So We Got a Fish

The kids deserved it... They really did. They've been working SO hard to learn how first grade works and to use their whisper voices and to do all those other minor things like reading and adding and having good social interactions... you know, the fluff.

So I got them a Betta fish. We haven't named it yet. It's red and blue. So most of them want to call him "RedBlue."

We're working on creativity.

Anyway, I used the fish as an opportunity to drive home the old reading strategy of getting ones mouth ready. For example, if they're reading a word they don't know, they can "get their mouth ready" to say the word by fixing it to at least read the first sound they see. Then maybe the can put together the rest of the word.

I told them how our fish's mouth looks when he eats. I showed them how the gets his mouth ready to snatch up his food by puckering up my lips. And then we practiced getting our mouth ready to read our Weekly Words.

After school, one of my bus riders was looking at the fish. She said, "Ooooooh Ms. Stanton! He's getting his mouth ready! I see it! I'm gonna give him something to read."

So she wrote down the Weekly Words on an index card and put it up to the bowl for the fish. And he totally looked at it. Obviously, we decided he was reading.

"Look, Ms. Stanton! He's readin! He really is!"

Gah I love it.