Guided Reading and Center Activities

Hi Y'all! Hope you're having a wonderful October. I can't believe our first 9 weeks are already over. Boy is time flying. My kiddos are moving right along and I greatly attribute that to what's happening during our reading block. To start, the curriculum we use for whole group is the BEST. If you haven't heard of DSC or Making Meaning I highly suggest you check it out and beg your administrator to use it! It does such a good job of having the students lead the discussions, analyze and interpret awesome texts, interact with each other through partner and group discussions, use higher order thinking, and problem solving. Can I just reemphasize that it uses real children's literature like Chrystanthemum by Kevin Henkes, Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats, and It's Mine by Leo Lionni to name a few. Such a nice change and it makes the kids truly love reading and listening to stories.

Other than that I have been using a few different intervention systems for my guided reading instruction such as LLI (Fountas and Pinell), and the school wide Intervention system for phonics (also DSC) SIPPS. Our interventions require all of our students to read daily, practice sight words, phonics, and writing. I love that it incorporates writing even for my students reading at a Level A or 1. It's a great opportunity to have structured writing time where I can monitor their writing in small groups. 

Enough with the programs we use, the real reasons I wanted to write this post it to show you the additional support I am using with my children in centers. It's so important but challenging to find activities that can be differentiated easily for each group, done independently, are rigorous, and engaging enough for the children to actually enjoy and learn. I definitely don't have my centers perfected, but each year they are greatly improving and I think I found a system that I really like. It allows me to differentiate and it ties in perfectly with my Differentiated Spelling Instruction for the year! (I'll write more about that later)

I rotate my center activities frequently and have been trying a new system so I can differentiate their centers to meet their current needs and abilities. Every day they do guided reading with me and sight word activities (which can be seen and purchased here).  Three or four out of the 5 days they do a word work activity (can be purchased by clicking the picture above). On a word work "off day"they have the option of listening center, media center check out, writing center, computers/iPad, or reading in our class library. These get rotated out so they it's not repetitive.

I chose 3 - 4 "word work"centers and put them in a colored envelope to match their center's groups. Each group will do all of the word work activities throughout the week, but only one group does that specific word work activity a day. This allows me to use different spelling patterns/words that match their current abilities. For example, next week we're doing a picture/word sort for short vowels, beginning sounds, and matching capital letters to lower case letters. This way ALL of my students do a "picture/word sort activity"but it meets their needs instead of being 1 activity across the board.





Each group has a "black holder" that keeps their center's work folders, word work holder, and reader's response journals. They keep these at their group tables to minimize movement throughout the class during center time.





One thing I love about the word work centers other than the differentiation it allows, is that all of the activities are super interactive. My kids LOVE making their spelling words into necklaces, and building words with tiles or by rolling a dice.

Their reader's response journals directly correlate to a book we read during making meaning, our vocabulary instruction, or a book they read in IDR (Independent Reading). I emphasize using the text to support their answers and love their responses! I would say they are 95% independent in this center, but working in groups greatly eliminates teacher interventions.

One activity they can do in writing center is the "Sticker Story". They choose 3 stickers and create a story from that. I also allow them to write letter, send "post cards, free write or practice handwriting.

Listening center is pretty relaxed, I used to require a response sheet but I feel like I really just want my children's focus to be on enjoying the story and hearing a fluent reader, so I allow them to listen to more than one book instead of focusing on their response sheet.

Computers/iPad there are obviously a zillion website resources. My kids use bookflix.com or MyOn.com (a reading intervention program). My main focus is having them interact with engaging text, and listen to fluent readers.  Sometimes I will let them get on other reading websites, but it's not my preference because a lot of time they get on things that aren't focused on the skills they need to practice, it's just songs or games they know and like.

 

I hope this helps give you some new ideas for your literacy center/reading block! I love the way it's going so far this year. If you have any questions please post below!

Super Science (Plants, Sun, and More!)

So I've been terrible. Really, really terrible at getting my posts up! I can't believe how swamped I feel now that school is in full swing. So please forgive me for my back to back posts. I have lots of time to make up for.

We've been SUPER busy this year with Science (my favorite)! We started our year off learning about who a scientist is and what they do. We had some Steve Spangler fun then moved on over to gardening (my other favorite)! We started by learning about living and non-living things, then did some plant exploration with BrainpopJr.

We read (and sang) Are You Living and did some Living/Non Living activities in our science notebooks.

The next week we planted our seeds. We discussed what a plant needs in order to grow and live, talked about nutrients and soil requirements, and the proper spacing needed for plants to grow. We planted carrots, onions, broccoli, okra, and heirloom purple green beans. We logged our observations in a plant growth journal and will record our observations of it's growth for a whole month.

We read From Seed by to Plant by Gail Gibbons to help us gather a lot of information for our science journal activities. The kids LOVED seeing the plants grow just like the book showed, they even use the vocabulary like sprout, bulb, and blossom.

We talked about the parts of the plants and made a fun diagram which looks so cute hanging up in the class!

I plan on doing some recipes with my kids after our food comes in. I think this part is often missed when growing plants and vegetables with children and is such a key piece to the learning process. This summer I made a few recipes with my summer school kids.

I think it is so important to teach our children how to not only grow their food, but be an active part in what they make, and eat. Most of my kids had never eaten half of the vegetables I cooked/made but they said they would try it because they made it! It also got them eating healthy and being conscious of what goes into their bodies.

As I made the food, the kids recorded the process and ingredients and brought the recipe home to their parents. I promoted them making it at home with their family, although I'm not sure if any of them actually did or not.

Now we've moved on to learning about space, stars and the sun. We started by reading a book about the stars in the sky and discussed how there are BILLIONS of stars in the sky much bigger then our sun and how the small stars we see in the sky are only just a few of the really enormous stars we can even see. I was shocked at how easily my children picked up this concept. We then created our own night sky on black paper and tried to demonstrate how there are millions of stars so many we could never imagine seeing them. Some did better then others, but hey - they look great.

Next we learned about the sun and it's properties of heat energy and light energy. We watched a Brainpop Jr video then wrote down the facts about the sun we learned from a book and the video. They gave me some great facts to record. I wanted to demonstrate the heat energy the sun gives off (even when we can't see it), by using solar paper. They chose an item (some indoor items and some from outside), placed it on top of the paper for 10 minutes in the sun, then we took it inside and rinsed them and voila! Some came out really distinctly and others not some much. But they loved the experiment regardless!

We're going to do some smores cooking in a solar oven next week too. The weather has been absolutely crazy today, and it has literally down poured on and off every day for two weeks. So we're waiting for all this rain to go away - I mean really, we are the sunshine state…this is getting ridiculous.

After this we're going to dive into the topic of gravity, and how our orbit around the sun causes everything from seasons, to day and and night. This will transition us right into gravity and forces and motion. I absolutely love science and can't wait to share more with you! Hope this was helpful! :)

Math Block

Hey there everyone! October is turning up to be a CRAZY busy month. We have report cards, our first field trip, lesson study, and a Being a Writer lesson study workshop (more to come on the Being a Writer series later). Today was picture day and my kids looked so darn precious! Oh I forgot to mention our Booktacular curriculum night toward the end of the month and that um, "wonderful" school holiday Halloween (aka crazy day).

I wanted to show you guys my math block this year because it's totally different from anything I had done or seen before. In the past I always taught math whole group, and I don't know about you but it was exhausting. My kids who typically struggled in math would lose focus easily or get frustrated, while my higher students would get bored and finish too quickly. I would constantly be battling trying to keep each child in the right spot and help everyone. I was definitely NOT meeting the needs of all of my kids. 

This year, our wonderful math coach gave me the suggestion of teaching my "core lesson" in small groups while the others were doing centers that related to the topic we were learning. This way I could really differentiate my students learning and base the skill we are targeting to meet their current mathematical capabilities and understandings. I couldn't be happier with the system! I feel like each of my children are REALLY getting what they need and are making great strides in math so far (especially my TIER II/TIER III children). 

So here's how it goes: We start off in whole group doing calendar math which consists of a number of things; day and month review, place value, 120's chart, and using coins to count the day. They also identify even/odd, 3 more 3 less, and use a 20's frame to identify the day. This is all done on the promethean board which I also love. It's a great way to interact with technology instead of the basic wall calendar.

After that I typically switch right into centers. SOMETIMES I will do a quick 3 -5 minute mini lesson if I feel my "higher group" would benefit from it in order to be successful in their independent station but typically I do without.

Theres 4 groups (each center is 15 minutes each):

• Independent Station (typically a worksheet associated with the lesson for the day)
• Guided Math (with me)
• Computers (we use JiJi which is the ST Math intervention system - p.s. IT'S AMAZING)
• Math journals (sometimes substitute STEM or a math game)

If the students finish early - which they almost ALWAYS do for journals and the independent worksheet they play a game practicing the skill we just learned or are learning now, so I always have at least two games prepared.

I have my highest children in math start at the independent station, my 2nd highest group at computers, 3rd highest group at math journals, then my lowest group always starts with me.

After each child comes to my station, they then finish the independent portion of worksheet we did at guided math, or do a different work sheet that is targeted for their current skill/learning goal (i.e. my lowest TIER students get a work on something they can actually be successful at…). It's also been really fun actually being able to enrich my highest students and really challenge them. Some of the activities or games we've played I've been shocked they were able to do. Had I kept my whole group rotation I would have never been able to extend their learning that much.

I also want to mention, I LOVE using math journals. As you can see (the left side) there answers are not always correct, but it's super interesting to see how they try to solve things. One of my goals for this year is to help my students revise and reflect on their learning, and I think using the journals would be a great tool. Once I work the kinks out I'll definitely write a post on it! I'm trying to make them more interactive instead of just word problem each day, so I'm going to have them using counters, dice, and gluing/using 10's frames to help support their answers soon. I also have them do games and record their thinking in their journals sometimes.

First Week of School

First off, I want to say that I have the CUTEST darn class ever. They are just the sweetest bunch of kids and are SO funny! We've all loved every day of the week so far, and I'm so excited for my year with them. Oh, I didn't even mention. I have TWINS! :) Yes, two adorable, sweet, unique twins that I absolutely adore.

The first day went well, I only had one person show up that wasn't on my roster, and 2 that withdrew so I'm at a total of 16 now, which is a great number. We did lots of routines, songs, brain breaks, and books. We learned about ways to be helpful, made our safe keeper sticks, a class book, started our self portraits, and learned about mathematicians and scientists. All in all it was a smooth and fun day!

Safe Keeper Sticks - Click Here for More Information On This

The rest of the week has been going just as smoothly. One of my students that was on my roster didn't show up until Thursday, so that shook things up a bit, but our class welcomed her with open arms and are happy to have a new addition to the class family.

To help build community and a sense of belonging in our class, we created our School Family Book that we keep in our class library. I read this as part of our morning meeting activity on the 2nd day of school. It was a fun way to get to know each other better.

We also did All About Me bags which were GREAT! I learned so much about my kids and loved some of the creative things they brought in to show the class.

Sharing our "All About Me Bags"

We read the book The Way I Act then created a chart of ways to be helpful getting ideas from the book and from things they know are helpful in school/class.

We took pictures of the kids acting the things out, which they loved. We made that into a Ways to Be Helpful Board which will stay up all year long to remind the kids, and we'll add ideas as we see things though out the years.

Probably my favorite thing we do all year is our beginning of the year self portraits. It adds so much warmth, creativity, color, and uniqueness to the class. I love seeing their self portraits and this years class did an amazing job of really using the mirrors as they drew and painted.

To start this process I model how to draw a self portrait and what to look for when using the mirror. I then have the kids sketch themselves with mirrors using only a pencil.

On Day 2, I model tracing over my pencil markings with a black marker. I also demonstrate how to use water colors to achieve different colors, etc. I do this on my own self portrait and on a blank piece of paper. I let them go to town on theirs emphasizing it should be their own skin and hair color - not blue, green or purple….even though I still had two kids do a red and blue face..lol!

On day 3, we cut out things that we like from magazines and glue them to the backgrounds of our self portraits. After that, we laminate and we're done! We will share these on Friday! :) Didn't they turn out AWESOME? I just love them! Not only do they make the classroom, but they are SO telling of their developmental stages.

We're learning about mathematicians and what they do, the tools they use, representing knowledge, vocabulary, etc. On day 2 of we had a "mathematician tool exploration". I set up centers allowing the kids to explore, play, and use the manipulatives we will be working with all year. Doing this greatly eliminates unnecessary or inappropriate play with these later on in the year, and gets them excited to work with the materials. They did really well with this, with almost no teacher interventions. They're such a curious, calm, and sweet class!

                     

           

In addition, we learned about scientist…what they do, who they are, what they think and say. We explored the scientific method with the "Leak Proof Bag" Experiment from Steve Spangler. 

It totally stumped them! It was the perfect example of the process, and really got my kids excited to come up their own scientific questions/experiments. We then did Science Tool Exploration. This took a bit longer than expected so I had to break it up between two days. They explored safety goggles, scales,  microscope, magnifying glass, stop watches, thermometers, rocks, and magnets. 

This week we REALLY focused on learning about the safe spot and how to properly use it. We started off by reading Schubert's Helpful Day from the Becky Bailey curriculum to discuss how to use our big voice and ways to be helpful if we notice a friend is in need.

We then practiced the routines, acted out what it looks like when someone needs to use the safe spot, and created this book. We will keep this in the safe spot along with Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses.

I read this book to them to teach them to always look on the bright side and see the magic in everything (we also have blue sparkly sunglasses in the safe spot to go with the book).

This picture is amazing to me! It's so accurate! 

It was a long week but a successful one! Looking forward to seeing my kiddos again tomorrow! As always please leave any questions or comments below! :)