Making the Most of Winter: Literacy Ideas

Winter lasts forever here in the Chicagoland area, so what do we do? We make the most of it! With my little readers, that means practicing all sorts of reading skills, but making it more exciting…with everything being winter-themed. My little friends truly love when we get new literacy centers, stories, etc that fit with our season or theme. Most of the time, they are so distracted by the new theme that they don’t even realize we are working super hard- they just think everything is so fun and a game! 🙂

We’ve been working on A TON of literacy skills- from reading CVC words, identifying sight words, rhyming words and the beginning/ending sounds in words. We are practicing all these skills with a fun winter theme, of course! You can check out these literacy centers here.

Another way we keep the winter theme going in our room is through our close reading passages. These stories are so fun for my little friends to listen to and dive into. They love the passages and love even more being able to discuss the passages and then complete their own graphic organizers. They enjoy having their own passage to mark up too- they always ask me, “Can I circle this? Can I underline it?” which I just love because it shows that they really are paying attention to the text and soaking it in- woohoo!  You can check out this Winter Close Reading Pack here.

And since we are on the topic of close reading…here’s a little freebie that you can check out. It’s a great resource to just get you started with close reading in your classroom! This pack follows the same format as all my other close reading packs- teacher passage for displaying, lesson plan, student copy and graphic organizers for the re-readings. Grab it here!