An amazing product that I can't wait to use!!!

This summer has been fun and exhausting-especially with two 5 year old twin girls!! The attitudes and drama have already begun-I am in BIG trouble!
While trying to get them ready for Kindergarten and also keep them busy with fun activities and play dates, I also have school on my brain! I don't go back until September but I am always trying to reflect on the past year to improve for next year.
I finished my advanced certificate in Reading last year and learned A LOT!  Being a 1st grade teacher, we know that kids have to make SO many leaps and bounds from the start of 1st grade to the end of 1st grade and kids come in at all levels.  I have had some kids who do not know all of their letters and sounds, some who know basic CVC works, some who have no sight word vocabulary and some who can read chapter books.  It makes guided reading planning and center groups often difficult and time consuming!  Add to the fact that I am also a dual language teacher in a stand alone program and also need to teach guided reading in Spanish and well, you can probably just imagine what my guided reading table  looked like by the end of the day!
So one of my goals this year is to find activities that are not only engaging but easy to prep and plan and are ready to go.  I know and I am sure you know that we can plan this great guided reading lesson with a certain level and then when we meet, we find that the group, or one student, is struggling with a skill and then we have to search and find an activity to help them and at this point almost 10 minutes is gone from the lesson and less time is spent engaged and reading.  I get so frustrated with myself when this happens.  So at the end of the year, I thought, "What can I do? I need to make sure these kids are working and engaged and reading during the time I have them. I need to have things ready and organized."  Guided reading time seems to fly by (yet cafeteria duty DRAGS...hmmmm....) so I NEEDED something and bad!!!!
So I began my TpT search.....I came across this....

I was hooked right away.....yes it is a lot to plan and print and laminate and prep but once it is all done, you will have EVERYTHING you need RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, come on!!!!!!! That is amazing!!!!!!  This, I decided in June, would be my summer project.

So I began printing and laminating, even before school let out...my amazing aide (who I won't have next year =(  )  cut out everything for me! The FIRST (yes, the first) night of summer vacation, I was that crazy teacher at the $1 store hunting for cute bins and boxes to store all of the materials in...and I a no where near done!!!!!!!! I can't wait to use this product and I can't wait to see how my students do during guided reading groups with the AMAZING and ENGAGING activities!!!!! JD's Rockin' Readers-You are the best!!! Thank you so much for sharing your amazing work!! Click the picture above to be taken to the product and to also see other products!!!

-Alyson Hennessy