Making Connections and Monster Literacy Bins

   You know that feeling back in college when you completed a 100 page paper on the impact of American economics on the world market (at least those were my papers in my undergrad program)? That is the sense of relief I felt yesterday morning after a week full of conferences. I had 100% of my families attend before, after, or even between school to discuss their kiddos goals! Heck ya! Most of my kiddos even helped conduct half of the conference by using their Leadership Data Notebooks to share their goals and progression of growth. So proud of my kiddos communication skills!!! Our goal is that each of them will conduct the WHOLE conference in the spring.
   This past week in my Walk to Read rotations we have been practicing our October comprehension strategy of Making Connections. We use the beanie baby strategies so it is perfect that Spinnner Spider is our visual for the month. To be introduced to Spinner's strategy my kiddos made their own spider webs. We punched holes around the outside of a paper plate and used black string to "connect" the holes together to make a web. Then my kiddos placed a little plastic spider ring onto their web. Each time we discuss the three types of connections my kiddos will place a Spinner Spider onto their plate.

   This week we used the story Where's My Mummy? to make text-to-self connections. We stopped periodically throughout the book to write some connections my kiddos were making on sticky notes and placed on our Making Connections anchor chart. The best part is when my kiddos made their own mummies out of toilet paper. They turned out so cute!

This upcoming week we will use the story Are You My Mother? to make text-to-text connections. 

   With our comp day yesterday I prepped my Halloween Math bins and new Monster Literacy bins. Here is a look at how I organize everything in the bins to make it simple for my kiddos to have everything they need in one spot. 

    I use the .99 bins from Target. They are so durable and easy to open for the littlest of hands. I place numbers on the outside of all of my bins on both sides. That way my kiddos can place them back onto our word work or math cart shelves anyway and others will still see the bin number.

   On the inside of each bin I place all of the recording sheets for the activity in a plastic sleeve with a matching number to the bin at the top of the sleeve. That way my kiddos can make sure they have the correct directions to the activities in the bin. All directions are at the top of my recording sheets for the bins activities. This is a short vowel word sort from my Monsters Unit. I found cute little monster bins in the $1 section at Target that I am using for my kiddos to match their word monster into. They then record their word on the recording sheet. My kiddos were introduced to these games during their word work rotation last week in Walk to Read so they will have a little background knowledge as to how to play. You can get both my Halloween Math bins and Monster Literacy bins by clicking on the images below. Plus, everything in my store is on sale for the Columbus holiday weekend!