1. I absolutely love Gilbert in Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink. He is a character that the children can identify with. I used this as a read aloud this week. It is an excellent book to teach cause and effect. Gilbert's actions cause a whole chain of events to happen during the day of his class Valentines Exchange. I had the children make a list of cause and effect situations from the story and pick a couple to write on their cause and effect hearts. They colored the hearts when they were done.
2. We decorated our Valentine's Bags with cute little crafts from DLTK.
3. I used the candy heart array from my Valentine Mini Pack as a quick assessment on the concept and found that four of my children didn't quite grasp the concept and pulled them for a reteach.
4. We had fun at the Valentine Party. My room parent had the children play a game where they needed to unwrap a foiled candy heart with mittens on, pop the candy in their mouth, and pass the mittens to the next person. The first team finished won!
5. My freebie this week is something I created to help my children self monitor their comprehension. During guided reading this week I focused on this with a small group that needs work on monitoring comprehension more frequently than others. This is also something I shared with the parents at conference time to help at home. Click below to download.



