Sunny and Bright in Primary

Primary Teaching Ideas, Resources and Strategies

Presidents Day & a Freebie!

Hello! I am popping in quickly tonight to share a few Presidents Day resources and a great freebie with you tonight! First, my Abraham Lincoln Differentiated Biography Freebie is available HERE.  This is a FREE mini close reading unit that includes a biography of President Lincoln written on 3 different levels.  You are able to present all of your students the same information on their ... read more

6 Things This Sunday

  Hello forgotten little blog!  Let me start by saying I had EVERY intention of getting a "catch up" blog post together last week... It was going to be a "Back to School, Back to Blogging" kind of thing.  The plan was to link up (for the first time!) with "Five for Friday".  However, as you can see, Friday came and went.  So instead of letting another week go by I am going ... read more

Better Than Band Aids

    So, this post is probably going to sound crazy.  I am going to tell you about this "classroom management strategy" and you are going to think I'm nuts.  It's okay.  It won't hurt my feelings.  I'm telling you, this is going to sound ridiculous but it WORKS and my kids LOVE, love, love, love it.    Alright, here we go... If you work with young kids ... read more

Baby Chicks

We had some very special visitors today! Aren't they cute??  One of my teammates (also known as my Teaching BFF) came over this morning and asked if my class could come visit for awhile.  Of course. Yes.  The answer is always yes... no questions asked.  (We have started a great "Family Time" with our classes this year and it is my favorite thing to do... more on that soon!)  She said she ... read more

5 Senses Science Fun

We have been having lots of fun launching our science study this year.  We started by brainstorming and reading about what scientists do.  Then, we talked about how we would be scientists this year and do all of these things.   Last week was all about using our 5 senses to learn about our world.  My teammate found this silly song on YouTube.  Warning: the kids will ... read more

Living/ Nonliving Worm Investigation

Since I was pretty much the worst blogger ever last year, I decided to finally share one of our favorite science units.  During our study of life science, we focused on the difference between living and nonliving things.  We started by learning what living things do, need and are.  We sang a silly song to the tune of "London Bridges" to help us remember.  "Living things can ... read more

Close Reading in Kindergarten and First Grade

Today, I want to talk about close reading in kindergarten and first grade.  I LOVE close reading with my students and I hope you do too!  It makes me so sad when I hear primary and/or early childhood teachers complain that close reading isn’t appropriate for emergent readers.  I could not possibly disagree more!  I think the problem is that most of the training on close reading seems to focus on ... read more

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

So, I just got back from the most amazing trip ever.  I was incredibly blessed to attend the 2015 TPT Conference in Vegas.  It was everything I had hoped for and much, much more.  My head is swimming and I am totally overwhelmed trying to process everything I learned... and I am LOVING it.  It feels amazing to be so inspired and motivated. I am also jet lagged and exhausted.  That is not as ... read more

Books About Kindergarten

This post combines two of my very favorite things... great children's books and kindergarten!  I am so excited to be teaching kindergarten again next year and I have been really looking forward to pulling out all my favorite kindergarten books for the first few weeks.  It took me five years in kindergarten to pull this collection together.  That's a long time searching.  So, as ... read more