Reindeer Literature Unit

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner.  This year has seriously flown by.  To get myself as excited as my students about the upcoming holiday season I ordered several new reindeer themed books to add to our library collection.  After reading each book I decided it was time to start working on a literature based unit that I could use and share with my fellow district library ladies!  We are a close knit group and we are always sharing lesson plans and ideas.  One activity turned into two and before I knew it I had an entire set of differentiated worksheets and games to go with each book.

 As many of you may know, I spent 19 years teaching 1st grade prior to becoming a Media Center Specialist three years ago.  Thanks to my time in the classroom I developed a LOVE of creating activities to go with books.  Not only do I LOVE reading books, but I also like creating activities that I can share with other teachers and librarians.

So, without further ado . . . here is my new reindeer unit.

  

Hopefully you already have some or all of these books in your collection.  

If not, there are links in the unit for each book on Amazon.

I always like to share a {sneak} peek at everything that is included.

Activities include a variety of  differentiated sequencing, recalling story elements, writing prompts, rhyming word activities and games that can be used with student in grades K-3.

Head on over to my TpT store to snag a copy.

 - or -

If you would like a chance at winning a free copy of this unit just comment below with your favorite Reindeer themed read-aloud.  I will choose one winner at random on Thanksgiving day.  The winner will be announced here on the blog. 

Organization is KEY

I am beyond excited to be sharing my very first post with you!!!  I thought I would kick things off by sharing something that is very important to me . . . ORGANIZATION!

I am the kind of teacher/librarian that thrives on having everything organized and having my planning done weeks in advance.  I also like to have everything for my lessons in one spot where I can access all of the materials I need for any given week.

To stay organized I{reluctantly} started using Google Slides and my Google Drive when I began my new career in the library during the 2019-2020 school year.  This also made it easy to share with my fellow district elementary library ladies.  

Each week I created a new set of Google Slides that had everything I needed for all of my K-5 lessons hyperlinked. 

Here's a peek at the format I used the past two years.  It worked great for me!

Click here to open the Google Slide.

This was extremely helpful to me during the 2020-2021 school year because I began the year on a cart going from classroom to classroom for my lessons.  I could easily sign in to my Google account and everything I needed was in one spot.

I also LOVE to write everything down in my planner as I am prepping for the week.  There's just something about a cute planner and flair pens that makes a girl happy, am I right?!?!

Towards the end of the year I got to thinking that it would really be nice to organize not only my slides, but also my plans into one single spot . . . so I began working on an online lesson plan book.  I created it using Google Slides.  Each tab is hyperlinked to the month, which makes it easy to jump to where you need to be.

I needed to make sure that it had a monthly calendar where I could add special school events.  I purchased THE. CUTEST. SET. EVER of Digital Planner Stickers For Teachers on TpT that I absolutely LOVE!!!  They are the perfect addition to my planner.

If you are like me, you probably have a list of things to do every week.  So,  I created a slide for each week where there is a place to keep a digital list and mark off items from your list once you have completed them.  This would also be a fun spot to add more digital stickers!!

Finally, the slide where I can organize all of the resources I need for my lessons.  I stuck with the color coded boxes for each grade level like I had before.  You will notice that this coming year I will no longer have 5th graders due to my district opening two new intermediate schools.  I also added a button for GOOD THINGS!!!  I always begin each class period letting my students share the good things that are happening in their lives.

Hopefully this new digital planner will keep me organized.  I have made it available to purchase in my TpT store.  Shop carefully because I have posted several options.  If there is a grade configuration that would better suit your building/classes feel free to reach out to me.  I am happy to make edits and post them.  It seems like there are so many different building configurations these days!!!