Before I forget, I want to share something that E's teacher was raving about yesterday.
I was discussing my schedule change with her so that I can reg. aux., and move my volunteer day from Monday to Thursday, and she got excited because she wants me to have a reading session with the kids and do activities out of the Cricket magazines. When I asked her what she was talking about, she had to pull them all out for me to see.
Cricket mag has 4 different levels of children's magazines with all kinds of short stories, poems, songs, and activities for them to do. She said they are the best she has ever found. And the awesomest part is that the short stories they use are the exact stories they will find on the EOG's. They pull them straight from these mags, which I think is awesome that you could actually go over these with your kids before they have their EOG's and they may actually be a bit more prepared. Now of course, not every story will be on the test, so you wont know for sure, but still, it's a start.
Now, the only kids magazine that I was even familiar with was Highlights and these Cricket Mags highly surpassed them and there is no advertising in them, which is nice.
So the 4 different levels are:
BABYBUG: for ages 6 mo to 3 years and they are board book magazines
LADYBUG: for ages 3-6
SPIDER: for ages 6-9
CRICKET: for ages 9-14
Each magazine is geared towards a different level of reading, which is great for when you are looking for something level appropriate.
His teacher likes the ladybug and spider mags for first grade. You can find these at cricketmag.com OR they are available to check out at the library for free. {I like that word}. But I think I might at least look into ordering them because how fun would it be for the kids to get their own magazines in the mail?!
I just checked their website and they have even more magazines like age appropriate science mags that his teacher likes to use as well.
