Finally… A Listening Center!

I know that I'm a little late to the game… okay, maybe a LOT late to the game (it's almost May- yikes!), but I finally got a listening center up and running!  I am SO pumped!

I LOVE shopping at Goodwill for children's books.  Look what I scored this week!

13 books, with audio cassette tapes!  TWO BUCKS FOR EACH SET!

Remember those cassette tapes?  I had to explain to my students how these were like CDs from when I was a little kid.  "Back in the olden days, we didn't have iPods…. and we had to have tape players…."

It was a difficult concept for them to grasp.

So, I found a boom-box with a tape deck, and got this listening center rolling!  They LOVE it!  (I wish I had gotten myself in-gear sooner in the year.)

Of course, I had to do lots of demonstrating of how to put the tape in and how to rewind it.  We did lots of practicing of how to operate the tape player, and how to sit elbow, elbow, knee, knee (EEKK), so everyone can see the book.  So far, it's working great!  Eventually, I would love to have my listening center be digital, like Mrs. Stanford's Class's Listening Center.  I love how she has it all organized with the iPods and headphones at a table.

But for now, these old-school tape cassettes will do the trick!  :)

What does your listening center look like?  How many books do you have in your listening center?

(More) New Books!

I had a successful trip to Goodwill yesterday... and left with a whole boxful of new books for my classroom library!

I even found some of the class' favorites!  I found some books from the Goosebumps series, the Junie B. Jones series, and some awesome nonfiction books about sharks and mammals.

Goodwill is tricky because you have to be willing to dig for good finds.  There are many, many books on a shelf and they aren't in any particular order.  I spent about 30 minutes searching.

I haven't showed them to the class yet... but I know they will be very excited!! (Don't you just love when kids get excited about books?!)

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward

New Books

During Friday's Carnival at school, there was a Scholastic Book Fair going on in our Library.  The kids were so excited to look at all the new books they could buy!

We went down on Wednesday with our "Wish Lists" in hand, so they could write down the titles and prices of all the books they wanted.  Then I told them to choose their "must-haves", because some of their lists got to be 20 titles long!

A few months ago, my class won in our school's "Book Bingo" game, and was awarded $25 to the Book Fair.  I was looking forward to getting new titles for our classroom library.  Look what I picked out!

The Book Fair was Buy One, Get One Free, so I really ended up with double the books!

Whenever I get a book order in, they get excited to see what I've chosen to add to our classroom library.  I am so excited to show them what I got on Friday!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward