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. 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Literature-Circles-2097849

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. 





https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Literature-Circles-2097849

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!
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