TpT: Splish Splash Animal Baths and a FREEBIE

If you've read my blog for awhile, you know that my district uses the Treasures reading series.  Which sometimes is a Treasure and sometimes it is.  It depends on the day. :)  When I moved from third to second this year, one thing that scared me was teaching phonics.

Let me give you a little background.  My college thought it would be totally fine to only commit TWO weeks, TWO weeks to phonics in our literacy foundations class.  As a product of whole language as a child, this was not cool.  Luckily, I've since taken a masters class in phonics and have read a lot, so I feel a little bit better about teaching phonics.  A little better, not a lot.

The thing about Treasures is that it does have some really decent activities for phonics but not really the accompanying resources.  Or maybe they do, I just can't find them in my room.  This is what happens when you switch grades/rooms a week before school starts.  Luckily, my district had a team create some pretty awesome Smartboard files to go along with each story, making teaching the phonics skill pretty easy.  Except, I wanted to have my students have some paper/pencil activities to go with them, so the concepts would stick.  Treasures has some great build and blend activities but I don't know where the letter cards are to go with them.  So I made my own. :) 

Additionally, I am starting to switch up my reading instruction.  I do small groups once a week but it's really not enough.  I've started playing with my schedule a little bit, as much as I can.  My administration dictated my instructional schedule and I can't play with it all that much.  But while my enrichment/Title reading kiddos leave, I can be meeting with my on level kids.  It's something my kids need and I know it's best practice but our schedule is goofy! I've been reviewing my Daily Five book and I think I can make this work.  

Treasures has some great leveled readers and some decent small group lessons but nothing to go along with them.  So again, I went and made my own.  :)  I personally feel this is necessary for small groups for me because help me organize our lesson more efficiently.  Plus it holds my kids accountable during our small group time. 

If you like what you see, I've uploaded this resource pack to my Teacher's Pay Teachers Store.  

Included are resources for the build and blends scattered throughout the Teacher's Manual and resources for lessons with your approaching, on level and beyond level students.  I've tried my best to label the pages and let you know which activity sheets go with which pages in the Teacher's Manual.  :)

However, I know lots of you don't use Treasures but you still teach phonics.  So here's a little freebie for you! :)  I'm going to have my kiddos go on a OR/AR word hunt around the school and I've uploaded it to Google Docs for you.  :)  My kids love anything that gets them up and moving around, thus we play scoot with anything we can, so they will love this. :) Click {here} to download your copy!

I hope all of you who are off today are enjoying your day off. :)  If not, I hope that your class was well behaved to make up for it. :)

If anybody else uses a reading series, Treasures/Reading Street, and you do the Daily Five/Small Groups, could you please share a tip that makes it work for you?  I might not get to fully implement until next year but I'd love to hear your advice/see links to resources you've found helpful.