How my 2 yr old inspired my 1st grade classroom....

Meet Micah.

This spunky and smart 2 year old loves books. He loves to listen to stories. He loves to talk! Everyday when I pick him up from daycare, we have conversations about what he learned that day.

Two days ago I picked him up from daycare and told him that we were going to see his grandparents instead of going straight home. He was cranky from taking a shorter than usual nap. So naturally he wanted out of the carseat. To take his mind off of the  mini meltdown in the back seat, I started telling him what I could see. The conversation went something like this:

"I see a truck." "I see a truck too." "I see a tree." "I see a tree, too."

The longer we drove the more the conversation built.

"I see McDonalds." "I see McDonalds, too." "What color is it?" "It's yellow!"

As the conversation continued I began thinking about my beginning readers. They need to build a sight word bank. They pass lots of places and things on their way to school, and around the school.

EPIPHANY!

I decided that since emerging readers build confidence and stretch their reading muscles by reading...and that young students also tend to write higher than their reading level...I came up with the idea that my students can write about the things they see. Since we have iPads, students can take pictures of their surrounding and put them into a predictable book where they have written the words. That also means that with these students, they will instantly be successful readers and writers! They can put their books in the classroom library to read over and over again. And being able to integrate technology is a nice little added bonus.

I am so excited about this project and I can't wait to tell my 1st graders about it!