Make sure you check EVERY single page. (aka teaching the human body by mistake....)

When I moved into this new classroom over the summer, I managed to take as many things as I could from my old classroom.  I took the things that I had purchased with my own money over the years (which was close to about five BILLION dollars) and some things that were gifts. 

I left many of the books.  THAT was a mistake, cause guess what?  Most first graders can already READ.   You heard me…they can read.

The other teachers on my team must have known that because they have tubs and tubs of incredible, wonderful books; books that the kids read in the morning, during our CAFÉ literacy centers, in their spare time and at the end of the day.  This means, of course, that its important to have a large library available.

With this in mind, I’ve tried to go to the Goodwill, order books with bonus points from Scholastic, and scarf up all the free books that some teachers or parents might put in the freebie pile.  I'm not doing very well in that regard. 

I hit the jackpot yesterday when I walked into the teacher's lounge and I discovered two boxes of almost brand new easy reader books!  I was ecstatic, and quickly scarfed up as many as I could.

I shared them with the class, and made them available during our Read-To-Self time.

We had a few minutes of very quiet Read-To-Self time left, when my little Professor Steven rushed to find me.  “Mrs Smythe, this book doesn’t just teach you about blinking, it teaches you other things about the human body!  Look at page 25!  Twenty-five, twenty-five, twenty-five…” he kept chanting, until I took the book from him. 

As I leafed through the book to find page 25, he shouted, “It shows how babies are born!  A lady lays on a table, and the baby comes out of something between her LEGS called a  VA-gi-na! Or something like that…”

Oh sweet Cheezus......

(Yep.   I’m still waiting for my phone to ring…..)