DIBELS Prep Bellwork

I am linking up with Jennifer at Simply Kinder for her Teaching Blog Linky Party!  Woot, woot!  Go take a look and find some great new blogs (and probably some pretty sweet freebies).

Things have been absolutely crazy around here.  I bet it's been the same for you.  I know people think that teachers have all of this time off, but as I pointed out to one of my friends, teachers work even on their breaks.

With that being said, I am SO SUPER excited to show you what I have been working on.  I had a test run in my own classroom the last two weeks of school.  If it can work then, it can work anytime.  Am I right?  Holy smokes, were they ready for break!

Anyhoo, my RTI time is in the morning during bellwork.  I have twenty minutes to work with my students that need a little extra help.  My aide pulls students to work on sight words while I pull students for RTI.  The rest of the class works independently on bellwork.  Yes, my kiddos have been trained to complete bellwork on their own.  I go over the instructions and complete one day of bellwork with them.  If they can't remember what to do after that practice day, they must ask a friend before raising their hand to ask me.

I made a full 40 days of bellwork using the same format, so your students will be pros by the time they are finished with all of the pages.

The first page focuses on the skills that are tested on the middle of year and end of year DIBELS assessments.  The kids read nonsense words, letter names, and they complete phoneme segmentation.  I also added a sentence (or two or three) to start them on reading comprehension, which is tested in first grade.

The back of the page has three days of the format shown above.  It has rainbow words, fill in the missing letter, and practice sentence writing.  Now, if you teach kindergarten at a Spalding school, these words practice spelling lists 6-13.  Don't worry if you don't teach kindergarten at a Spalding school!  These words are taken from the Ayres list of high frequency words, so it will benefit your students as well. 

 On day four, your students will have a word scramble with the spelling words.

On day five, your students will have a word search with the words that have been practiced all week.

I am in LOVE with this bellwork!  My students are challenged, they let me work with my students that need extra help, and my DIBELS scores have improved.  Have I mentioned how much I love this bellwork?

If you would like to take a look, click here.  I am going to have it on sale for this weekend only.  The price will go back to normal on Monday, so hurry up and take a look!  

I am in an amazing mood, so I am going to throw a sale as well.  Everything in my store is 20% off.  Woot, woot!  But, you had better hurry because prices will go up on Monday.  Click here to take a look.

I hope you are having a fantastic, relaxing (ha, ha) break!  Have a great weekend!

DIBELS Madness!!!

It's kind of like March Madness, minus the basketball and the betting (and plus several hundred kids).  The teacher that is normally in charge of DIBELS is on maternity leave, so I volunteered to help out.  I mean, how hard can it be?  Oh, man!  What in the world did I get myself into?

It has been pure madness the past two weeks.  We made it through the DIBELS process last Thursday and Friday.  I am so thankful my principal allowed me to have a sub last Friday, because the process of report printing and organizing seriously took the entire afternoon.  Then, came the make-ups, which happened during my specials, recess, and lunch time.  Tis the season for sickness!  Thankfully, one of the aides finished them up yesterday.  Woot, woot!

Out of that two weeks of madness came a pretty handy reference guide.  If you have taken a DIBELS training, it is in your manual (but who likes to go back and reference that all of the time?).  This is not my work, just my reformatting and a product of my obsession with fonts and borders.

I wanted a document that would help me see the cutoffs for the various benchmark tests.  When we decide which kids need extra help, we pull the kids that were close to the benchmarks, so we can give them the little boost before the next benchmark.  So, I made the goals by grade level, so I could see where the kids are going, in a quick and easy to read format.  This freebie has the benchmark goals for kindergarten through third grade.

I am making this one a freebie for Facebook fans.  So, if you are already a fan, thank you!  If you are not a fan, go to my Facebook page, like Nurturing Noggins, and then click on the "Freebies for Fans" tab at the top.  Super simple, and this file will be super helpful!

Also, go check out the American History deal on Educents.  It really has some AMAZING products, and is well worth the money.  Lately, Educents has been sending some great discount codes, so sign up for the e-mails to save even more money.  Who doesn't love saving some money, right?

  

Educents American History Bundle

I am super excited to be included in this bundle with Educents!  I have all of the products that are in this pack.  If you teach about US symbols or famous Americans, you really need to take a look.  The bundle is loaded with American History goodies for 1st through 4th grade!  66% off the regular retail value and over 400 pages!  

I actually have two products in the bundle.  :)

The first is the US Symbols pack.  Are you looking for a way to teach the US symbols to your little peanuts?  This unit makes it so easy, and it is completely brought down to their level!

It goes over the following US symbols:

For each symbol, there are:

The little readers are super easy to put together.  They are two pages double sided, two staples along the spine, and a cut in half.  I can make a class set in less than ten minutes (including copying time).

There are anchor charts for each symbol.

At the end, there is a fill in the blank summative assessment with an answer key (in case you want them to grade their own papers).

The second is my favorite!  I love my little easy readers!

There are 14 little books that were written at little people level.  They are not wordy or lengthy.

 In my classroom, for each little book, we read the page together, and add an illustration that makes sense for when we re-read to gain fluency.

There are many other products in our bundle to get your kids learning about America!  

Comprehension passages & questions, timelines, vocabulary, maps, research projects, readers and so much more!  

We have all linked together to show you exactly what's included in this bundle.  So hop along to the next person to see the next product!

The deal won't last long so head over now!