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So Many Uses for Construction Paper!

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 I'd like to start off by saying "Happy Summer Vacation!" The weather here has definitely been nice.  Anyway, on to the topic of this post. I am constantly purchasing packages of different colors of construction paper for my tutoring supplies. I use it for so many things! I use it to write out words for BINGO games - 29 words, the same on three different colors of paper. Two different colors for the game boards, and one for the draw pile. I have pre-made templates for BINGO games, and I simply cut the words apart and use rolls of clear tape to place each word on the spaces on the BINGO board. Two boards, two different colors. And the third set of words on yet another color for the pile of words to take from. Sometimes the BINGO game is played with words to read correctly, and other times it is played with letters of the alphabet, so the student either needs to correctly identify the name of the letter or the sound(s) that it makes. I also use construction paper for Matchi...
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The Last Week of School!

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 The school year is finally coming to an end! It's been a long one, and a pretty good one. I've subbed at the elementary schools a few times, along with tutoring, etc. so I get to see the kids I work with fairly often. Summer is almost here! I'll miss working at the schools. I enjoy working with the kids in the classrooms and learning from observing the teachers good methods to make class time hands-on and dynamic, while keeping things from getting too noisy.  The seniors who are graduating this year, who went to the elementary school where I was subbing, marched through the hallways while all of the students sat along the walls with posters saying "Contratulations" and such. The seniors were all wearing their caps and gowns, and it was a fun experience for me to see them. I hope it made an impression on the elementary school students that someday they will be graduating from high school as well.  I'm glad that I'll still be tutoring some kids this summer!...
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Deck of Cards to the Rescue!

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 Hey folks! I hope you're enjoying spring! I love the warmer weather!  I often play a word game with the kids I tutor, which requires dice. Well, yesterday I forgot my supplies bag when I tutored Macie. I was like, "Oh no! Now what? How can we play?" So I thought and thought, then remembered that I always carry a deck of cards in my purse. So I pulled it out and decided that if we draw a five or lower, we move forward one space after getting the word correct, and if we get a 6-10 we move forward two spaces, and if we draw a face card, we move forward three spaces.  It worked well! Macie was really hyper yesterday, and she liked drawing a card from the deck as well as drawing a word from the word stack. So now I know that a deck of cards works well for this game in a pinch! 
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A Big "I"

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 I'm currently working with a four-year-old boy who is learning the difference between capital letters and lower case letters. It's a bit difficult for him to remember to write words in either all upper case or all lower case. He also needs to remember that when you're talking about yourself, you never use the lower case "i", always use the capital "I".  Well, I made the mistake, when he was writing in his journal, to tell him to write a "big I" instead of a capital. So he did just what I asked. He wrote a BIG "I". Can you see it in the picture? ☺
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Z Says ZZZZZ

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 I have three students who I'm teaching the sounds of the letters of the alpabet. Two of them, I know, are very familiar with the fact that Z says zzzzzz. The third is a three-year-old who is just beginning to learn the sounds, and I haven't yet tested her to see what she knows.  It's also amusing that this girl says a few of the letter sounds the same way. C and T are good examples. They both sound like "ch." We're working on it, but she does say some words with a bit of a ... I wouldn't call it an impediment, but with a three-year-old way of talking.  It's going to be difficult, especially at first, to get her to say the letter sounds correctly. But I know that she'll grow out of it.  I also have a five-year-old boy who often forgets certain letter sounds, though we've been going over them for quite a while. He always remembers S and Z though, as he loves to say, with loud enthusiasm, SSSSSSS! And ZZZZZZZ! ☺
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St. Paddy's Day 2026!

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 St. Patrick's Day! I love wearing green on that day. I love getting into any holiday. And apparently does one of the students I stay with before she goes to school.  I only saw her that day, so, unlike last year, I only got her picture. I also got a photo of the neclaces I was wearing along with my green shirt.  It was a fun day anyway, despite not seeing if the other kids were wearing green as well. My family and I had a traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner - Irish soda bread and corned beef! (No cabbage for us) I hope you had a fun day, and I hope you got into the holiday spirit and put on some green yourself!  I was waiting in line to pick up some medication, and there was a really long line. So I started talking to the elderly man in line behind me. He was wearing dark green pants and a green shirt, which he said was completely by accident that he was wearing them that day! We chatted about a lot of miscellaneous things.  I know this blog post doesn't have ...
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That's Cheating!

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 I often play Bingo with my students, using words that they have been learning or letters to identify or say the sounds the letters make when they find the letters on their boards. Today I was playing Bingo with an almost-4-yr-old boy, with the spaces on the boards depicting letters of the alphabet and a word that started with the letter shown on each individual space, the boy having to say what sound the letter made. He was pretty good at it. He knew almost every sound the letters made. In order to play, I had him pulling plastic letters out of an old tissue box that I turned into a cat face, making it into our "alphabet box." We placed little wooden blocks on our spaces when we found the letter on our boards that he pulled out of the box. We'd been playing for about ten minutes and he was close to getting a Bingo. All he needed was an S. So instead of reaching into the opening of the box without looking to find out what letter he got, he was looking into the box and pus...
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