The "an" family

A quick 4 day getaway to Mexico was just what I needed to gear up for the next few months. The fun and sun did my heart good. In case you're wondering… Mr. Lloyd travels a TON for his job. Like he's been out of town every other week since Christmas. We kind of miss him. It's hard on the ol marriage and my sanity to have him gone so much. So, to reward myself for kicking butt while he's gone, I sometimes tag along on his trips if he happens to be going somewhere cool. Like Can Cun. It was a blast and I had yes idea how much I would like it. I'm more of a tag along to europe kind of girl. But tropical is now on my i want to go again list. 

And now back to the real reason I blog… This week we learned about the "an" family. I really love the I Can Read books we get every month. Each month I love how the books grow with the children. They build on what they have already learned and teach something new. 

Going along with the prompts in my teacher guide, I taught them a bunch of "an" words and we explored this new idea by rolling a cAN around as we thought of new words. Since I'm still assessing skill levels for each child, the assess prompt was helpful for me to know what to look for. 

We read through the book a few times. The last read through, I let them pop out of their seats whenever they heard an "an" word. Just for fun. 

Once I was sure they had a pretty good grasp on this new word family, I sent them to their desks and instructed them to read through each page and identify all of the "an" words by circling them. This was a bit of a challenge for a few but I'm happy to report that every one was able to find words to circle. I think they get it! 

I sent the books home with the homework to cut out the words and make their own story. 

 I don't save work for them here at school. I don't have space and unfortunately, I'm not that organized. But, I hope that parents keep some of these books and journals that we use each month. I still have a lot of preschool papers, and books, and crafts that my four kids did when they were my students. I treasure them! I look at them and wonder how they were ever so small and marvel at how much they have learned. And then I'm sad because they are growing up.
So parents, keep these little journals and books! I know that our homes get over run with papers from school but you'll be happy one day that you have a record of what their first handwriting looked liked or that the people they drew all had belly buttons or that they were obsessed with the color orange. I know you don't think  you'll forget these details, but you do. Ah shoot, I'm getting all emotional again. Sorry. This was meant to be a purely educational post. I better sign off before I start crying.

Until next time…