Balance and Literature Circles

How do you all do it?  I was so excited to start this blogging/product creating process.  I knew reasonably I wouldn't be able to post all that often...but come on!  I am finishing up my first quarter of school this Friday!  I think I've blogged twice...and they were ones I started before school even started!  Between teaching, my 8 month old, and keeping up a house, I feel like I'm drowning.  Let alone add in time to blog or create products!  I have so many things I use in my classroom that I want to get up for others to be able to use in theirs.  Hopefully that happens...slowly but surely.  I can't help but think my spare time is better spent with my baby as he will not be a baby forever!

To all of you teacher/parent/bloggers I bow down to you.  You are amazing.  Please tell me your secrets!

Literature circles!  I love them, don't you?  I remember as a college student literature circles were the most exciting thing.  I love books, I love reading, and I love talking about what I'm reading!  I decided immediately I was going to implement them when I became a teacher.

Generally, I start out using literature circles at the beginning of the year with my above grade level kids.  This is a great added challenge for them.  As the year progresses,  I teach the structure to all of my students.  Yes, even my lowest!  The wonderful thing about literature circles is that you can use ANY book with them!  This is a product I use in my classroom every day. 

Literature circles are a fantastic way to help your students increase their comprehension and take ownership over their reading! I am constantly on the lookout for sets of books on sale so I can add them to my literature circle stash! Scholastic always sells sets of 6 in their monthly fliers if you are in need of some.  In this pack I have included directions on how I run literature circles in my room, 6 literature circle role recording sheets with directions, and bookmarks.

The 6 roles:
*Circle Captain - leads the group during the circle and comes up with "Thick" questions to ask the group members
*Cool Connector - makes "text to text," "text to self," and "text to world" connections to the reading
*Super Summarizer - creates a summary of the pages read
*Voracious Vocabulary Keeper - finds words they do not know, seem important, or think others would need help with and looks up the definition
*Phenomenal Predictor - makes predictions about what they think will happen next and explains why they think that
*Impressive Illustrator - illustrates and explains their favorite part of the reading

I have included 2 sets of bookmarks. One set has the first 5 roles each student would have filled out and the others are blank for you to write what works for your groups! When I magically have more time I will add the set of bookmarks with 6 spots as well.  I use groups of 5 in my room which is why that is what I uploaded first!

How I run my circles;
    Each Monday I meet with my groups briefly to decide together how many pages they should be reading and assign roles.  I have the order of their roles already typed on their bookmarks, but I use this time to hand out the recording sheets and make sure there are no questions over the new roles.  They spend the rest of the week working on reading the assigned pages/chapters and filling out their job’s recording sheet.  This gives them an independent task while I can use the time to meet with my struggling readers.  On Friday, we meet for the literature circle.  I act as a student/observer while the “Circle Captain” sits in my chair at the reading table and leads the group. 

Bookmarks:
    I write the students’ names at the top of the bookmarks and print/laminate them for durability.  I then use the trick of writing information on them with permanent marker that I can erase over the weekend using dry—erase markers.  They keep this in their books at all times.  It also helps me keep track of who has done what job already.  Depending on the number of students in my groups I change the order of jobs.  I have given an example that I am using this year for my groups of 5 students.  I have also included blank ones you can write on or add text boxes to.

Click on any of the pictures above to head to my store!  I hope you are able to find this useful for your classrooms!

Classroom Reveal - 2getherWeAreBetter Linkup

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I must say I am pretty happy with how my classroom has turned out this year.  That being said...I know I will change it at least a bit next summer.  I have never had my classroom look the same two years in a row and I'm sure neither have you!  We actually started the first week of August, so some of the pictures are from this summer before kiddos and some are once school had already started as each weekend I changed a few things once I had gotten to know this years class and what would/wouldn't work for them.  Some of these pictures show parts of my bulletin boards that I explained in more detail in this post.  If there is something you wanted to know where it came from or questions you had that I don't answer here, be sure to check back there!

This is the showcase board outside of our classroom.  Each student has their number on an apple that is attached to a clothespin.  They can hang up any piece or combination of pieces of their work here to show off!  The kids love having a say in what they get to put out.  To start I always put our second grade goals that we write at the beginning of the year.  This picture was taken pretty early on so there isn't a lot out there yet!

Next up is our Monster Club board!  I know I had this board in my other post as well but I just wanted to show how many students had already taken part!  My class is directly in the middle.  By week 3 of school I already had 12 kiddos who did extra work and made the monster club!  As of today one of my students is only one star away from reaching the hall of fame already!  I am super pumped about this!  (Yes...I said pumped...)

This is what the setup of my desks look like at the moment.  This is the third setup this year already.  It is a tough class and I kept playing around with different formations to see what worked best for them.  This seems to be the winner for now!  The group bins in the middle hold their "In Progress" folders we use for work that we have not finished yet or will keep referring back to.  This includes things such as their SuperSpeed Math, Word Collectors, and other unfinished work.  I also keep their Reader's Response Journals and dry erase boards in these bins.  Next to them we have the group pencil bin for when students need a new pencil.  I am very structured and only let students sharpen in the morning so I do not want them wandering the room to find a new pencil.  I do not have supply crates on my groups like many teachers.  My students all have a pencil box in which they keep their supplies in their desk.  Each year I buy extra to ensure all of my students have a place for their things.  This is extra important this year as their computers are now housed in their desks without cases!  Eek!

These area few images from our family room.  I am LOVING my new organization of my classroom library into topics/genres instead of levels.  The kids seem to have a much easier time finding books they want to read quickly!  Which is definitely a good thing considering how many books I have.  My green chair is where I sit while reading to them or doing a CAFE mini-lesson.  My kids get to sit there during Read to Self when they are Student of the Week.  My calendar area looks so bare!  Now I have the students names under their birthday months and we have been in school for 4 weeks already!  These counters also house some important items for the kids.  Their book boxes, the book hospital, pencil sharpening stations, and my Check for Understanding checkmarks are located here.

If you haven't noticed already my room has enormous everything.  Enormous bulletin boards and enormous storage.  I love that they utilized every inch possible, but I must say for this short teacher, constantly getting out my stepladder or borrowing a ladder can get cumbersome.  But...yes I am lucky!  The students have numbers on their closets so I don't have to change them each year.  There is also room for me to store manipulatives on the top shelf of their closets.  To be honest a lot of the top cabinets are empty.  I'm a bit of a minimalist and if I don't use it, it's gone!  By the door I store my lunch in the room passes as well as my bathroom chart.  The area by the sink houses our clipboards and Tigger Talk.  This is an idea I edited from Miss DeCarbo!  It is also where we keep our class pet.  It's a little hard to see, but he is a fake goldfish.  We are not allowed to have pets in our classroom so my mother bought me the next best thing as a joke.  And the kids love it!  Each year they vote on a name for him and then I use him as our whole class positive behavior system.  Whenever the class as a whole does something great, the bowl gets a scoop of water.  (Yes, he's a magic fish who doesn't need water.)  Once the fishtank is full, we have a celebration!

My teacher desk is basically only in use when planning without students.  This area houses my filing cabinet filled with my unit plans.  I also have any teacher resources I use back here including lots of picture books I use to teach my lessons or as read alouds.  I am a Tigger and tiger fanatic so there are lots of stuffed animals filling the tops of my shelves.  Students can buy the chance to have a stuffed animal with them for the day as part of my store on Fridays.

This area is quite different than years past.  Normally this is where my computer cart is housed.  However this year our wonderful (very secondary minded) head administrators decided our elementary students (K-4) should take home their iPads/Macbooks every single day...chargers included.  Not that our entire school has internet at home...but um...yeah.  So at the moment I have stolen a few kids chargers (as we won't have extras except for my personal one for 27 students) since I am meeting with their parents this week to discuss responsible use and consequences for breaking the computers before they get to start taking them home.  In our school K and 1 have iPads while 2-4 have Macbook Airs.  This table provides me a place for kids to sit while their computers are charging, bins for turning things in, and a place for their lunch hexagons to go before they put them in the chart each morning.

My small group table was currently half set up for Meet the Teacher night in this picture.  However, this is where I meet with small groups during Reading Block or Reading Success/Intervention time.  Last year I purchased stools from Ikea.  I love them!  We have large classes and it was impossible for me to fit enough students around the table with our old chairs.  These are super cheap!  However, I had to replace a few this summer after coming back from maternity leave to broken stools so they may not last too long when kids are rough with them.  On the back counter you can also see part of our homework folders (post on that later), math center bins, and their mailboxes.  These shelves are where I store all of my small group items as well as the students coin boxes and store items.

Whew!  I think that is it for now!  For a more detailed look at my bulletin boards and the front of my room be sure to check back on my last #2getherWeAreBetter post!