Fluency with Hameray Publishing

In today’s classroom, there is a lot of focus on fluency! Children are supposed to be able to read to us as if they were talking to us. So we begin in the primary grades to focus on fluency using easy text.

In my room, I wanted my children to read fluently but not just fiction books. I wanted them to read nonfiction books as well. This is why I love the ZooZoo series by Hameray Publishing!

This series have a nonfiction section as well as a storytellers section. This allows us to bring in various texts that will peek their interests and ones that we can use during our guided reading groups as well.

The books we read were Zebras, Oh Zebra, Frog and Frogs Play.

As usual, we began by reviewing the vocabulary! Each book had some awesome words to review with my kids! I love having my kids come up with synonyms for the vocabulary words. They always surprise me with their ability to inference! I will review vocabulary two ways: just give them the word and allow them to try on their own and then build on to what they are saying or I will use the word in a sentence and have them use their context clues to figure out the meaning!

I love using fiction and nonfiction books together. It allows them to compare and contrast. They are also able to tell the difference in fiction and nonfiction using the texts as examples. These are common core standards in First Grade.

So before we read the fiction books, the kids made inferences! They looked at the cover and told me what they thought would happen. We would then read the stories to see if their inferences were correct.

With the nonfiction stories, they shared all that they thought they knew about the animal. We completed can, have, and are charts using the nonfiction texts.

The text in both the fiction and the nonfiction books  were perfect for my small group and my low readers! But all of my kids gravitate towards these books! They love the pictures and the easy to read text!

As I read the text to them, I stop and ask them questions. I also allow them to ask questions and to talk with a partner throughout the book.

I love these pages!!!!!!!!! Look below and click on the picture for the link to the series!

The Nonfiction Texts

The Fiction texts

I love how we can compare and contrast the two series. That is a common core standard for first grade. Comparing and contrasting two texts about the same topic. But we could also compare the texts against each other frogs and zebras. They were able to discuss the differences in environments and storylines as well as diet and life cycles.

 After we discussed the books we then completed some activities! The pages that we completed are below!  click on photos for link to worksheets

Have an awesome day!

Joy Cowley Contest!

Hello, everyone! I can not believe that it is already February!! And with February comes a contest!!! I love Mrs. Wishy Washy and I am so excited to be able to bring this opportunity to all of you!!

The Joy Cowley Classroom Giveaway by Hameray Publishing is here! One lucky classroom will win an entire set of Joy Cowley Collection leveled readers (60 books), Joy Cowley Early Birds lower-leveled readers (45 books), all of her newest big books (34 big books), a set of finger puppets, and more!

These books pull in even the most reluctant readers with their humor and whimsy. Your students will clamor to keep reading about their new friends: Mrs. Wishy-Washy, Hungry Giant, the Meanies, and more. Recurring characters make them reach for the next book, and playful storylines lead them to finish it. All books in this package are written at guided reading levels C–I. Read more about the books included here.

This contest is closing February 28, so enter now! Winners will be announced March 1.

So click on the picture below to enter!!!

Good Luck Everyone!!!!

Ocean Life

What do all kids love? Animals, especially Ocean Animals!

I was lucky to be able to preview and use these amazing nonfiction ocean animal books from Hameray Publishing.

In first grade, we are focusing a lot on nonfiction readers. It is hard sometimes to find a nonfiction reader that is right for all of your students. These nonfiction readers are great for all of your learners.

To begin our lessons, we always start with our Wonder wall.  The kids get a sticky note and they write the one thing they wonder about or want to know about the ocean life creature we will be learning about. For those of you who do not know what a wonder wall is, a wonder wall is a place in the room where the kids can hang their wonders up and we refer to it throughout the lesson.

After the wonder wall, I show them the cover of the book. The kids look at the cover and then turn and talk with a partner to see what they know or think they know about the ocean creature. 

After we discussed the cover, We began to read the book. I love the pages because the pictures are bright and colorful and the text is easy for all learners to be successful. The pages are not cluttered so the reader can focus on what the text is saying. As I read the text to them, I stop and ask them questions. I also allow them to ask questions and to talk with a partner throughout the book. 

I love these pages!!!!!!!!! Look below!

After we discussed the books we then completed some activities! The pages that we completed are below! 

click on photo for link to worksheets

I loved these books! I used just the Sea Turtle book as an example in my post. Here are the other books we used!

click on picture for link to order these titles

We then ended our unit using my Ocean Life Research project! They all chose an ocean life creature, researched it, wrote their paper, created note cards and a poster to present to class and then presented their project to the class and to families who came! You can purchase my Ocean Life Project in my TPT store. Just click on the photo below!

Mrs. Wishy Washy's Ice Cream!

Hello! I was fortunate enough to be able to read, use and review some Wishy Washy books from Hameray Publishing!

I love Mrs. Wishy Washy! I mean who doesn't! I have read Mrs. Wishy Washy and Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm for years in my classroom and the kids love them!

So, I had the opportunity to read and use books about Mrs. Wishy Washy that I have not heard of and I have to tell you the one I am reviewing this week, I absolutely love! So do my kids!

I read the book: Wishy Washy Ice Cream!

Anything that has ice cream is amazing to me so I couldn't wait to use this!

Click on the book to go to the site for purchasing and other info:

The text was perfect for my small group! The kids loved it and they loved the fact that they could read it themselves. The pictures were perfect, not overwhelming!

Mrs. Wishy Washy is a beloved character and combining her with ice cream provides us with so many things we can do in the classroom!

Here are some of the things my kids did!

First, we used our five senses and described ice cream! We filled out this chart together! The adjectives were both  amazing and funny!

We then created a minibook about ice cream so first they filled out their graphic organizer!

Then they took this and wrote their own book!

we then did a small writing for morning work the next day about ice cream! They also made a giant paper ice cream to glue their writing to!

And of course we read an emergent reader that I wrote about Mrs. Wishy Washy's Ice Cream!

You can get all of these papers by clicking here:

So this is just the first book I have reviewed! I will be doing another one next week! I hope you will enjoy this and use this book in your room!

Also click Mrs. Wishy Washy below to get the clipart to make the Mrs. Wishy Washy pointers for your kids to follow along with! All you have to do is copy, laminate, cut and hot glue to a popsicle stick!!!

A Joy Cowley Giveaway!!!

I love books! I love to share books with my kids! I absolutely love Mrs. Wishy Washy and so do my kids! When I had the opportunity from Hameray Publishing to review some books and have help get the word out about their awesome giveaway, I was on board immediately!!!

I am so honored to have this opportunity to give you a chance to win an awesome Joy Cowley prize pack! This pack consists of the collection of 60 titles written by Joy Cowley, 30 titles of Joy Cowley Early Birds, 19 Joy Cowley Big Books, Mrs Wishy Washy & Friends Finger Puppets and more!!!! This is a prize pack valued over $1,0000!!!!!  The contest ends April 13th and the winner will be announced on April 14th!!!! 

Hameray Publishing is famous for Mrs. Wishy Washy but they have some other characters too! I got to read and use some books about two other characters! Mr. Noise and Barbie, the sheep!

Can I just say, I loved these characters by Joy Cowley! My kids enjoyed them!

The first character that I was introduced to was: Mr. Whisper!

Mr. Whisper is a sweet man who always talks in a whisper. He talks so low that people can barely hear him. The books were entertaining and my kids loved them. They enjoyed them and begged for more.

The books I read were:

My kids loved tis book. Mr. Whisper has a poem for Miss Candy for Valentine's Day. He tries to share it with her but she can't hear him! Hmmmmmm. What does Mr. Whisper do to share his poem???? I stopped reading the book before the ending and had my students draw what they thought would happen next. Their results were so cute!

Mr. Whisper ears are hurting! The noises around him are so loud.  he goes to the doctor but does not hear what he wants to hear What can Mr. Whisper do about his ears? My students had a variety of answers.

Noises, Noises, everywhere! Poor Mr. Whisper! What can he do about all the noises? He tries to resolve the problem through phone calls and conversation but he talks so low that nobody can hear him!!!!

Mr. Whisper was a character that my students and I just loved and can not wait to read more stories and share more of his adventures!!

The next character we read about was Barbie the Lamb!

Very different character from Mr. Whisper. This character made my kids laugh. She is mischievous and fun!

The three books I read were:

This book introduces us to Barbie! Barbie is a fun and mischievous character! When I read this book, I read the title and asked my kids what they thought the book was about. They thought Barbie was going to be a wild animal like a wolf. This was great for vocabulary! 

This book is abut Barbie getting a haircut. Barbie was getting sheared and was not going to make it easy for the farmer. We researched sheep and the shearing of their wool. We also learned about spinning wheels. This book had a lot of awesome vocabulary and provided a chance to do some great lessons! We did a text to self connection about how Barbie felt about getting a haircut and how they felt. 

When you think of a Pet Day, what animals do you think you will see? This is how I started this book off and their answers were typical. The looks on their faces as we read about Barbie the sheep at Pet day were priceless. They just laughed and giggled throughout!

These two characters by Joy Cowley are enjoyable and fun! 

When you think of Joy Cowley, you automatically think of Mrs. Wishy Washy but she has so many other wonderful characters for your kids to experience. The two new characters I read about with my kids were well received and my kids wanted to hear more books about these two characters. What is awesome is that Hameray Publishing has a new character set that includes many of their new characters, Mr. Whisper and Barbie are included! 

What is great is that these characters are also available in guided reading sets!!! This made me happy because my kids loved them and wanted to read them all the time. The vocabulary is rigorous yet the kids were able to read them with some assistance! They provide many opportunities for some great book talks and guided reading lessons!!!!

So there are the two awesome new characters that I got to read about and share with my kids! I highly recommend them to be an addition to any classroom and their class library!

Now you have a chance to win an awesome Joy Cowley prize pack! This pack consists of the collection of 60 titles written by Joy Cowley, 30 titles of Joy Cowley Early Birds, 19 Joy Cowley Big Books, Mrs Wishy Washy & Friends Finger Puppets and more!!!! This is a prize pack valued over $1,0000!!!!!  The contest ends April 13th and the winner will be announced on April 14th!!!! 

So click on the picture below to enter:

Don't forget to check out these new characters by Joy Cowley! You won't be disappointed and don't forget to enter for your chance to win this amazing prize pack!!! The contest ends April 13th and the winner will be announced on April 14th!!!! So click below and enter!!!!