predicting

magazines rock: creative, crafty, sneaky-learning fun

December 4, 2011

We are huge magazine fans over here. We love finding them in the mailbox, reading them, playing detective with them, crafting with them, and learning with them.  When they arrive in the day’s mail, it’s like a getting a little gift, just for you.  And when we sit down to read a magazine, it never [...]

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playing with money: counting, wrapping, estimating coins

July 5, 2011

This week our Smart Summer Challenge theme is Government–and what better way to start the week off than by playing with money? Okay, so we really started the week off with a flag cake, but who’s really keeping track? We’ve had a huge jug in our craft room, just sitting there collecting loose change for [...]

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how to have some fun with leftover candy canes

January 12, 2011

Each year, we end up with tons of leftover candy canes after the holidays.  This year, I vowed I wouldn’t allow one candy cane in our house past January; I was determined to find some useful way of using them. So, in the spirit of our previous candy experiments, and after our wave of coughs [...]

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telling stories with norman rockwell paintings

August 13, 2010

I have always been intrigued by Norman Rockwell’s artwork. When I was young, his Girl at Mirror (1954) spoke to me so personally about the battle between growing up and embracing childhood. Looking at the girl with the picture of a model on her lap and her doll on the floor, I knew I wasn’t [...]

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a scared and lonely bear: predicting

January 7, 2010

Predicting is one of the easiest comprehension strategies to use with emerging readers, and like many of these important components of early literacy, predicting can be taught even before children can read on their own. Today, while Owen, Cora, and I took a break from watching our electrician make sense of some aging and finicky [...]

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