Monday, May 19, 2014

Letter Buddies Classroom Contest and Giveaway

After winning the Miss Wishy Washy Giveaway from First Grade Blue Skies, I decided to check out the Hameray Publishing website and, lo and behold, I saw that they were hosting another great giveaway!
Click on the link to go to their website to enter! The winner will be announced June 2!

Along with this awesome giveaway, they were also offering teacher bloggers a chance to review the different materials.  I decided that I wanted to participate, so I contacted the company about becoming a reviewer. I was able to choose between Letter Buddies Letter, Blends, Starters, and Best Friends books. After much consideration, I chose the Letter Buddies Starters Books.
The Letter Buddies Starters titles are used in correspondence to the Letter Buddies Letter Books. Using the same vocabulary, the Starters places each word within the context of a sentence. This is a great way to reinforce what students learned with the Letter Books. (24 Titles)

 I chose these because I wanted something that my beginner readers could read independently and comprehend. After looking through and reading each of the 24 titles (one book per letter of the alphabet except for X, Y, and Z - they share a book), I have to say that these books were everything that I was looking for!

Here are a few of the reason that I am IN LOVE with this collection:

1. ENGAGING PHOTOGRAPHS that correlate beautifully with the text are located on each page, along with the Letter Buddy for each particular book. (Because I have been on maternity leave, I haven't had an opportunity to try these books out in the actual classroom; however, my daughter LOVES the books and gets so excited looking at the pictures. We have already read through each book at lease once!



2. SIGHT WORDS are included in each book, with a list at the back of each book telling the ones that are highlighted in the book!


3. A WRITING EXTENSION is included in each book! We all know how important writing is in the classroom, especially now with Common Core, so it is also that the guess-work of how to incorporate writing with your lesson is taken away.



These books would be great to use for letter of the week lessons or (and my personal FAV) sight word introduction/review! I am always looking for ways to incorporate sight word use in my small group lessons and what better way than to have students reading books that emphasize the words that you are working on. One way that I plan to use these books for SIGHT WORDS is to first introduce the sight words using flash cards and word building. Then after the students are familiar with the words, guide them through the reading of the Letter Buddies book. This will give the students a way to practice using and recognizing the words in text, instead of just individually. {I have found a lot of times in my classroom that students can recall the words when flash cards are used, but when presented with the words in text, they struggle to recall them.} I can't wait to use these books next year to help my kinders with their sight word struggles. :)

Thank you Hameray Publishing for creating such a wonderful product!

As a bonus, I am offering a mini-giveaway here on my blog!
Use the Rafflecopter at the end of this post to enter for a chance to win a
Letter Buddies Lap Book
to use in your classroom.

 Alphabet Lap Books are 12" x 16" oversized books which show Letter Buddies visiting a common environment in a child's world, through which new vocabulary is introduced. In this book, children can see how the letters interact at Home.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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