Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Interested in using anchor charts with older students? Read about benefits, best practices, and materials to make the experience a success.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
When it comes to teaching close reading and annotation, is there anything worse than seeing your students mindlessly highlighting for pages and pages with no real understanding of what they're highlighting or why they're highlighting it? The frustrating part is that highlighting indicates that they're trying, but it often shows that they don't understand why.
I {puffy heart} anchor charts! That is what this blog post is all about….anchor charts and my love for them. When I first started teaching, I went to the teacher stores that sell workbooks, bulletin board paper and sets, and posters. Posters that I remember from when I was a child, like this one: Who ... Read More about Anchoring the Standards: Teaching & Documenting the Common Core Standards with Anchor Charts Part 1
Discover hands-on beginning of the year science activities that will excite your students and build the foundation for future science lessons!
This blog post contains a FREE compare and contrast reading activity! Materials are included so you can replicate the compare and contrast anchor chart and lesson for your own upper elementary and middle school students.
When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult
Then, we used a little total physical response to give my firsties a better visual on how the size of the places we live are related. They *loved* this
Each classroom brings students of multiple learning styles and backgrounds. It is our job to provide opportunities that reach all of the many different learning styles that come to us. For this reason, it is
A collection free math cheat sheet pdf printables that can be given to students for their math notebooks or enlarged into anchor charts.
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 nice looking anchor charts. As teachers, we do not possess much of that thing called, "time." I mean really, I found myself shoving down carrots and ranch dressing (because I want to be healthy) then devouring allll the chocolate (because I really don't care about healthy anymore) while making anchor charts. 30 minutes later, lunch was done, anchor chart almost complete...and oops...I misspelled the title. I mean really? Rip it off the chart paper pad, throw it in the trash, and rush out the door. Unfortunately, I didn't wise up for a long time. 8 years of teaching...and a light bulb goes off. Pre-make the anchor charts. In the comfort of my own home...I make the anchor chart...on the computer. Then print, and glue! Done, done...and done. Now...I still eat all the chocolate, but now I get lunch and I am no longer in the need of anger management courses over misspelled words. I may sound like a crazy person to you...but I know you have been there too. Honesty is the best policy. :) Now, I KNOW I am not the first one that has ever pre-made anchor charts, or printed items off of the computer for an anchor chart. I am in NO way claiming to be the first to do this. But, I have been a TpT seller for a few years now and the idea just popped into my head..."if I make all of my centers, lessons plans, etc...why not anchor charts?" And there you have it. Below are a few of the anchor charts I have made and so far I love them and other teachers are loving them. I waited to do this post until I knew others found a need for these too! And yes! I was not alone! It was confirmed I was not crazy and other teachers, in fact, DO have anger problems when it comes to making hand-made anchor charts. Many people have asked what products are needed to make these. I purchased my chart paper and Astrobrights paper from Amazon. Those two things (well, with scissors and glue) are all you need! Each Anchor Chart also comes with a student journal chart as well! The students can glue these in their journals for an easy reference later! I have also completed my Writing and Grammar Anchor Chart Bundles. And newly added, I have completed Classroom Management Anchor Charts! These are also included in the big bundle...if you have purchased that, just redownload it from the My Purchases tab on TpT. I figured these would be very beneficial to make at the beginning of the year with our students then either hang them up all year as a reminder...or just pull them out to review from time to time. Just depends on the students. :) There are many more but I won't bore you with all of the pictures. I feel like Classroom Management must be explained from the beginning and reinforced often. I know these anchor charts will help keep that process streamlined in your classroom! Making these are fun and easy! Most importantly, it saves time and SANITY. Want these for your classroom? Click Here to grab them in my shop! (affiliate links are provided for your convenience)
Anchor charts that will engage your students while they learn about identifying the author's purpose in a nonfiction text!
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…
Classroom Reading Organization Tips for guided reading groups, reading lessons and how to make your reading instruction more than manageable!
Anchor charts showing speech strategies and types of stuttering. I also included one page of cluttering strategies. Some are the same as stuttering strategies, but there are a few strategies specifically for cluttering. You can see these charts featured on my blog here: http://wp.me/p1yIvb-bL
Happy Sunday! I hope you had a fabulous weekend! I spent my weekend hanging out with my husband and decorating our house for Halloween! My house is now filled with white pumpkins and purple mums – ahhhh! 🙂 Tonight I have visual lesson plans for you, some pictures from last week’s learning activities, and a […]
Annotating texts is a powerful strategy for readers. Get tips and strategies to help your students annotate effectively and use their annotations.
This is a culmination of my own anchor charts, plus the best anchor charts that I could find online. This is a great place to find effective charts that get to the heart of what you are teaching in workshop. If you have a favorite chart that you'd like to add, please contact me! Also, if I have not properly given credit for an anchor chart, let me know so that I can fix it.
Math Properties Anchor Chart! Teach students about the commutative, associative, distributive and identity properties this this anchor chart!
Over the years, I have created dozens of anchor charts in my classroom. I am a huge proponent of creating anchor charts with my students, and I strongly believe that the perfect anchor chart isn't always pretty. The posts below feature many of my anchor charts.
I LOVE making charts! Step into my classroom and you’ll probably say, “Wow, someone has too much time!” but to be honest, I don’t! I just love them so much and love the w…
Teaching similes and metaphors is the first step in moving your students beyond literal meaning and teaching them to mature as writers. Students need to see and hear figurative language many times before they will use it in their own writing. Transferring these skills into writing is a long...
This chart is The Physical Properties of Matter with the definition and visual examples for each category including the 5 senses. Need to up your anchor chart game but can't find the time or the patience? I would love to help out! My charts are hand drawn and are made to order. Anchor charts are one of the best ways to engage students in learning and great to have as a reference tool during lessons. Any anchor can be customized to your preferences, most of what I will do will be in bright colors. NOT laminated/NOT prints. *DISCLAIMER: all photos are of my personal anchor charts, used in my classrooms. A brand new one will be made for your order!*
Analyzing character traits is a key fiction reading skill that is needed for successful comprehension. In most cases, authors do not just come out and tell readers the traits that a character possesses. By teaching
Need fun and effective ideas for teaching students about electrical energy and circuits? This post is full of ideas that you can use in your classroom today!
Learn creative and hands-on ways to use Stellaluna activities will keep kids engaged and turn your readers into comprehenders.
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 […]
Cause and effect is an essential reading skill that our readers need in able to adequately and effectively comprehend. It helps students understand how one event connects or leads to the next event. I thought it would be so fun to give my cause and effect resource a little makeover with a fun newsroom theme. Students will be reporters to report on the cause and effect relationships in the story. They will cover what happened (THE EVENT) and what made that event happen (THE CAUSE). These activities, anchor charts, and crafts will help you plan a mini room transformation for your students. Get ready to transform your classroom into a Cause and Effect News Studio! As far as transforming your room goes, I am all for less is more in this instance. You could cover their desk pods or tables with plastic tablecloths and lay the printable microphones on each student's spot. I included a banner that you can print to hang at the front of your room. You might want to make a backdrop up there, too, with bulletin board paper for when students do their reporting. You could also move a piece of furniture or some desks to that area for reporters to sit. I think it would be really cute if you dressed as a reporter and have students dress as one at the end of the unit for one final cause and effect news report. I give instructions in the resource on how to print the anchor chart as a poster. You can laminate this and use a dry erase marker on it when you go to model identifying cause and effect relationships in the text. The posters can be printed and hung near your anchor chart for student reference. For the opening activity, have students gather on the carpet. Explain to them what a cause and effect are and that they will be reporting on different cause and effect relationships in texts. Show them these picture cards all mixed up. Have students help you match the causes and effects and display them on your board or in a pocket chart. Model with the microphone how you might report on these events. I always tell students to identify the effect first and then to find the cause. I have found that this strategy is helpful for students. You really can use any fictional story for cause and effect, but there are some texts that just lend themselves well to teaching this reading skill. Some good ones include The Rain Came Down, A Bad Case of Stripes, any book by Doreen Cronin, Alexander and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day, and any of the Laura Numeroff books. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs would be another good one, since it's about weather. Fictional books about weather events would be great for the news reports! For the first day, I would give each group one of these envelopes filled with the graphic organizers below. These are normally used for cooperative groups or centers and each will have its own text. I would actually read aloud one text for the whole class and then have students go prepare their news reports with their tables. There are two graphic organizers included, the first only has one cause and effect relationship and the other has three. You can choose what would be best for your students. After identifying the cause and effect relationships have each group come up front to deliver their news report. Have a discussion on whether or not students identified the same or a different relationship and explain that stories can have many different ones just like in real life. Use different texts each day so that students are exposed to more examples of cause and effect relationships. I have included different crafts and graphic organizers below that you could use each day. There are enough to even come back to cause and effect later in the year. I always strive to give you lots of options so that you can meet the needs in your classroom. The news report and microphone crafts are sure to get your students excited about cause and effect! After making these, you can hang them in your room to add to your room transformation. I tried to make these look like hats reporters would wear back in the day. I think they would be so fun for your students to wear after one of your lessons! For exit tickets, you can use these printables or have students use their whiteboards. I would display a short passage or story and have students identify a cause or effect. This will let you know if they understand the vocabulary of cause and effect. I actually changed this badges after taking this photo to press passes for students to have access to your newsroom throughout the week. Give students these bookmarks to use during their independent reading time to apply the skill. I always include these book club templates and discussion cards in case you have book clubs meet each week like I used to do. I miss them so much! Students would review the skill on Friday while eating popcorn and discussing the text that day. I hope you love this resource as much as I do! As I am updating all of my reading comprehension units, I am trying to add as many fun themes as possible. Up next is updating my point of view unit with a fun 70s theme! These themes are what keep me excited to teach and help aid in not being burnt out. It doesn't take much to get students excited, so you can make a transformation as small or as big as you want. My students would get excited just over the paper microphones! Ha! You can check out the resource HERE or by clicking on any of the photos. It is sold separately and in a BUNDLE. If you already own it, be sure to download it again. Thank you so much for reading!
So, I think I've mentioned that I've been in one school district, one school, for the past fifteen years. For the fifteen years I have been there, we have used an anthology (ahhh, can you say basal?) reading program. I never liked it. In fact, I've always hated it. It never seemed rigorous enough. Luckily, I had a great principal that allowed me to toss the anthology and teach with novels. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Insert Snoopy Happy Dance Here!!!!!! Well, in the past couple of years I've morphed into using the reading workshop model with my friends reading books of their choosing. I love it, but I work in a district that still uses an anthology.* With no specific curriculum to follow, other than the district's and state's standards that must be met, I've had to build my own. This is where the web has been invaluable. By putting what I find out there together with what I know, I can say it's been going well. Last week, I did a lesson on self-monitoring. It is a blend of a lesson I found online and the self-monitoring I've been teaching for years. Now, I have to say that this is not the original anchor chart. The original chart was made with my friends and was super messy not so neatly done. I found that this is a chart we refer to often. It was a chart I knew would hang in my room for a while, so after school one day I remade the chart to be way less sloppy a bit neater. I think self-monitoring is an important lesson. The first thing I do is ask if anyone has ever been reading a book and suddenly realized that they had no idea what was going on. Everyone can raise their hand on that one, teacher included. We then discuss how readers self-monitor to keep meaning. I find my most able readers do most of these unconsciously, while my getting there readers have no idea they should even be doing these things. For my getting there readers, this is an anchor chart that often comes up during individual conferencing. It takes a while for them to internalize these behaviors, so we briefly touch on one or two of them during most conferences. To explicitly explain what these self-monitoring techniques are and how they help us as readers isn't enough though. This is where the constant modeling comes in. With any read aloud or shared reading we do, I'm sure to ask one, two, a few of these questions as I read. It may not be the focus of the mini-lesson, but I want them to see that good readers constantly self-monitor. It's also a great time to model how self-monitoring helps you make deeper connections to the text. Since this chart is going to be up for a while, I decided to hang it up on the wall. Do you see it? No? Okay, look a little closer. Yeah, I was up on a six-foot ladder after school last week hanging that chart. You can bet that's one chart that won't be coming down for a while! *I should note that my district has been making some major changes in it's literacy program and is slowly implementing the reading workshop model over the course of this school year. It's not been easy to take a school so firmly entrenched in an anthology to a workshop model, but I can tell you my coworkers are true superstars. They are working so hard and doing great things!
