kids did with the amusement park folder:

Amusement Park Samples by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

Finally, I thought it would be really motivating for the children to also have their own guided reading amusement park book.  Here it is.  I hope your students love it as much as mine.

Amusement Park by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

Let me know if you like these ideas, and I'm also really interested to know what your children are writing about!

Literacy Centers and Freebies

ABC Word Wall

I just made a new ABC Word Wall, and I wanted to share what it looks like with my bloggy friends!  Here is a Scribd version if you would like to download it:
ABC Word Wall Headings 2

I use a song by Barbara Milne called "Letter Sounds (apple, apple)" which matches the pictures on my word wall.  The song is available from her web site, and also on iTunes.  I really like this alphabet song when the children are using the pointer to follow along with the ABC's.  It's a slower song and gives the children plenty of time to find and point to each letter.  Here's a really cool YouTube video for it:


I place mini word walls in the children's chair pockets, with sight words on them.  That way, they don't have to get up and go over to the ABC wall.  They can simply grab it from their chair pocket.  You could also leave them in a bucket on the table.  I'm selling a variety of these on Teacher's Notebook and TPT.

Here's a picture of my writing center:

Writing Center

I struggled with writing center in the past, and what has really helped me is placing the theme words in a pocket chart.  That way, the kids can take them out, use them, and put them back themselves.  Plus, they can see all of the words from the theme at one time.  I downloaded the vocabulary cards from Eduplace.  The lapboard supply center, tracing letters, and magic boards are all from Lakeshore.

The final picture for today is of my library center:

Library Center

It's not quite done.  I'm going in to school tomorrow to finish before the kids show up on Monday.  I did add a basket of Beanie Babies so the kids can read books to them.  I also found some Viewmasters online that I think will be a beautiful addition to this center.  The children will be able to tell the story as they're viewing illustrations.  This toy was really popular when I was little.

I'd love to hear what all of you are doing for your literacy centers.

Gentle Superheroes

"SuperHero ABC" by Bob McLeod

Alright, my secret is out!  I LOVE superheroes!  Many of the students in my class speak Spanish as their primary language.  The most fabulous thing that I discovered is if I start to talk to my students about superheroes, suddenly they're speaking complete sentences in English.  Now, I'm not saying it's perfectly grammatically correct English, but the point is that we're having a conversation.  And isn't that what we want for our pre-k and kindergarten-age students?

SuperHero ABC by Bob McLeod is a really cool book.  Each page has a beautifully illustrated superhero who has a phonetic connection to what the superhero's power is.  For example, "Danger Man does daring deeds every day."  When I read this book to my class, the kids were SO excited!  It sparked a great deal of conversation about which superhero they wanted to be, and what powers they would have.  At the time, I did not have a followup activity for this book - it was just read for fun.  But now that I'm going back to kindergarten, I'm going to have the students illustrate and write about their favorite superhero on a T-shirt.

Superhero T Shirts

This year, I really discovered the joy of playing ABC Bingo games as a way to reinforce connections between letters and sounds.  I commissioned an up-and-coming graphic designer who I know (he loves comic books, too) to make me an entire set of superhero clip art, carefully designed to motivate young children.  I wanted to have a Superhero Bingo Game that would be gentle and appropriate for my new kindergarten classroom.  I really don't like a lot of the violence (guns, swords, claws, axes, etc.) that are used in today's animated characters.

Hence this new product, Superhero ABC Bingo (view it on TPT or TN).  I also made a Superhero ABC Mini Poster (view it on TPT or TN) to send home with my kids so that every night their parents can help them learn a new letter of the alphabet.  Finally, I just finished a Superhero Sight Word Wall Folder (view it on TPT or TN) so the children can learn kindergarten and first-grade words that correspond to each letter of the alphabet.  I will give one of these to every child in my classroom so that they can independently spell the sight words and have a feeling of growing confidence instead of always asking me to spell sight words for them.


Please let me know your opinions about using superheroes in the classroom, and if there are other products you would like to see these characters appear in.  I really enjoy hearing from all of you!

Alphabet Books

"The Letters Are Lost" and "A Gardener's Alphabet"

Two books that I feel are "must-haves" for an ABC shelf are The Letters Are Lost by Lisa Campbell Ernst and A Gardener's Alphabet by Mary Azarian.  Both books are really appealing to young children and feature letters prominently on full-page spreads in their own unique ways.

The Letters Are Lost has a little bit of a plot to it.  In the beginning, all the letters are together.  Then, one by one, they disappear to have different adventures.  I like the way the author connects the letter to where it is or what it's doing.  For example, "B tumbled into the bath" and "K hitched a ride in a kangaroo pouch."  I'm planning to put letter "P" in a bowl of popcorn, just like it's presented in the book.  I'm going to ask the children what letter they think is in the popcorn and why they think it's that letter.  I'm also going to have a treasure hunt outside, where I will hide plastic letters around the playground and have each child find one and see if they can tell me the letter's name or something that starts with that letter.

A Gardener's Alphabet introduces really neat, new vocabulary words for young children, words like "compost", "Japanese garden", "fountain" and "harvest".  I believe that children can soak up so many words when being read and shown a book.  The pictures in this book are also bold, featuring bright colors and high contrast.  There is just one word on each page, which makes this book a quick read, but there are so many wonderful ways you can integrate science as you read this book.  You can talk to the children about conservation, habitats, living things, parts of plants, and more.

Alphabet Scramble 5

I made these letters for two purposes.  One is to laminate and place in the ABC center for permanent use, and the other is to use at the beginning of the school year for the kids to glue the matching letters on the paper as an alphabet assessment.

Hands Up For Letter Sounds" by Jack Hartmann and "Who Let The Letters Out?" by Dr. Jean are really great songs to use with these activities.because they say the letters in order, they say the letter sounds, and allow the children opportunities for movement.

I made a really cool set of ABC books for guided reading that are on sale now at my TPT store.  The product is called Grocery Alphabet Books.  Click the link and take a look if you're interested!


I'm really interested in finding out what your favorite letter books are.  Please tell me about them in a comment below.

Simple and Sweet Birthday Ideas

"The Secret Birthday Message" by Eric Carle

Yesterday was my birthday and I started thinking about all the things I've done in past years to teach pre-k and kindergarten students about when their birthdays are and how people in America and various other cultures celebrate their birthdays.  This is the first of a series of posts that I will be writing about birthdays.

The Secret Birthday Message by Eric Carle is really special because it has that treasure-hunt-type feel to it.  Students have to look at shape clues to predict where the boy will go in the story to find his birthday surprise.  This book covers concepts such as shape identification, direction words and sequencing, and you could extend it to talk about map skills.  I really enjoy having my children guess what each shape represents in the real world.  Since we're always being told to include higher-level thinking for our pre-k and kindergarten kids, I think this is an excellent way to do it.

Throughout the year in pre-k I use the song "Happy Birthday Letters" by Dr. Jean.  I use the following book with the song, and my kids really focus on every single page.

Happy Birthday Letters

Another thing I do to work on one-to-one correspondence and number identification is to put straight candles and numeral candles in Play Doh Center so that children can put them in sculpted cakes.  It's easy, fun, and the students are learning how to match quantities with numerals.

In kindergarten, I use these birthday cakes with candles to teach months of the year, spelling, fine motor skills, and name writing.  Students write their names somewhere on the cake, cut out the appropriate number of candles, and glue them onto the cake.  You can use chalk, markers, crayons, paint, etc. to decorate these cakes.  I've also used sequins, foam shapes, and little paper flowers.  I always make a pre-made list to tell me whose birthdays are in which month.

Birthday Cakes and Candles 2

After we finish the cakes, there's a great song by Jack Hartmann called "Birthdays" where the children stand up and sit down when they hear their birthday month.  I've noticed that this song really helps children with focusing problems, because they have to listen to stand up for their birthday month.

For many years, I celebrated my birthday with the children and taught them traditions from around the world.  Here's one of my favorites:

Canada:  At birthday parties they serve homemade birthday cakes decorated with colored sugar sprinkles. Between the layers of the cake a wrapped coin might be found. Whomever finds it is the first to get a turn at all the party games. At the parties children receive colorful party favors called crackers. These are tubes wrapped in crepe paper. They pop when you pull a paper strip. Inside there is a small prize, your fortune or a hat.


I would really love to hear special birthday traditions or celebration ideas from you.  Please leave me a comment!

Beautiful Butterflies

This post is filled with butterfly books, songs and activities!

The books "Waiting For Wings" and "Where Butterflies Grow"

The first two books that I would like to tell you about are Waiting For Wings by Lois Ehlert and Where Butterflies Grow by Joanne Ryder.  They both have beautiful pictures, and in my opinion are appropriate to read to pre-k, k, or 1st-graders.  Both books discuss the life cycle of the butterfly and introduce vocabulary that our students will find really interesting.

The books "From Caterpillar To Butterfly" and "A Monarch Butterfly's Life"

The second two books, From Caterpillar To Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman and A Monarch Butterfly's Life by John Himmelman, are a little higher than pre-k - more appropriate for K, 1 and 2.  They still talk about the life cycle, but in a more factual, scientific manner.  I've used From Caterpillar To Butterfly when I've actually had the caterpillars in a jar in my room.  When I first started teaching, I was scared to get the Painted Lady Butterfly kit, but I assure you that it's really easy to use, and the kids love watching the process.

My pre-k kids still have problems with identifying numerals, so I used the song "Five Butterflies" by Tiana to have the children look at the number and go to drink from the "daffodil" when it was their turn, as well as showing the other students in the room the number on their butterfly.  The "daffodil" was made from a yellow tablecloth bought at a Party Store.  Here is the video if you'd like to see us doing the song:



Over the years, I've searched the internet for great songs about butterflies that my students could act out or move to in some way.  My favorite songs are:

"Butterfly Addition" by Miss Jenny (she also sings "Butterfly Subtraction")
"The Butterfly" by Dr. Jean (a really pretty fingerplay with nice movements)
"Beautiful Butterfly" by Jack Hartmann (a mellow butterfly song that's very factual - best for K and 1)
"Caterpillar" by Sharon Macdonald (a really cute story song - you can have the children use their index finger, starting at their shoe, and have the "caterpillar" crawl up to different parts of the body)
"Caterpillar's Story" by Dr. Jean (an adorable song that the kids can act out, sung to the tune of "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around")

Finally, here is an activity where the students match lowercase letters to uppercase letters.  The kids really liked this because the letters are on butterflies.  Because I had to fit so many letters and pictures on the page, this is done on legal size paper (8.5" x 14").
Alphabet Butterfly Matching

I want to make my posts as beneficial as possible.  I would appreciate it so much if you could tell me what your favorite things to see in posts are.  Do you like song lists?  Activities?  Book ideas?  Please let me know, because then I can try to include those things more often in my posts.  Thank you!

Spring Eggs

"The Easter Egg" by Jan Brett

If you're looking for the perfect book for the spring season, look no further.  The Easter Egg by Jan Brett is one of my newest favorites.  I am told that the pictures are simply gorgeous, and the kids really enjoy describing everything they see to me.  Not only is it visually beautiful, but it has a lovely lesson at the end about helping others.

Beside dying eggs and mixing colors, I also fill my water table with plastic eggs and grass, and I turn it into an educational activity by writing capital and lowercase letters with permanent marker on each half of an egg.  I've also done the same thing with sight words.

Water Table filled with grass and plastic alphabet eggs

Since I teach in a public school, I do not call the eggs "Easter eggs", I just call them "spring eggs" because a lot of animals are born in the spring time.  Discussions of eggs can also be matched with some great books that I'll talk about in my next post.

Kids absolutely love going on hunts.  I remember when I was little, even though I was visually impaired I loved finding eggs.  When I taught kindergarten I put these little messages into the eggs along with one or two treats, and the kids went crazy for them!  You'll never believe this, but actually they were more excited about what the little messages said than eating the treats!  I told them to try and read the messages themselves.  If they couldn't figure out a word, they could ask three friends for help.  If they still couldn't understand the words, then they could ask me.  It was such a wonderful time!  All the kids were showing their friends what their "magic egg" said to them.

Easter Egg Notes 2

I used this sheet to have the kids practice writing their numbers, because many of my children still wrote their numbers backwards.  I was surprised that my kids really like this paper, because the sheet is so simple.  But what I told my children to do was first trace the numbers with a black crayon, then color over the eggs with light colors such as yellow, pink, orange, or light blue.

Counting Eggs

If you're interested in guided reading books for your small group that use a huge variety of kindergarten sight words, I just put up a new packet on TPT called Egg Guided Reading Books.  If you have any questions or comments, please leave them for me below.  I love hearing what you all have to say.

Eating The Alphabet

"Eating The Alphabet" by Lois Ehlert

Eating The Alphabet by Lois Ehlert is a colorful ABC book that encourages your sweeties to learn new vocabulary as well as phonics and letter identification.  Let me be completely honest when I tell you that my kids really are into this book up to about letter K.  Then the wiggles start.  You know what I mean.  Sally starts touching Sarah's hair, Billy starts poking Carole, etc.  It's a long book.

So, this year, when I was preparing to use this book with a kindergarten class, I got smart.  I went to the grocery store and bought dates, a kiwi, and peaches.  I actually wanted mangoes, but the particular store that I went to didn't have any.  I also prepared a CD with alphabet songs on it, to get the kids up and moving.  When the students came in, I started with a song by Dr. Jean called "Phonercise."  This is such a wonderful song because it has the kids stretching up to say the letter, touching their shoulders to make the letter sound, and touching their toes to say a word starting with that letter.  I paused the song at letter K so that we could read the book up to letter K.  We read each page, clapping the syllables for each word.  This really allowed the students to be involved with the story.  It also helped tremendously with the wiggles I talked about earlier.  Showing them the real fruits also piqued their interest.  This is such a great book for introducing new fruits and vegetables to your children.  The kids told me they didn't know what dates were, so it was sort of a mini-science lesson within the language lesson.  We also check any food allergies before we let the children eat anything.  So, when we got to letter K in the book, I showed them the kiwi and then we finished the rest of the Dr. Jean song.  After finishing the song, we went back to reading the book.  It went so much better than trying to read the whole book without any kind of movement in the middle.  I will always do it this way from now on!

Sample game boards for ABC BINGO

If you're interested, I have an ABC BINGO game (available on TPT) using very colorful pictures along with letters and words on the game boards and teacher cards.  I tried this out the same day as reading Eating The Alphabet, and my small group loved it.

A Perfect Fit for Valentine's Day

Cover of the book "The Biggest Kiss"

We had such a lovely time reading the book The Biggest Kiss (by Joanna Walsh and Judi Abbot) today that I felt compelled to blog about it.  I had been searching a long time for books that lead into great discussions about size, length, height, and weight.  I have Leo Lionni's Inch By Inch and Just A Little Bit by Ann Tompert, but I could not find many others for the pre-k/kindergarten level.  I was so happy when I found The Biggest Kiss because it's about kisses from a wide variety of animals.  After reading the book, we had a discussion about which animals are tall, which animals are short, and which animals they would like to kiss.  It was hysterical!  We have also been measuring different plastic animals with snap cubes.  My students are getting really great at estimating how many cubes tall the animals are.  When we first started, two weeks ago, they would tell me "Oh, you need 100 cubes to go to the top of that animal!"  Now their guesses are much more accurate.

A really great song that I found for length is "Herman The Worm" by Mr. Al.  It's a really funny song where a little worm starts off being an inch long, and eats other animals until he's two feet long.  At the very end of the song, he's an inch again, and - well, I won't spoil it for you, but you'll love the ending!

Last night, I made this new Play Doh mat for my children to help them recognize small, medium and large.
Heart Size Sorting Mat

Thank you, Dr. Jean, for suggesting Chocolate Play Doh.  My kids just loved it!  They said the room smelled so delicious.  I also gave my students rolling pins and three different size heart-shaped cookie cutters to really get into this Art Center activity.  Here are a couple of photos of my kids enjoying it:

A student proudly displaying a heart that he cut from Play Doh

Students rolling out Chocolate Play Doh

Another thing I added to my centers today, with Valentine's Day coming soon, was this alphabet board game that the children learned how to play in small group but continued to play with independently in ABC Center.  This game is available in my TPT store!

Alphabet Board Game, with letters inside hearts

Please let me know if you have any great books that you use for your measuring units.  I would be so grateful!