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Welcome to Melanie's Lab and Library

Differentiated, Versatile, and Thoughtful Teaching Resources

Pumpkin Alphabet Cover-Up

Many of my students need repeated practice with reviewing their letters and sounds.  When learning the alphabet, it is important that students know letter names, sounds, and learn how to write the letters.  It is important to work with letters in many different ways so that students get repeated practice.  And of course, I always love a good game. Slide1.PNG

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Back to School with Food Allergies

Going back to school is such an exciting time of year, but for families of children with food allergies, it can also be filled with anxiety.

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Letter Formation

Learning to write is an exciting step for all young children, but it is also very developmental.  Different children learn to write letters at different ages and that is ok!

Letter Formation

How can you support your child’s writing at home? Here are a few activities and projects you can do to help your child learn to write letters.
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DIY Summer Math Workbook: Inexpensive and Fun!

DIY Summer Workbook

Summer is here! Many of your kids are probably out of school or soon to be starting summer vacation.  Fun and relaxation is a very important part of summer break.  It is a great opportunity to spend 1:1 time with your kids.  Many parents also want their child to do a little learning over the summer.  Don’t worry, summer learning can be interactive, fun, and inexpensive too!

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Mystery Word

This is a fun, whole class or small group activity to practice spelling and working with words.  I love it because it incorporates word play and my students love it because they enjoy figuring out the “mystery word.”  Slide1

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For Parents: All About Reading Levels

Do you want to know how to choose “just right” books for your child to read over the summer?  Here are a few resources to help you out.Slide1

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Thematic Guided Reading Units

Teaching beginning readers is an awesome experience.  Seeing kids learn to use many different strategies to help them learn to read is one of my favorite things.

I work with a large population of English Language Learners, so in addition to learning to read, many of them are learning English.  This added an extra challenge for the beginning readers in my class.  As I was working with my kindergarten students, I was noticing that many of them were having trouble applying the reading strategies I wanted them to practice.  When I prompted them to “look at the picture” or “make the beginning sound” they couldn’t because they did not remember the name of the object in the picture.

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At Home: Mystery Word

Mystery Word is a fun and engaging way to practice different spelling patterns.  Best part? It is quick to prep and play!

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At Home: Spelling Word Race

Many kids have weekly spelling lists to practice and that can be tedious and boring, so I made a quick little game to help make spelling practice a little more fun!

Spelling Word Race

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