Common Core materials!

We are starting to hear more and more about the Common Core Standards that are coming to Indiana and First Team Education is ready! Continental Press has an outstanding series that covers the common core standards for reading, writing and math. Lerner Books has put together some leveled books for common core with teaching notes that cover three standards per book. Heinemann Raintree and Perfection Learning also has some common core packages with leveled books and classroom libraries. Perfection also has an intervention program called Reading Express which offers comprehensive coverage of the common core standards. If you want to know more about any of these programs please contact us! These standards are not going away and it is best to be prepared.

Remember also that Continental Press has the best ISTEP+ program on the market and is used widely across Indiana. So while you are transitioning into Common Core keep raising those ISTEP+ scores with some support from Finish Line ISTEP+

Browsing books at Indiana Teachers of Writing.

Well it is exhibit season once again! Last week was ISRA, ICASE, and Literocity of Pike Twp. This week is AdvanEd, Valpo Literacy Conference and ITW and next week is ICE. We appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to attend these conferences and hopefully stop by our table and take a look at our offerings. We know that sometimes the organizations that sponsor these conferences don't give you much time to stroll through the exhibits. This is very frustrating for us, because we pay to attend these conferences and we only want you all to see what is available to help you meet your classroom needs. When you fill out your evaluations after attending a conference, please state that designated exhibit time would be nice! Thanks!

If you belong to the Learning Connection, you saw the call for applications to the Indiana Early Intervention Grant. We have contacted a couple of the companies that we represent and they have put together some packages of materials that would fit into that grant. Road to Reading is a research-based, systematic, sequential reading intervention program. It includes diagnostic testing, mastery tests, hands-on, mulitsensory instruction and detailed lesson plans. They are offering a discount on the price of the kit! So call if you need more info or go to roadtoreading.com.

Another company we are working with is Lerner Books. They are offering a 6 pack of leveled books along with the digital interactive version of the book. This would work great as a read aloud, then small group work followed by the student going to the computer to read or listen to the book. Again, contact me for more information!

By now you are probably back at school and have totally forgotten about your relaxing days of summer! So let's start thinking about how we can assist those kids that haven't picked up a book for the last 3 months. We know that parental involvement is so important to your student's reading habits. First Team Education is working with two different companies to come up with School to Home packages. This is a great idea for Title I schools! You will receive a plastic bag with one to three leveled books plus notes for parents on how to ask questions about what their child is reading. Parents really do want to help their children but don't always know how to go about it. These packages can be used in a Parent Lending Library so kids can take home a package, read for a few days and then return for another package. If you don't have anything like this in your building, just contact us and we can give you a quote.

Just returned from a conference at Purdue with Katie Wood Ray and Kelly Gallagher. They are both such great speakers! The attendance was pretty low but I think they are doing some good things at CLEAR and hopefully will be able to get that conference back to its glory days! Think about attending next year. Next up will be the ISRA which they have moved to September. I hope that many of you can attend! Check and see if you have any PD $$ left and come on downtown to the Hilton. If you have any questions please give me a call and I will see if I can assist you by getting more information.

Happy Summer!!

Wow! What a summer it has been so far! We had an outstanding time at the All-Write Conference in Warsaw this year! Heard some authors I had never had the pleasure of hearing before and sold a ton of books! We then went to New Albany for the Southern Indiana Writing Project conference and had a great time with Georgia Heard. Tim Rasinski was in Columbus so we went there and sold his books. Unfortunately we were not allowed to attend the Department of Education three day conference at the JW. Dr. Rasinski was a speaker there also and I know that many teachers would have liked to purchase the books he talked about. It would be great if someone would put a bug in John Wolf's ear about allowing professional book vendors to attend. He denied us when we asked him. I understand that you probably don't need every publisher there throwing materials at the teachers, but if a distributor of professional books was there, I don't see any harm. Maybe I'm biased?
Anyway, we will be at Purdue next week with Kelly Gallagher. Attendance is really low again this year, so if you haven't signed up you may want to take a look.

We just returned from Brandon, Vermont after attending a sales meeting for Visual Learning Systems. This company creates science videos that are very high quality and are offered in DVD format, online, or can be purchased and streamed into your schools. With the science adoption year finished you may be looking for supplemental materials and these videos would be a great addition to your science curriculum. Go to visuallearningco.com to find out more and then give us a call! By the way, if you have never been to Vermont, it is well worth the trip. Beautiful countryside and very friendly people.

Reading the Learning Connection site I see a lot of chatter about The Daily Five and The Cafe book. Both of those books are published by Stenhouse and I can send you a free preview copy if you are interested. I cannot advertise on Learning Connection, but if you or someone you know would like to see the book, please email me at bvanmol@aol.com.

First Team Education is so pleased to announce that Peggy Eickhoff is now a partner! You may know Peggy from her previous work as a consultant with Houghton Mifflin or Scott Foresman. Most recently she was a sales rep for Sopris West and then Cambium Learning and Voyager. Peggy will be bringing in new business for First Team as Joe and I continue to service our established customers as well as bringing in new. She is already out there working and we know she will be very successful! Welcome Peggy!!!!!!

Amazing that is almost May!!! Some of you may be holding some form of summer school and if you are looking for an easy to use reading intervention program, go to theroadtoreading.com. This is a complete program for students in grades 1-5 that did not master decoding skills at the early levels. And we know that when kids spend all their energy on figuring out a word, comprehension goes down the drain. This program can be administered by teachers or aids. It includes manipulatives, lesson plans, and all for only $495.00 If you are interested, let me know and I will send you a CD to evaluate.

Science Notebooks

First Team Education is offering a workshop on the basics of science notebooks. If you check the science standards, you will see that writing, discussing, organizing, reading are all mentioned over and over. Using science notebooks in your classroom is a perfect way to help meet those needs in science. If you are interested in knowing more, contact us and I will send you the flyer telling you more.

Is it spring yet?

Haven't posted anything since October and here it is March! Time flies when you're having fun! January saw the start of the science caravans. Joe worked those with Science Companion as well as showing some of our supplemental science materials. We offer leveled books, trade books, and a great video line called Visual Learning. Let us know if you are interested in any of those for your science curriculum.
The Continental Press ISTEP+ materials are a huge hit in Indiana! If you haven't seen them please contact us for a free sample. Continental also has a new line that focuses on the Common Core Standards and we would be happy to send you a sample of that also.
I know it has been a long, snowy winter and many of you have missed too many days of school and are going to have to make them up. But just think, spring break will be here soon and you can take a much needed break and be ready to finish the school year with a few extra days tagged on!