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!

Making Connections and a WBT Freebie!

Making connections are one of the reading strategies my students seem to love the most.  As I'm sure you well know, elementary kiddos love to talk.  And talk, and talk, and talk.  When they make connections to what they are reading, they get to tell you stories about other things.  Win-win.  They love talking about things they are reminded of...and we know it is helping to improve their comprehension!

I always have posters in my classroom year round with the types of connections students can make.  We refer to them every time someone makes a connection.  In the past I have placed these low enough that I could have the students put post-it notes with their connections underneath the appropriate heading.  I have also had them make paper chains with their connections that I connect below the posters.  The kids love to see which one wins.  (It's almost always text to self)

I added my posters to TpT along with a quick recording sheet I use when I am just starting to introduce connections to my students.  Click on the picture to hop over to my store to grab it for only $1.50!

At the very end of the school year last year I went to a quick informational session about Whole Brain Teaching.  It has definitely peaked my interest!  I need to spend more time researching it to see how much of it I want to incorporate into my classroom.  To start with I have decided to use the Super Speed Math for my fact practice this year.  You can get that here from their website.  It is under freebies but you do have to create an account to get access.  I will keep you updated on how that goes.

Secondly, I have decided to utilize an adapted version of their rules.  My classroom has always had one simple rule, "Respect."  In theory...it's great!  But, I never refer back to it and I think my students forget it is even our rule.  This year I want to use the 5 Whole Brain Teaching rules with the motions.  We know that students are more likely to remember things the more ways they are putting it into their brain.  My hope is by moving and saying the rules they will "stick" all year!  I plan on having them say these rules with me at the beginning of each day for at least the first month or so of school.  From there it will probably depend on when it is needed.

I looked around for rule posters on TpT and didn't find any that fit both the changes I wanted to make and my classroom decor.  So here is your freebie!  Click on the picture to grab it!

I have included the following rules:

Rule 1: Follow directions quickly.
Rule 2: Raise your hand for permission to speak.
Rule 3: Raise your hand for permission to leave your seat.
Alt. Rule 3: Listen carefully to the person speaking.
Rule 4: Make smart choices.
Rule 5: Keep your dear teacher happy.
Alt Rule 5: Keep your dear teachers happy.

I switched up rule #3 simply because there are certain things I have my kids leave their seats for without permission.  Getting kleenex, throwing away trash, and getting a new pencil from row bin are a few of the things that I do not want them interrupting lessons to ask permission to do. 

Do any of you use part of Whole Brain Teaching?  What do you think? 

The Start of My TPT Store

I wanted to share a quick post about a few of the products I have up in my TPT store.  I currently only have 3, so it won't take long.  :)

This freebie contains 3 math chant posters that I use in my own classroom.  If you teach place value, odds and evens, or subtraction with regrouping, make sure and head over to my store to grab this freebie!  These are chants are awesome learning tools that my students love!  They are not my wording and I could not find anywhere who they are originally from.  I just dressed them up into simple posters to display in my classroom and thought others might enjoy them as well!

My school uses Houghton Mifflin's Journeys for their reading series.  I created challenge spelling word lists to help differentiate my spelling each week.  In my classroom I give a spelling pre-test on Mondays. After grading this, any student who missed 2 or less is given the challenge words for the week. The two blanks on the page are spots to write any regular spelling words they missed. I staple one copy to their test and the other I keep until Friday to use to give the final test. On Friday’s test I split the challenge students into pairs and they test each other while I test the rest of the class with the regular list. I only count the regular words for a grade so challenge students are based on their pretest plus any missed words they took again on the final test. In my classroom I use coins as an individual award so students get one coin per challenge word they spell correctly. They can then use these in our weekly store.

Phew...that was wordy.  I hope that made sense!  It works really well, I promise!  :)  The set contains all 30 weeks to go along with Journeys' phonics skills.  It is for sale on my blog for only $2.50! 

This set of worksheets contains 6 number of the day worksheets.  One of my math centers each day involves collaborative groups.  Number of the Day is one of the collaborative tasks I have my students work on.  It is a great way to review skills and I change out what is being asked of them based on what we have learned and what they need review on!  Grab this for just $1.00!

I have tons of things in the works to add to my store, but with a 5 month old and school around the corner it will be slow going!  Click on the pictures to go to my store and grab what you need!  I am hoping to finish a few miscellaneous tasks in my room decor in the next few days so I can take some pictures and get that up on the blog.  Stay tuned! :)