Family Reading Corner: Get ready for spring with active books

Stretch! Bend! Jump! Dance! It’s time to shake off the weary winter weather and move with a spring in your step. Read one of these children’s books about movement and exercise and be ready to act out the motions with your young listener.

• “Twist with a Burger, Jitter with a Bug,” by Linda Lowery, illustrated by Pat Dypold. This rhyming, rhythmic, bouncy book is illustrated in collage with bold shapes and colors. The catchy text gives the message that we can move, dance, and find rhythm in life all the time. This book may introduce some new vocabulary to your child in these dance names: mambo, jig, polka, jitter, jive, rumba and waltz.
• “Who Bop?” by Jonathan London, illustrated by Henry Cole. A colorful book with a jazzy beat shows animals with music and moves. Cool Cat plays the sax and bunnies do the sock hop. The text is a tongue-twisting rhyme. “Get down, play that thing! If it’s got that swing it means EVERYthing. Jazz-Bo knows it. Says, ‘Hope I don’t blow it!’ He squeezes them blues right out of his shoes.”
• “How Can You Dance?” by Rick Walton, illustrated by Ana Lopez-Escriva. Get ready to move like the animals do when you read this book. “How can you dance as you swim in a pool? Dance like a frog feeling fine, keeping cool. How can you dance when you’re mad as a bee? Dance around, around, around — wildy.”
• “Dancing in My Bones,” by Sylvia Andrews, pictures by Ellen Mueller. Dancing, bouncing, clapping, toe-tapping and singing; the catchy stanzas rhyme and repeat. Illustrations are happy watercolors with big-headed, smiling children, rainbows and flowers.
• “Tumble Bumble” by Felicia Bond. A zig-zagging and growing parade of animals have mishaps and fun as they tumble, bumble along. The book ends with a quieting down as everyone heads off to bed.
• “Get Up and Go!” by Nancy Carlson. The author/illustrator uses Lou Ann Pig, Henry and their animal friends to show why exercise is important and all the ways to do it.
You can be involved with sports, play at the park, hike, garden, or dance in your living room. Moving is good for a healthy body.








(from: http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20130410/NEWS01/304100099/Family-Reading-Corner-Get-ready-spring-active-books)

Hard work pays off!

Congratulations to Matthew B., Des'nee T., and Elisha S. who have completed the Title One reading program! These hard-working readers are using multiple reading strategies independently, are able to retell key events in stories, and are able to make connections between texts and their own lives.  I will keep checking in with these students as they continue to learn new information within the classroom.

Jefferson is Going Green!

Jefferson is celebrating Earth Week this and next week.  I had the terrific opportunity to help Mrs. Hendricks' class and Mrs. Galewski's class make bookmarks out of recycled materials.  Look how awesome they turned out:

In addition to helping them, I have found several books about recycling that you can check out of the library to help your children continue to learn about the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) at home:

Another way that you can teach your children about recycling is by recycling their old books.  How can they do this?  You can have your child take their old books to Half Price Books or Goodwill. Other children will be able to purchase and read these gently-loved books.  This is "Reusing." 

Teaching Sight Words

According to www.k12reader.com, "sight word acquisition is an important building block in the construction of a child's ability to read.  Once s/he is able to read all of the sight words on the Dolch word list, for example, s/he has access to up to 75% of what is printed in almost any piece of children's literature.  The more one-on-one time a child has learning and practicing sight words with an adult, the greater his/her chances to integrating them into his/her long-term memory."

Below are three ways that we have worked on getting sight words "stuck" into our brains!