HeidiSongs Teaching Resource

For our last day of school, last year we had our very first Pirate Day!  It really was a blast- simply the very best last day of school I have ever had in all of the years that I have been teaching!  I have been waiting to blog about it so that it would be closer to the end of the school year for most of you.  If you have been following my blog this year, you will notice that the pictures of the children are a bit unfamiliar.  That’s because they are pictures of my students from last year!  Hopefully, it will not already be too late for you to use these ideas, but if so, then maybe you can file the ones you like away for next year and go enjoy your summer! Below are the activities that we did for our Pirate Day.  We did each one during our small group rotation.  I had no trouble getting lots of volunteers to come and help out on that day, given that it was a special “party type” of day.   I also asked for donations of plastic gold coins so that we could give them out as

1.  Fire Truck Guided Drawing Recently, we visited our local fire station for a tour and a lesson in fire safety from our local heroes. I also taught the children how to draw a fire truck, so I thought I would share it with you here as a free download today! I have also thought that the fire fighters would love to have some of these pictures as thank you notes, but it sure is hard to get the children to part with them once they are done!  I think we will have to make another set so that we will have some extras to give away.  Enjoy! 2.  The Sounds Fun Phonics CD Is Finally Here! We finally were able to pick up the finished CD’s, and I again feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment!  Every time I bring a new project from tiny little idea to completed project, I am amazed at how great it feels, and how blessed I feel to have such a wonderful support system in place that helps me achieve such things.  My music arranger and co-writer for this project, Mike Cravens

As I move into the month of May and closer to the end of the school year, I am always interested to see how far I am able to take some of my little ones that seem ready to progress beyond the basics. So in reading this week, I decided to focus on words with an “ou” spelling pattern in the middle and see how the children could do. 1. Word Family of the Week Chart, and a Great Little Game  I have used this neat little pocket chart from Really Good Stuff each year since I got it about five years ago! I just stapled it up to the wall next to my calendar, and now we read it in the morning after our flag salute and calendar routine. On Monday after lunch this week, I also passed out dry erase boards, and played a little game with the children. I sounded out a word from the chart and asked them to think which word it might be, and write it down. I didn’t say the word; I only sounded it out slowly. That meant that the children had to think about all of the sounds that they hea