Thank you to Bernice Alegria for contributing a letter to parents in Spanish and English, letting them know about the current Open Court unit and asking for them to send in artifacts for the Concept/Question Board. You can find her leter on the School Unit page. Also available is a letter for Risks and Consequences …

All literacy coaches, content experts, and those responsible for professional development related to the Open Court Reading Program are invited to join the new global literacy coach network. The site has a new interactive format which allows for networking among literacy coaches from across the country. This is a perfect venue for sharing best practices …

Thanks to Kristin Papoi, we now have our very first set of fifth grade daily homework aligned with OCR 2000 vocabularly and spelling for the Cooperation and Competition unit. Scroll down to homework. In addition, there are more Clay Animation examples for Astronomy and Kindness units. As well as additional Comic Life work.

The 2008 edition of the Open Court Reading program has its own name, Imagine It. At least half of the units are the same though most have been moved around and sometimes switched to a different grade. Not a lot of resources for this edition yet but what’s available you can find by visiting ImagineIt! …

I just added a few great resources to one of the sub sites of Open Court Resources, Thinking Maps.org I added links to: podcast from the Accidental Technologist Blog with great examples of thinking maps used creatively in the classroom a ten minute film from the creators of thinking maps which is a good refresher/introduction …