Daily 5 | The Teaching Reef

Category: Daily 5

Nov 12

Another 2 Weeks… another post and a linky party!

I hope this isn't the beginning of a new trend of mine. I definitely want to posting more than this! It is so hard to recap everything that goes on in a 2 week period in one post. So I am going to try and get back to posting once a week but who knows how that is going to go. I feel like in the fall there is a ton of family birthdays/celebrations and then school has just been B-U-S-Y! Between conference night, grading and report cards – I can't catch a break! I know all of you can relate to a busy schedule, so thanks for understanding! =) I think that is one of the reasons why I love blogging. I am talking to fellow teachers that know how busy life is and having a classroom full of kids that you care about and don't want to disappoint makes it that more hectic.

Anyway, I wanted to share what my team was for our Story Book Parade! Every year second grade does an author study with Kevin Henkes. We use all his mouse books. The kids always love it and I have to admit I love getting dressed up as a book character too! It is our tradition and we are always the same character. LOL! I think it is a teacher thing, if not then we are all just that OCD. I am Shelia Rea The Brave. I wish I could show you the kids all dressed up, but I have the next best thing, me and my team as mice! Check us out!

So much fun right! Well in spirit of all things fall we started a new unit in writing! It is monster theme. We have a few kids this year that don't celebrate Halloween so we have to be a little more careful than usual. So we called it "Learning how to write scary stories!" =) Awhile back I shared a book with you all called "I Need My Monster." I discovered it last year and have fallen in love with it. It was so perfect for our scary stories because lets face it, children's picture books aren't that scary. But I wanted them to be descriptive and also review adjectives. This book was PERFECT! It has taken us a little over two weeks to complete this unit (I added in the editing process!) and I will admit that they are putting their finishing touches on it this week. I just posted the unit so I will show you what I have included and also show some finished projects!

Here is some of their monsters and stories published! They are adorable…. I hope you enjoy them!

Okay, so besides teaching I have also been diving into some book studies as well as trying to get my reading instruction down to thirty minutes! I know, I think I might just be going crazy! Here is the problem we have exactly thirty minutes to teach phonics and our reading skill. I am having a REALLY and I mean really hard time doing this! So we (me and my co-teacher Diana) brainstorming with our reading resource. So far I think we are onto something! We are using poems to help teach phonics which seems to be working. We review it every day and they read it independently during read to self as well! In order to make the connections for the students in other areas we want to have them practice it during work with words. So I have created a little file folder to help with this!

I am hoping this will make practice efficient and easy to keep up with! If you are interested in this activity you can click on the product cover and pick it up in my TpT store.

Here is how it works!

So in order to manipulate the words a little more I want them to be exposed to them in small group! So I am in the process of putting together a "Working with words" booklet! I need the words that we teach through the poems to connect to the text in small group! Also because it is a 10 minute phonics lesson I need more time with it in small group! I am not finished with this resource yet! However, I will show you what I have done so far!

That is all I have for now! I am linking up with DeAnne over at First Grade and Fabulous. You can click on the cute little image below to check out her blog!

The recipe that I am going to share with you is one that my husband loves! He can not wait for the fall because that means lots of leftovers and pot pie! That's right….pot pie! He loves them. So if you have lots of left over turkey you might want to check out this recipe!

I hope everyone has a great week.

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Posted in Daily 5, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing

Oct 19

I know, it’s been awhile!

Boy do I have a ton of things to share with all of you! Not only has my classroom been very busy but my personal life has too! I think I started writing up this post a week ago but just have not had the time to read over it and post it. So instead I have been adding classroom happenings as I go. So I am going to take you through a ton of classroom action.

First up I have to show you a better picture of my Daily 5 wall! I could not believe that the one I last shared was blurry! I felt so bad I could not show you a good picture! So here you go… a new and might I add, clear picture! I even added my shoe pictures around the I PICK poster so the kids remember to read books that are a "good fit." If you want to know where you can get these I added them to my Daily 5 Classroom pack for FREE a few weeks ago so make sure you grab the updated pack if you haven’t!

I have also started adding poster to my anchor chart wall. Right now I have had a ton of reading anchor charts because of the Daily 5. So this flip chart storage idea has really come in handy.

Speaking of Daily 5 I wanted to show you some of my D5 rotations and set up. Two aspects that I struggled with when reading the Daily 5 was that 1. I have computers as part of centers and I have to have my below level students do Istation every week as part of an intervention and 2. I only have 3 listening spots. So to solve this dilemma I decided to make a rotation for computers and listening center then allow the students to choose the other centers throughout the week. The idea of choice was important to me because I want them to know that I do trust them to make good choices however my interventions are really important and I felt like I needed to make sure the students that needed the documentation were getting it. I took some pictures of the organization.

I have each computer labeled and then I made a chart with the days of the week and then two spots under each day. If the students name is in the first spot they go to computer 1 and if their name is in the second spot then they go to computer 2. A piece of cake! It make me feel so much better knowing I am getting the documentation I need. Behind the rotation chart is the computer program sheet (must do – can do).

For listen to reading I did the same rotation chart as the one for computers. I put it in a folder at the center. I also added the poster for how to set up the tape along with the response pages. I do not copy the response pages for the students, instead I just have a spiral notebook at the center for the students to record their responses to their listening. It is a good comprehension check since all the words are read to them.

I still have a bunch of pictures to take of the other centers so I will be sharing more with you soon.

As far as reading instruction goes my little second graders have been visualizing, making connections and learning about nonfiction in the last 3 weeks. I have been so proud of their thinking. My teaching buddy Diana Patrissi has a super cute anchor chart for visualizing that we used. We both made one two years ago… mine was a scuba mask but the letters for visualizing feel off so we used hers! Its so cute! If you are wondering what inspired us to make them it was our room themes! You need a scuba mask to see in the ocean and you need binoculars to see in the Jungle. I know we are pretty ridiculous!

One of my favorite read alouds to use for visualizing is The Salamanders Room by Anne Mazer. The words used to describe the story are amazing for visualizing! Also to get them using their 5 senses I use the book Hello Ocean by Pam Munoz Ryan. If you want to check them out click on the images below!

After visualizing we moved into connections. We started off teaching connections with some concrete examples. One of the activities we used involved puzzles. Yes puzzles, but not the kind you are thinking of. We wanted then to see and experience the pieces connecting in the puzzle however what makes a great connection is when students use the text. So I created 4 different puzzles with sentences on them. Each sentence evoked a different feeling the students can connect to. Let me just tell you this lesson worked! I think it made them really understand how to make connections! After that we did some thinking and recording in our HERO notebooks.

They referenced this page throughout our week with connections. It really helped them make meaningful connections and provided them with thinking stems for connections.

If you are interested in the materials I used for teaching connections you can click on the product cover from my Concrete Connection unit and it will take you to my TpT store.

After Connections we moved into nonfiction. I just love teaching nonfiction. We started off by using a resource from Scholastic! If you don't have this resource I really suggest getting it. It is basically a nonfiction book that you use to teach nonfiction! The book has every nonfiction feature imaginable in it. If you click on the picture it will take you to the Scholastic listing.

We also made a chart that I found on Pinterest for before, during and after reading. I changed it a little because i wanted the students to be writing and responding to our reading, so I added symbols for sticky notes so i knew what strategy the students were using in their responses. It worked out great. Here is my anchor chart and some samples of their work.

Look at my good little reader! She asked a question and then when she found the answer she wrote it down! AWESOME!

I am in the process of putting together all the resources I use to teach nonfiction so I will have them available soon!

Speaking of available, I wanted to let you know that I updated my CAFE Pack and it now includes the expand vocabulary section. Just click on the product cover below to update your copy!

Before I go I want to share a little writing activity that I did a few weeks ago! It really got the kids up and moving. We started learning about nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We took our kiddos and split them into the 3 different parts of speech groups. We each took a group (Diana, Ms. April our Speech and Language specialist, and myself) around the school and found nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We took pictures of the things we found around our school that they found! They were so cute posing with their finds. Then they had to write a sentence with their word once they found it. Everyone was definitely focused on their team's task.

Team adjective rocked! It was tons of fun! If you are interested in this unit you can click on the product preview below and pick it up at my TpT store.

I have so much more I want to share! With that being said, I have already shared a ton, so I will be saving more for later. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! Until the next post.