New Position, New Responsibilities......

I am SUPER excited! This year I am the new District Elementary Reading Specialist! I am loving my new position and all things READING. No surprise that a primary grade teacher loves reading, but I even love the professional development, training, data tracking, assessments and goal setting that accompanies my new place in our district. I could not be happier and I feel very blessed to have this opportunity. I started in August and it has been a big undertaking. My main responsibility this year has been to better align our three elementary school in ELA. Quite the challenge, but I knew what I was getting into. I love a challenge.

Let's talk about something fun......like Read Across America! This was one initiative that was near and dear to my heart. I aligned the theme and activities of our elementary schools this year with the help of some wonderful educators who served on the Read Across America Committees at each building. I facilitated our meetings and threw out some ideas. Then the committees divided the work and got down to business.

One activity that I thought would be fun was motivating our teachers with Seuss themed snacks in the teachers' room each day. The table was set with Cat in the Hat colors and Truffala Trees at each building. Yes, I crafted the trees. They are made with body poofs, striped straws, floral foam, tin buckets and Easter grass. I know blue is not a true Truffala Tree color, but options were limited.

One of my snack days was Hop on Pop Popcorn and Pink Ink Drink. I got most of the supplies from the dollar store! I printed the signs off of website images and framed them with dollar store frames. It all came together nicely.

A couple of our teachers put together some more cute snacks.......

Cat in the Hat cheese sticks, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish goldfish, and Barbaloots snack mix! So cute and so yummy! There were so many great snacks, but I wasn't able to get pictures of them all.

Some of the wonderful activities we experienced during RAA Week were a Read Out, Snuggle In and Read, Musical Books, Teacher Reader Swap and Buddy Reading. It was a wonderful week and the kids had a lot of fun experiencing the joys of reading.

Mission Accomplished!

On my next post I'll share the home-school connection bulletin board I assembled in each building. Stay tuned!!!

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