Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Are you looking for an easy way to explain your expectations for your students and how loud they get during the school day? This Anchor Chart is perfect for you! I implemented this in my classroom a few years back and the way the children immediatly learn to self regulate and WANT TO self regulateis...
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Do you look on Pinterest for Anchor Chart ideas and give up at the thought that your Anchor Chart could never look that amazing? It actually doesn’t have to be that difficult to make an amazi…
My new obsession this year has been making and using anchor charts for my lessons. Here are just some of the anchor charts I have made thi...
Annotating Text Using SNOTS (Small Notes On The Side) Getting your students excited about annotating text is no easy task. But, SNOTS will change that! SNOTS stands for “Small Notes on the Side” and is a perfect tool for annotating text! Use the resources in this pack to teach your students an authentic (but engaging) way to text mark. Total Pages: 20File Size: 737 KB***************************************************************Other Amazing ResourcesReading Comprehension Assessments: Grades 2nd-5thClose Reading ALL YEARThis resource is also included in this pack! Interactive Anchor Charts: the NEVER ENDING BUNDLE**************************************************************What's Included:-Teacher notes on how to teach this strategy so that your students take ownership of their text markings. -Lesson plan suggestions. Follow these step by step lesson plans to help introduce this powerful text marking tool to your students. -SNOTS Interactive anchor chart- Work with your students to create a reference chart that they can refer to all year. Adjust the chart as needed. -SNOTS Mini Chart- miniature sized poster students can glue in their Reading notebooks. -“The Real Deal on Boogers”- non-fiction article perfect for introducing your students to text marker. Comes with comprehension questions and suggested ideas for “snots”-Sample SNOTTED passage to use as a guide.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
So, I absolutely LOVE the anchor charts I’ve been seeing on blogs and on Pinterest. Apparently, anchor charts are supposed to be minimalistic so as not to confuse the children with extra inf…
Making anchor charts has always been hard work for me. In fact, I never liked making anchor charts for the classroom. I did it because it helps the kids, but I am not a fan of my handwriting, my drawing is even worse, and let’s not even talk about the time it takes to make […]
Do you look on Pinterest for Anchor Chart ideas and give up at the thought that your Anchor Chart could never look that amazing? It actually doesn’t have to be that difficult to make an amazi…
This post includes step-by-step instructions on how to print anchor charts poster-sized. Use the new posters to up your teaching game.
The Best Anchor Charts for your ELA classroom all together in one place! You will find outlines to utilize in Reading Literature, Reading Informational, Writing and Language. Explained in this blog post is about the purpose of utilizing anchor charts in your daily instruction. Along with tips to organize your charts. Below is a collection […]
Helping K-2 Teachers Like You Save Time, Grow Instructional Skills, and Teach With Confidence!
Teaching Point of View to upper elementary students with a simple, sequential approach! First person, second person, third person limited, and third person omniscient.
Tips for effectively redirecting a talkative class. Think about times when students become talkative and work on methods that make conversations meaningful.
Time to teach nonfiction text features? Check out the post for ideas and hands on activities you can implement TODAY!
Ok, just because I've been gone from 'blogging land' doesn't mean we haven't been working hard in 4B. I've definitely been documenting a lot of what we've been doing! To start, it was clear to me that our old way of peer conferencing just wasn't working. Kids seemed to be goofing around, not really helping each other, and it was a waste of everyone's time. It frustrated me when most of my one-on-one conference time was spent managing unruly PEER conferences. I knew something had to change. I decided to revamp our workshop so that our peer conferences would hold both the author and the peer more accountable AND work on our 6-traits language. I introduced our 'new' method for peer conferencing using this anchor chart to document our process. After students finish drafting, they are to grab a 6-traits peer conferencing sheet and assess themselves by circling all the descriptors for each trait that they feel match their own writing. Mind you, we did a lot of whole-class practice with scoring writing based on the 6-traits criteria so students would feel comfortable doing this process on their own (and being HONEST!). Through our mini-lessons we've learned that it's possible to have high scores in some traits but lower scores in others. That's how we grow! Here you see Devin circling where he thinks his writing falls on our 6-traits rubric. (Note: The link to the 6-traits peer conferencing sheet above will bring you to an even more updated version than the one shown in this blog posting! Just FYI!) Here's another student assessing her own writing after she's drafted. This student has finished assessing her writing using our rubric. She decides on a final number score and circles it to the left of the descriptors. Then it's time to meet with a peer. (We have a peer conference sign-up sheet in our room which helps students know which other students in the room are also ready to peer conference.) Here you see this author reading his story to his peer. After he's done reading, he will explain to his peer the scores he gave himself and why. It's important for the peer to listen carefully to the author because it will soon be her turn to assign a score to this author for each trait . On the lines on the rubric, she will write to explain the scores she gives him. The peer needs to follow the following sentence stems in his/her scoring response: * I give this a writer a ___ because... * This writer needs to work on ... This process requires peers to truly work together, hold each other accountable, and it gets the kids using our 6-traits language a lot more. The second sentence stem helps the writer establish a goal for what to work on when revising! To see more of this peer conferencing process, watch a clip of us practicing this stage! Our focus lately has been on the trait of organization. We've been looking thoroughly at different beginnings and endings of both student and published writing. Here is our anchor chart documenting what we noticed! In other Writer's Workshop news, these are a few additional anchor charts we have in our room to help keep our writing organized. This anchor chart reminds us of powerful words to use to spice up 'said'! In reading we have been working hard on purposeful talk.This is so very important to the social construction of knowledge in any classroom! It's essential to teach students purposeful talk behaviors before even considering literature discussion groups (LDGs). The majority of kids talk like...well, KIDS! So, if we expect kids to talk like mature young people about different texts they read, we need to explicitly teach them how! Talking about Text by Maria Nichols is a great place to start if you're interesting in learning more about purposeful talk behaviors. I taught each of the behaviors individually through two separate mini-lessons - one day to explain 'hearing all voices' in a concrete way (without text), and a second day to practice 'hearing all voices' using text. Then I taught 'saying something meaningful' in a concrete way without using text, and the next day we practiced 'saying something meaningful' using text , and so on. Eventually all of the purposeful talk behaviors kind of blended together and kids started to discover that we often need to use all of these things at the same time in order to truly talk purposefully about anything! We did a lot of practicing, and I've been taping students in this process. Here is a clip of students practicing their behaviors while they talk about their families. (We had read a few books about different kinds of families to foster a safe environment to celebrate the fact that we all have different kinds of families!) We also had students practice their purposeful talk behaviors while discussing their best or worst memory in school (which helped warm up their brains for a timed writing activity we did during writer's workshop). Here is a clip! As a class, we watched these video clips to analyze our body language and other purposeful talk behaviors. I think taping and analyzing is a very effective way for students to learn how they should look and sound in an LDG. 'Keeping the lines of thinking alive' is a tough concept for many youngsters. Sometimes what happens is that students take turns talking, but they don't really build on what the person before them said. In other words, they don't really DISCUSS, they just share and listen. We applauded the first group in this clip because they had good body language and were respectful as listeners, but we discovered their conversation needed to be more 'alive' by asking questions and making connections to each other's ideas and thoughts. Mrs. Pierce and I taped ourselves doing a weak LDG and a strong LDG. As we watched each example, we used dots and lines to 'map out' our conversations (see chart below). In the weak LDG, we discovered Mrs. Pierce and I shared a lot of individual thoughts. The thought started, and then it stopped. There was really no discussion about anything we said; and Mrs. Pierce wasn't even looking at me during part of our time together! How rude! ;) In the strong LDG example, we mapped out a lot of dots and lines that were connected because we took each other's ideas and built on them. We truly discussed the text to dig deeper. We introduced several conversational moves for students to use to help get their voice heard in a conversation. Students also have these conversational moves on a bookmark that they keep in their LDG books. After we learned the respectful ways to speak and act when discussing with others, it was time to teach our kids how to flag their thinking. This is a crucial step to holding a successful literature discussion group because it allows the kids to track their important thoughts while reading so they have ideas for discussion the next day. Here are the 'codes' we use to track our thinking on post-its. We encourage students to use one of our codes to categorize the kind of thought they have and then write a few words to trigger their thought. This helps them when they get into a discussion group; they'll actually have pinpointed ideas to discuss! Students kept a chart in their Thoughtful Logs with all of our codes on it for easy reference. Here's a clip of our students as they practice flagging their thinking for the first time. The next day, students put all their new learning to the test. We put them in small groups to discuss the text "Slower Than the Rest" which is a short realistic fiction story out of Cynthia Rylant's book Every Living Thing. On another day, we used a high-interest two-page non-fiction text about leeches to continue practicing flagging our thoughts. Here's a clip of our kids flagging their thinking just after we modeled it during our mini-lesson. Below are some pictures of the kids' flagged thoughts. In addition to purposeful talk, we've also been studying the historical fiction genre. We've read several mentor texts, including Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner and Dandelions by Eve Bunting. Our first round of literature discussion books are all within the historical fiction genre. Here are a few of our historical fiction LDGs hard at work: Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail Scraps of Time: Abby Takes a Stand The River and the Trace (I think I put my finger over the microphone at minute 2:00!) Oftentimes, historical fiction books will have a flashback in them. One group's book, called A Scrap of Time: Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissick, has a flashback that occurs towards the beginning of the story. I photocopied some of the pages to try to explain this technique during a whole class mini-lesson. In the first section of the book, three grandkids are spending time with their grandma in her attic. They find an old menu and ask their grandma why she saved it. Chapters 1 through 12 flash back to 1960, where 'grandma' is just 10-years-old, living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time of a lot of civil rights protests. The menu is from a restaurant where a lot of sit-ins took place. Through the flashback a reader learns all about life during the 1960s. In the final section of the book, a reader finds him/herself back in the present - in grandma's attic, where the three grandkids ask their grandma some questions about her life during the sixties. There was also another flashback in the story Dakota Dugout by Ann Turner. We also read The Wreck of the Zephyr by Chris VanAllsburg as an example of a flashback in a fantasy book! In other reading news, here is a picture of the anchor chart that stored all the non-fiction text features we've learned. In social studies, we've been studying the economy of the five U.S. regions. Students have been reading small sections of non-fiction leveled readers to summarize a product or industry that is important to each region's economy. Students are typing up their summaries and we're calling those summaries 'articles' as they each create a magazine of our economy. Through this project, students have learned to: * Summarize main ideas * Center and left-justify their cursor * Use the tab key to indent * Change font size, color, and style * Bold, underline, and italicize * Safe image searches * Copy and paste * Cite their picture resources Here is the inside of one student's magazine. Next week we will be using this site to create magazine covers! Lastly, we had a chance to meet with our second-grade buddies earlier this month. We split the buddies up into two groups and one group stayed with Mrs. Adams to play holiday bingo. The other group was with me in the computer lab. Buddies used this site to play a variety of math and English games. One of the most popular games to play was called 'Story Plant' where students could click on different leaves to create the beginning to a unique story. Depending on what leaves were clicked, you would get a different combination of characters, settings, problems, etc. The computer generates a beginning to a story that the kids can print off and finish during writer's workshop! Have a wonderful weekend!
These are some of the posters I'm using for CCSS 4NF4 and a poster that my students use to help them when they respond in their reader's res...
Teach your students about sequence of events through this amazing anchor chart.
Printables and activities, anchor charts, game, and much more! This resource will help your student learn about this amazing animal group: Reptiles. It includes two booklets in B/W with directions that your student may use to learn facts about reptiles. It also contains a reptile sort, life cycle, graphic organizer, writing template, exit slip, as well as anchor charts {colored and B/W}, a game with cute clipart {for games, pocket chart, bulletin board, etc.}, and photo cards {with real photos of reptiles}. Table of Contents ⭐Mini file book, Pp. 5-13 ⭐Organizer and Exit Slip, Pp. 14-15 ⭐Sort {with answer key included}, P. 16-18 ⭐Graphic Organizer and writing template, P. 19-20 ⭐Anchor Charts {life cycle, different reptiles, colored and B/W}, life cycle booklet and printables, Pp. 21-39 ⭐Game, Pp. 40-48 ⭐Photo cards {real photos}, Pp. 49-55 This resource is part of a bundle on Animal Groups. Please click here to save money by purchasing the bundle: ANIMAL GROUPS BUNDLE FOR KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST GRADE Please provide feedback if you like this product. You receive credit {aka, money} for providing a fair feedback, which goes towards any future purchase. Please click below for other related materials available at my TpT store that are part of the BUNDLE: ANIMAL GROUPS BUNDLE FOR KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST GRADE MAMMALS CHARACTERISTICS -Life Cycle, Activities and Printables for K-1 BIRDS CHARACTERISTICS -Life Cycle, Activities and Printables for K-1 FISH CHARACTERISTICS -Life Cycle, Activities and Printables for K-1 INSECT CHARACTERISTICS -Life Cycle, Activities and Printables for K-1 REPTILES CHARACTERISTICS -Life Cycle, Activities and Printables for K-1 AMPHIBIANS CHARACTERISTICS -Life Cycle, Activities and Printables for K-1 Thanks! Star Kids Facebook Pinterest Email
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
It's that time of year again... We've got just a few short weeks left with our kiddos. Let's be honest though, we're all tired. More like exhausted. Summer
Expository or nonfiction text look different and have different features than fiction books. An expository nonfiction anchor chart can help.
Explore anchor charts that track student progress toward Independent Digital Lesson goals: click here.
To follow up from our science investigation yesterday, we filled in this observation sheet. When filling in their observation sheets, they can refer to the chart above. We use this chart for many different classroom observation or recording parts of a scientific research. I find this recording sheet perfect for kindergarten. The item recorded was bubbles. The sheet is available for download below! Bubble Observations.cwk (WP)
If you’ve ever had (or possibly you currently do have) a student who struggled with phonics even after receiving daily, systematic instruction, it’s most likely because they have not yet developed their phonemic awareness abilities. Read more
Great Things I Noticed Last Week: *Many 5K students are already reading! *A classroom reread and re-signed their class mission statement while discussing some of the issues that had been disruptive to their learning goals. What a great way to put the ownership on the students! *2nd graders eagerly sharing their writing during Daily 5 reflection time. *A 5th grade class has already made it to 50 minutes of reading stamina! *We filled the commons for Family BINGO Night on Friday. Thank you for promoting this with your classes...everyone had fun! Events This Week: Monday - MidQuarter: send progress reports home Tuesday - Grade Level Meetings in the Data Room (see previous email sent out regarding our agenda) Wednesday - Fire Safety presentations to 5K/5th grade classes Unity Day -wear orange Thursday - PTO Meeting at 3:05 in Media Center Friday - Staff Social Lunch (2nd grade & Hendricks) 1st Grade Field Trip "Nuts & Bolts" Notes: *After I posted feedback last Friday I received a great suggestion that I think will be helpful for everyone. Starting this Friday I will be switching my posts so that the Friday Focus will contain what I typically put in my Monday Memo. This way you have all the information for the following week by Friday morning to help you with your planning. I need to come up with a new title for the Monday Memo, which will be a post of my reflections that you chose to read. (Let me know if you have a nifty MM title!) Blogs, Tweets and Pins, Oh MY! *Laura Komos @LauraKomos Tonight's chat archive is ready!http://storify.com/LauraKomos/d5chat-october-2-2012 #d5chat (Go here for the archive of the last Daily 5 chat on twitter) Anchor chart on non-fiction text features, from this post. Anchor Chart on retelling. This post has many other anchor charts. Anchor chart on written responses (sorry I can't find the blog post that goes with this)
We are having so much fun learning about the body. I always find it so interesting how much they don't know and how interested they are in everything we talk about. They really are little sponges! After talking about the digestive system today, they came back from lunch talking about how they could feel the cold milk going down their "food pipe". Too cute! I have been getting things ready for our Craftivity/Research project to do at the end of this week, I can't wait to see how excited they will be! I have put together a resource to help teach little learners about the body. Lots of anchor charts (very child friendly) and lots of other goodies! (Writing prompts, vocabulary cards, Felt Figure Oral Language Center, Write Around the Room, and the fun Craftivity/Research Project). I will update this post after the little researchers get their projects done! Update! Oh boy, was that fun! They LOVED doing their very first reasearch project! I set up several "writing stations" around the room with anchor charts, vocabulary cards, and books about the body. I set up all of the materials on the table and we talked about what they could use to do their project. The only thing I requested was that they write at least four or five journaling cards before they start. I have never done a research project this early in the year, so I honestly wasn't sure what to expect, but I was actually really amazed! They REALLY loved going to the stations and writing, and their writing was SO much better than I expected. I was hoping for legible words and I got that, plus more from so many of them :o). Never did I hear "I can't", not once. They all did something, and they really owned it. The range of finished projects was definitely wide as far as ability, but each was very proud and loved what they had produced. I tried to get around to as many as I could to elicit some conversation "Tell me about this organ?" They really soaked up the facts, great language and vocabulary being used, and pretty good sentences (we are working hard on using complete sentences). My favorite was "This is the stomach, it makes my food digested-ed". One of my take aways for doing this next year is to have many more copies of the vocabulary words, this was just a really accessible way for many of them to connect the text to the content. Next week we will share our projects with a "museum walk", and then I will hang them in the hallway. I'll update then, until then, thanks for checking in! Body Parts Anchor Charts for Little Learners & Craftivity/Research Project UPDATE!! I have now completed The Body Close Reading and Listening for Little Learners! It is available on its own and also as a Bundle together with the Anchor Charts resource! It is the perfect companion! 1
In this blog post I'm sharing a great list of free websites where you can find seed ideas for science phenomena to teach to the NGSS!
