Reading Archives - Teacher's Brain

How to Make Guided Reading Easier and More Effective for K-2 Students

May 9, 2025 teachersbrain Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers

If guided reading feels overwhelming, you’re not alone! Between different reading levels, small group management, and trying to plan meaningful activities, it can be a lot. You want your students to grow their reading skills, but prepping for every book and every group can quickly eat up your planning time.

The good news? It doesn’t have to be that way! With the right tools and routines, guided reading can become one of the most effective and enjoyable parts of your day for both you and your students!

Here are a few simple ways to make guided reading time easier to manage and more impactful for your learners:

1. Use activities that work with ANY book

One of the biggest time-savers is using flexible resources that can be used with whatever books you already have. That’s why I created the Guided Reading Activities for Any Book – Reading Blocks MEGA BUNDLE. It includes printable and digital reading activities that can be used with fiction or nonfiction books at any level. No more hunting for leveled worksheets or scrambling to find matching resources — just grab a book and go!

2. Keep your small group time structured and consistent

Our kiddos thrive on routines. When they know what to expect during small groups, they can focus better and grow more confident. The Reading Blocks system helps establish a clear structure for guided reading time. You can rotate through vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and more — all using the same easy-to-follow format. Once students get the hang of it, things run so much smoother.

3. Target multiple reading skills in guided reading without extra planning

With over 150 pages of reading activities, this bundle covers everything from making predictions to retelling, summarizing, comparing texts, vocabulary building, and more. Plus, many of the activities are open-ended, so you can use them again and again with different books. It’s perfect for differentiation and easy to adapt for your students’ needs.

Ready to make your guided reading time stress-free?

My Reading Blocks Bundle is your all-in-one solution for guided reading in kindergarten through second grade! Whether you’re working with beginning readers or more advanced students, this resource helps you make the most of your small group time, without hours of prep! Just choose a book, print (or pull up the digital version), and teach!

👉 Grab the Guided Reading Activities for Any Book – Reading Blocks Bundle here!

For more reading activity ideas, check out my post here!

How to Turn Any Lesson into a Game

December 6, 2024 teachersbrain education, Reading, Teaching Tips

Engaging young learners can sometimes feel like a challenge, but there’s one strategy that never fails: turning lessons into games! Games not only make learning fun, but they also encourage participation, foster teamwork, and help students retain information better. If you’re looking for fun games for the classroom, I’m here to help.

Here are a few simple ways to make your lessons fun and playful learning experiences with games:

1. Add a Competitive Twist

Kids love a friendly competition! For example, during a math lesson, turn solving problems into a relay race where teams take turns solving equations. Award points for each correct answer and celebrate the winning team with a classroom cheer or small prize.

2. Use Movement to Energize

Incorporate physical activity into lessons. For a phonics game, tape letters around the classroom and have students hop to the correct one after hearing a sound. Movement-based games keep students engaged and help them burn off extra energy.

3. Gamify Daily Routines

Everyday classroom routines can become games too! For example, during cleanup time, challenge students to beat the clock or compete to see who can sort materials the fastest. You can even track their progress over time for a class reward.

4. Create Mystery Challenges

Add an element of mystery to your lessons! For example, during a reading activity, create a treasure hunt where students need to find clues (words or phrases) in their books to solve a puzzle. This encourages critical thinking while keeping the excitement high.

5. Leverage Ready-Made Educational Games

Don’t have the time to make all of these fun games? I understand! You can save time and energy by using pre-made resources that are already designed to turn learning into a game. These tools are perfect for reinforcing skills without extra prep on your part.

For instance, my Phonemic Awareness Activities, Games, Assessments, and Posters resource includes engaging games that help students develop those crucial foundational literacy skills. Whether you’re teaching rhyming, syllables, or beginning sounds, these activities will keep your students entertained while they learn, pinky promise!

By incorporating games into your lessons, you can transform even the most challenging concepts into enjoyable and memorable learning experiences. If you’re ready to gamify your classroom and make phonemic awareness practice effortless, check out this resource today—it’s a game-changer!

I hope you love these quick games to play in the classroom. What are your favorite ways to play in the classroom? Let me know in the comments! For more classroom activity ideas, check out my post on how to make writing fun here!

Fun Alphabet Practice Activities For Kids

July 15, 2022 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Alphabet writing practice is one of the most important parts of preschool or kindergarten instruction. Getting familiar and comfortable recognizing, writing, and using the alphabet is a foundational skill that students will use for the rest of their lives! That’s why it’s so important to make it as fun as possible!

The more fun kids have, the more engaged in learning they will be!

How can I make learning the alphabet fun?

The sky is the limit when it comes to learning the alphabet. Here are some of my favorite alphabet activities for kids.

Stamp pads. Get some alphabet stamping supplies and let students have fun practicing letters with stamps
Finger paint. Let students get their hands dirty and finger-paint the letters.
Sand tables. This one is great if you have the supplies. Simply have students write their letters in the sand.
Shaving cream. Simply spray some shaving cream on each desk, spread it out, and let students write letters in it!
Lego Letters. Get out some Lego blocks and have students build the letters with them.
Pipe Cleaners. Twist pipe cleaners to make letters.
Dry Erase Boards. Practice writing and erasing letters with dry-erase markers and boards.
Sidewalk Chalk. Decorate the sidewalk with letters.
Have a letter scavenger hunt.
Play I Spy with the alphabet.

There are so many ways to get creative with learning the alphabet. If you are looking for some traditional alphabet practice sheets or even alphabet tracing worksheets, I have you covered!

This Alphabet Writing Practice Bundle comes with everything you need!

It comes with alphabet worksheets, alphabet tracing, and alphabet crafts for every letter A-Z!

These provide hands-on options as well as worksheets to help with busy mornings. Students will learn how to work independently after the first couple of letter sets are used because every unit follows the same pattern. There are plenty of things to choose from for the week if you are doing a letter a week. Students will practice fine motor skills with writing, cutting, and tracing.

What is the download?

LETTER A: 16 printables which include 3 crafts, a spinning game, letter identification, forming letters, playdough letters, BINGO daubing, tracing letters (upper and lowercase), letter sounds, and beginning sounds of words.
LETTER B: 16 printables which include 3 crafts, a spinning game, letter identification, forming letters, playdough letters, BINGO daubing, tracing letters, letter sounds, and beginning sounds of words.
LETTERS C-Z These will follow the same format as units for letters A & B, but with different crafts.

Want to try it out for FREE? Check out my free Alphabet Worksheets and Crafts resource here!

Let your students have a blast while they master identifying the upper and lowercase letters, reviewing the sound, writing letters, and creating crafts with these printable practice pages. These make morning work, literacy centers, small groups, or home reviews a breeze!

What’s in the download?

P. 1 Cover

p. 2 More Resources

P. 3 Letter Aa practice

P. 4 Letter B Mini Book

P. 5 Letter C Play-Doh Trace

P. 6-7 Letter A Alligator Craft

P. 8-9 Letter T Tiger Craft

P. 10 Color by Code Letter L

P. 11 Answer Key

P. 12 CREDITS

What are your favorite alphabet practice activities? Let me know in the comments!

Summer Packets To Prevent The Summer Slide

May 13, 2022 teachersbrain education, Math, Reading, Sight Words, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Summer is just around the corner! This is one of the best times of the year because not only do you get a much-needed break, but you get to see all of the progress your students have made throughout the year and celebrate them for it. Seeing how far they have come in their reading levels or math skills is just wonderful. Even better, it’s amazing to see how their confidence has grown throughout the year!

With the long relaxing break, however, comes one not-so-fun thing. The summer slide.

What is the summer slide?

This is the tendency of students to lose some of the achievement gains that they made during the school year and regress academically. This is especially prevalent in low-income areas.

How do you beat the summer slide?

I know, the last thing you want is for your students to go backward. But what can you do? One of the best ways to keep that knowledge fresh is to assign some educational activities for students to complete during summer break. Another idea is to keep them reading with some fun reading summer challenges. You could send home a reading log for students to fill in with everything they read on their own during the summer and if they bring it back completed they get to go to an ice cream party.

For more reasons to keep students learning during summer break, check out my post here!

How do you engage students over the summer?

You’ll want activities that are engaging enough that they will stick to it and be excited to do. Need summer activities for students? Don’t worry, I have you covered!

These summer packets for 1st grade are all you need!

I love these packets because they are completely digital. This means that you don’t need to print out a bunch of packets and spend time putting them together. Students can complete it all online!

This is designed with Google Slides. It includes a parent letter, physical and oral suggestions, a reading log, and a review of math and language arts activities. Students do not need to have Google Classroom to participate.

Here’s what’s included:

How to use this packet and Parent Tips
Oral and physical activity suggestions
Reading Log
Sight Word List
Sight Word Sort Review Activities
Word Families
ABC Order Printables
Correcting Sentences
(Nouns, Verbs, Proper Nouns, Long and Short Vowels)
WRITING – Narrative, Opinion, Creative (Some printable to encourage handwriting)
Comprehension & Fluency
MATH Number Bonds, Addition, Subtraction, Shapes, measurement, 10 More 10 Less

Check out the summer packets for 1st grade video tutorial here!

If you love this summer packet, make sure to check out the packet for each grade in elementary school!

These are perfect no matter what grade you teach. The activities can be explained by the adult, but on most pages, it should not be necessary since it is a review. Children should be able to complete most activities independently.

I recommend setting a 20 to 30-minute block of time for the student daily to work on these activities. They should enhance their vacation! Each packet includes a summer journal, sight words, reading logs, math, and LA printables.

Do you assign summer activity packets? Let me know in the comments!