Monthly Must-have Linky!

Are you as happy that tomorrow is Friday as I am? A lot of you probably have not gone back to school yet and I am so JEALOUS of you! But hey, you’ll be jealous of me when my summer break comes before yours! ; )

I am starting a monthly linky party called “Monthly Must-have”. In this linky you can share your “must-have” resource, product, etc. for each month. I’d love to get some new ideas from my fellow bloggers!

My August “Monthly Must-have” is A Year of Poems for K by the very sweet Elizabeth Hall (from Kickin’ it in Kindergarten). I just started using it and I am LOVING it! It includes 50 poems that are themed and kindergarten appropriate. I wanted to do a weekly poem last year, but I got off track because I had to search all over for them. This problem is now solved!

 Here is how I have been using it:

Monday- We introduce the poem. The kids echo read the poem as I point to the words.

Tuesday- We recite the poem together as a class. This day, we practice using different student’s names in the blank. Not all poems will have a blank. In the future we may practice the poem in different voices. (For example: say the poem in a whisper voice, or a vampire voice, etc.)

Wednesday- We look for something specific in the poem. This week, we looked for the letter/word “I”. You can look for whatever you are working on… sight words, rhyming words, syllables, etc.

Thursday- We add the poem to our poetry notebook. We use a composition notebook and the kids glue it right on one of the pages.

Friday- We complete an activity to go along with the poem. (Elizabeth has 5 already made activity pages included for you to choose from.) This week we will practice “visualizing the poem”. The kiddos will draw what they visualize when they read the poem. When we finish the activity, they glue it on the page beside the poem in their poetry notebooks.

The notebooks go home with the kids on Fridays to practice over there weekend. There is even a letter to parents included telling how they can help their kiddos.

I can’t wait to use this product all year long! My kids absolutely love practicing the poem each week.

What is your “Monthly Must-have” for August? Link up below!

All you have to do to join in on the linky is include the linky picture above in your post with a link back to this page. It would be nice to visit a couple of other posts and leave a sweet comment. You know how we all love comments. =) Check back next month on the 15^th to link up with your September Monthly Must-have!