Freebie! Edit and Revise Checklist!

Hey y'all! I have a wonderful freebie for you!

It's been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd share something FREE!

I created edit and revise checklists for when my students peer edit and revise each others work...This helps keep the students accountable when they are working together and also keeps them on track!

They go through and check off the sections when they have gone through and done so on their partner's paper.

I don't have a picture of the revise checklist because I just created it. 

Here are examples of when my students have used the edit checklist recently in my class. The pics were taken before I did a little facelift with the fonts on the checklist. :)

Here is the free download at my TPT store! :) Hope You Enjoy!!

I'm working on some stuff for reading and writing notebooks! Hopefully I get to finish those soon! 

Poetry and Writing Lists!

Hey yall! 

I'm kind of sad that no one gave me any ideas on my last post about what to add to my reading form!  :( Oh well, I came up with something....

anywhooo!

I wanted to share what my students have been doing lately in our Poetry Unit!

They have been SO excited about their Poetry Anthologies {spiral notebooks}.  I started out the unit having the students just copy poems from collections that I had copied for each table. 

I made sure that they copied the poems EXACTLY as they saw them. So they copied the poem on one side of the notebook, then illustrated the poem on the other.

This went on for about 3 days or so.  most of the time I would give students time to share their poem choice and illustrations.

After those first few days, I had them continue to copy poems but instead of just illustrating, they would respond to the poems.  I had sentence stems written on sentence strips to help them at the beginning with responding. Of course, I am beginning these lessons with modeling it for the students first. 

Once the students got the hang of responding and illustrating, I added in commenting! This is the students' FAVE part! They love getting to comment on each others' poems and illustrations. 

I give each student a sticky note to stick on their two page spread. They all get to move around the room and either write a smiley or a wish on the other poems. 

Smiley= something they like about the poem/illustration.

Wish= Something they wish the author did to the poem/illustration.

At first some students were only writing wishes. I reminded them that they should be complimenting and looking for good things about their classmates' poems. So, to control the wish giving, I told them they were only allowed to write one wish per day. That helped and most students did well with giving smileys! 

Also, with smileys, I told students to be specific. They would mostly write, I like your picture, i like the poem, etc... very vague. I emphasized that they needed to tell WHAT they liked about the picture or poem. They've gotten a little better! 

Now, they are past the copying part and are writing their own poems at the end of each week that we focus on a different kind of poem. They work really hard since they know their classmates are going to be commenting. 

Seeing their faces light up when they read the comments they get is so fun! :) I love seeing them get excited about poetry!

We have been doing this unit for 3 weeks and it is not getting old yet! :) 

WRITING FOLDER IDEAS LIST!

Ok, so I had this created about 2 years ago and just forgot to post it on here! I have a writing idea list that I have my students create and put into their writing folders at the beginning of each year. This is used throughout the year when students seem to get "writer's block". :) When I hear the whiny, "I don't know what to write about" or "I'm trying to think"... I just tell them to look at their lists. This saves me so much time and energy on certain days.

I've finally added it to my TPT store!

I Need Your Help!!

Hi y'all! 

I have a question and I really want your input!

I have been wanting to create a tracking sheet for my students. Of course, I keep track of their progress in my small group binders, but I wanted to create a sheet that THEY can have access to whenever they want to check up on themselves!  I do small groups and independent conferences and I tell the students what they are doing well with, what they could improve on, and how to improve. BUT once I leave them, I'm always wondering if they really grasped our little chat and if they would really work on their goals. I want them to have easy access to a reminder of what they are like as a reader (or writer, etc.) .

S0, I decided to start creating a little tracking sheet for them to keep in their folders. We would pull it out, reference, and update it each time that we met in conference or groups....

So far I have an area for their strengths, and goals, and strategies to reach their goals...

My question to y'all is....what else should I have on the sheet? I've been sitting here thinking to myself that there should be something else...that it can't be THAT simple. 

So... What DO Yall think I should add to the sheet? OR is it really okay..as is?  Here is what I have so far...PLEASE give me input! Help a sista out! :) I'd really appreciate it! Thank ya!

Quick Tip-Absent Clip

Hey y'all! 

I decided to do a quick tip today! 

This quick tip helps me when I have a student or two absent. When a student is absent and misses work, I used to write their name on the page and leave it out on my teacher table to remember for the next day. I always had loose papers on my table from my absent students. I don't like clutter and things not in a "place". So I decided I needed a way to keep these sheets in my view as reminders but out. of. my. way. SO I came up with my absent clip. 

This is just a clothes pin that I super glued a tack to the back of... then I stuck it in the wall by my teacher stuff. This keeps all of those absent papers easily in my view for when the student returns but out of my way until then! :) 

Happy long Easter weekend! :) :)

Short and Sweet and a Freebie!

Oh my word! I am counting down the days! Summer sounds AHmazing right now! I'm already planning my days by the pool, what books i'll be reading, and vacations! Even so, I have been planning for this next 9 weeks which will focus on Poetry for reading AND writing! I am really excited about this unit. I absolutely L-O-V-E it when our reading and writing go hand in hand!

Anywho... This post will be short and sweet and includes a freebie! :)

We have been hearing A LOT about running records lately at my school. We had a refresher training the other day for 2 hours! Honestly I learned a couple things that I didn't know. SO, it wasn't a complete waste of time. :) 

The running record forms that we have.. I don't like. I don't like all the extra stuff that I usually don't use and the way it is organized. I wanted to make my own that was most beneficial to me. So I just rearranged some of the things and organized it so that it was easier for me to use. :) 

I also created a log for my running records. I wanted this log so that I could keep track of how often I am giving running records to each student. On this tracking sheet I will probably organize my students in order based on below level, on level, and above level. That will help me make sure that I am focusing mostly on my below level students.  I will keep this in the front of my reading binders with my conference tracking sheet and small group calendar. I think I'm going to like having the dates recorded and in one place so that I can stay on track. :)

I just wanted to share this with you. Maybe you'll find it useful as well! :) As always... I am up for any suggestions! 

Hold on tight! There is light at the end of the tunnel!

Running Record Form and Log

Book Clubs Bundle

First off, sorry for the fuzzy pictures. I couldn't tell they were fuzzy until I got home and put them on my computer...:-/

I have updated and made changes to my book club packet many times. I keep finding ways to make it better as my students use them this year. It is still a work in progress but I am loving them! My whole first class is using them! I'm very lucky to say that all of my students in my first class are reading above where they need to be by the end of the year! woohoo! :) So, this is such a great way to get them to love reading even more and be able to share it with each other! They are all about these book clubs!

I decided to write about how I organize and work my book club groups. So, here we go. 

Basically I use the book clubs for my high readers. The book club is when I get a group of students together to read, respond, and share about a book. 

Book Choices

First, I go to my literacy library and pull out many sets of books at the different levels that my students range.  I set them out and had my students choose which book that they wanted to read as a first and second choice. They were able to choose the book and that made it all the more special for them. I made sure that there were no more than 6 students to a book/group and that their choice was not above their independent reading level. 

Book Club Group Folder

Once choices are made, I call up the groups and discuss the Book Club folders with them. These folders have all that they will need for their book club jobs and meetings.

Inside the Book Club folders are;

Jobs Chart

Meeting Reports

Individual Student Book Club Packets

Meeting Expectations 

Checklist for Next Meeting

These book club folders are kept together in a magazine holder next to our class library by my small group table. This is where they stay. If a student needs to work on their book club packet, they come retrieve it from their group folder and take it to their seat. When they are done working on it, their packet goes back into the group folder. I do this because I have a lot of students that easily lose things. This is the only way to ensure that they do not lose their packet.

They also take the folder with them when they have their meetings. 

Book Club Packets

Each student gets an individual Book Club Packet. This packet has all of their jobs included. 

The packet includes;

Title Page

Schema Page

JOBS:

Question Creator

Summarizer

Word Wizard

Character Charter

Visualizer

Connector

Feeler

Predictor

Main Idea Detective
Synthesizor

Interesting Words List

This packet is where the students respond to the book that they are reading. At the end of each meeting the group chooses what sections/chapters they are going to read for the week. They can chose one or two chapters at a time. I tell them not to choose more than two chapters for a week.  Then the students chose their individual jobs for the week. They must all have a different job and a job they haven't done yet. This is where the job chart comes into play. They check off the jobs they have been to keep track. Once they make their choice, they go their separate ways and throughout the week during reading workshop and independent reading the students read their section and respond by completing their job. They know that they have until the following Monday to read and complete their job.

Book Club Meetings

I chose Mondays for my class to take part in their book club meetings. This was the easiest for me to keep track of. Each Monday during reading time, the groups get together and share their jobs and discuss the chapters that they read. During this time, I walk around with my conferencing notebook and sit in on the different book club meetings to listen and take notes. I use my book club observation sheets that are included in the bundled packet. Sometimes I discuss with them, other times I just listen and observe. This depends on how well the group is working on their own. Some groups need more guidance than others. Definitely when a group is new to book club then I sit in and go through the meeting with them guiding them in the right direction.

Finishing a Book

Once the group is finished with a book I have them complete some sort of an activity to tie the whole book together. This is usually done over the week after their last group meeting and shared on the following Monday. Then the group is able to choose a new book for the next book club. 

You can find my whole Book Club Packet Bundle which includes all that you need to put your own book clubs together...here at my TPT store! :)

Fancy Book Club Bundle

I hope this is helpful to some of you out there. If you have ANY suggestions please feel free to send them my way! I am always interested in improving! :)

Non-Fiction Features and Text Mapping!

We have been doing a huge unit on Non-Fiction text in reading and writing. It has been wonderful that these two subjects are lining up perfectly! I feel like I have SOO much more time! We have been going over important text features and then students are researching to produce their own non-fiction text. 

We have been going over one or two text features each day. I model using the feature and then the student practice using those features when they research on their own. The next day before I go over a new feature, I review the other features and we talk about how it helped them read the text. What they tell me, I record on the chart. 

I got these most of these wonderful text features pictures from Joyful Learning in KC.

A few I created on my own.

 

I saw an activity on Pinterest called text mapping. This is where the students search through the text to find and show the different text features. I chose to do this during reading with my students to help them grasp the whole idea of non-fiction text features working together to help the reader.

I copied a bunch of pages from a non-fiction book that I found in our library that had most of the text features for them to find.

 

 I taped the pages together and then taped it up on the wall in the hallway. Each table group worked with one set of the text. The students had to work together to map the text. 

My teammate had this little half sheet directions for what to circle and underline, etc. I am not sure where she found it..wish I could give props to the creator for the idea! I wanted to add a couple things to it, but didn't have time...so I used it as it was and it still went great!

 Other Directions

Once I had time, I went back and made some adjustments to the directions for next year. 

My updated directions

So to set up the text mapping activity, I taped all the sets of text on the walls in different areas of the hallway. 

Then I taped two of the direction sheets above the text so that they could easily see them while they were working.

 I gave the class directions, had each table group gather two of each color that they needed, and sent them on their way. :) I think they really enjoyed getting to work in the hallway and doing something different! 

Here they are hard at work!

Here are some shots of their text mapping!

After the groups were done, I had them sit on the floor against the wall under their text. We had a discussion in the hallway about what they noticed about the text now that it had been mapped. We had some great discussions and they really understood how important non-fiction features are and why they are necessary. :)

 This text mapping activity was such a great visual! I will be doing this activity each year from now on! :)

 

Favorite Fabulous Read Alouds Linky!

I came across this fun linky by Sunny Days in Second Grade: Show and Tell Tuesdays! This Tuesday she is sharing her favorite read alouds. I absolutely love read alouds and always like getting more great book ideas! SO I linked up!

Here are a few of my favorite read alouds....

Jan Brett

First of all, I am in love obsessed with Jan Brett! There are many reasons to love her stories, but I really like her stories because of all the interesting words she uses. I use her books to help teach adding interesting words to their writing. With Jan Brett books it is so hard to get through the book when there are so many great words on each page! NOT to mention all the wonderful Christmas stories she has written. Seriously, there is no way to get to them all.  

Here are a couple others of hers that I like to read....

  

Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett

 This story has a great lesson learned. The chicken is bullied by the other chickens and then gets washed away from her home by a flash flood river and is almost sold at a market. She learns how to stand up for herself along the way down the river. The unfortunate events ultimately help her deal with the other hens on her farm. 

   The 3 Little Dassies by Jan Brett

This is another story very similar storyline to The 3 Little Pigs. Love, love IT!

Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee

This story is great for teaching different aspects of grammar and writing craft. There are many great opportunities in this book!

Regards to the Man in the Moon by Ezra Jack Keats

I use this book each year with Main Idea and Details. I make a cute pop-up activity with stars as the details and the moon as the main idea. Check it out!

 

Those are just a few. :) Hope you found something new! :)

Fly on over and join the linky!