Question

Do you guys create actual completed lesson plans each week? I do not have to turn in lesson plans, but I've been doing an ok job so far of doing the lesson plans and filling everything in for the curriculum map that I've been creating (because there isn't one to speak of). However, I'm getting awfully tired of this and am thinking about just doing a quick summary in my curriculum map and calling it a day. (Karin, it is similar to yours -- an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of columns for skills, standards, content, resources, etc. so it's not like I'm not keeping track of things.) Unless I have a sub, I think the 3 or 4 lines of content "reminders" are usually enough to keep me going. Is this bad and unethical as a teacher/librarian? Ugh.

Squirrelly Little Kids

by the way, does anyone have any good recommendations for read-alouds for squirrely K/1 classes? i have a few that really struggle to listen to a story, so i've been trying to do a lot of participatory and/or rhythmic & rhyming books that they can get into the beat of, or whatever. my list so far is pretty short:

Yo! Yes?
Chicka Chicka books
I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track
Dooby Dooby Moo, etc.

any other suggestions?

Thanks!
Liz
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Some of my other favorites for squirrelly K/1 classes are:

Sometimes I'm Bombaloo (one of my favorites to read aloud particularly since our kids have some anger issues)
The Recess Queen
Tikki Tikki Tembo
Charlie and Lola books (they aren't as participatory, but the kids really like them and they're fun to read a loud)
Alexander and the No Good Very Bad Day
Punk Farm
Any of the Pigeon books (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, etc.)
The Stupids Step Out (they love the word "stupid" being repeated and the humour is right on a K level)
Miss Nelson is Missing
If... (if you can get a big book of this I think the kids would really get into it- we don't have one)
Don't Make Me Laugh! by James Stevenson (I just discovered this one and think the kids would love it, but I haven't tried it yet)

We tried Olivia this week and it went over okay, not as well as some of the other books on the list. The kids responded much better to Olivia and the Missing Toy.
Karin

First Post

Hi guys. I am putting off doing lesson plans for this week and thought I'd take myself up on the offer to create a blog. I am trying to be Web 2.0 but it's tough with so much else going on, i.e. daily survival. Regardless, I think it will be useful to have a shared space to post and save information -- every time I have to hunt back through past e-mails to find something, I want to pull out my hair. I just double checked and you can RSS this blog as long as I keep it public, I think. I just subscribed to it in my feeder.