CAFE strategy signs

If you've read The Daily Five by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, then you've probably also read The CAFE Book as well. I began teaching mini-lessons that incorporated the CAFE strategies a few years ago, and set aside some wall space that looked like this:

You may have noticed that the strategies aren't handwritten. In the book, they recommend writing out the strategies with students (or having a student write the strategy) but I wanted something that looked a little bit more…well…polished. If it was going to stay up on my wall all year, I thought it should look more like a final draft. So I typed up the strategies and added pictures to them as another cue for young readers. If you'd like them, I have made them available as a free download from Teachers Pay Teachers. Just click the picture below:

Please be sure to leave a comment below or write a review on TpT, so I know whether they were helpful or not. Enjoy!

A welcome and a freebie!

It seems strange to be starting up a teaching blog right as I'm ending the school year, but there's never a bad time to say "thank you." And that's basically what this blog is. A big, fat "thank you" to all the teacher bloggers and Pinterest fanatics out there. You see, I'm wrapping up my thirteenth year of teaching, and for too many reasons to go into, it's been a rough one. I had to reassess why I was a teacher in the first place: the kids, of course, and my passion for spreading the love of learning. To keep that passion alive, I started spending a lot of time on Pinterest. A lot of time. You know what I'm talking about. Admit it. You spend too much time there too, right? (Please say yes, so I can tell my husband I'm not the only one.)

Anyway, it turns out that there are a lot of teachers on Pinterest, and in the blogging world, who are really creative and awesome and, most importantly, share their creative, awesome stuff! They've saved me a ton of time and made my teaching even better. And while I was getting super excited about all of this and maybe driving my husband a little bit nuts, a thought popped into my brain…Hey, I've made a lot of my own stuff. I could share it and maybe save someone else some time too! Because, as we all know, time is a hot commodity among teachers. So here I am.

And here is my first gift to you:

Reading Strategies Bookmark

This freebie could be two separate bookmarks or one double-sided bookmark depending on what you want to use it for. One page is the IPICK acronym from The Daily Five, and the other page (shown above) is a list of "Handy" Reading Strategies to help kids decode difficult words. I give my students bookmarks throughout the year that focus on the different skills we are working on in reading. This bookmark is what I use at the beginning of the year, since we start out with lessons on choosing good fit books. Most of my students come into my room familiar with the strategies on the Handy Strategies side since our entire school does Daily Five and CAFE. If they didn't, I would probably choose to introduce the Handy Strategies bookmark after I had taught them the strategies. Let me know if you find this bookmark useful!