Reading to our animal buddies during Readers Workshop

We have Readers Workshop every day, in which we study strategies for learning to reading, and reading to learn. The first part of Readers Workshop consists of 5-10 minutes on the carpet as a whole class, called the "minilesson." This is when I teach the students a specific skill or lesson on reading, everything from how to read the pictures to how to ask questions as you read.

Afterwards, the students grab their book boxes, which are filled with 10-15 books, and head to their "Read to Self" spots. They spend the next 10-20 minutes reading quietly to themselves. But as you may expect, it's hard for kindergarteners to sit still and quiet for that long! So last weekend I made a trip to Goodwill and found these beanie babies for super cheap - enough for each kindergartener to have them as their new reading buddy! These animal buddies make their home inside the students' book boxes, so whenever they want to read, they can always pull out their animal buddy and read to them.

Check out these adorable pictures of kindergarteners reading to their animal buddies!