Who loves data?

I do! This has been one of my biggest goals this semester- keeping track of student progress. Not only am I nerd about making organized charts but I love seeing evidence that the students really are learning!

So far, I have a Guided Reading and a Guided Math data binder. I LOVE doing small groups because I feel the small group setting really helps me reach the students better compared to a whole group setting. I still do whole group activities, especially for the introduction of a topic, but then I pull small groups. When I am working with small groups the remaining students are doing Daily 5 during Guided Reading and Math Daily 5 during Guided Math.

I determine the groups for Guided Math based on a pre-assessment (given on Fridays to help me plan for the following week), and I also give exit tickets (formative assessment) throughout the week. For Guided Reading, the groups have been set-up by my Cooperating Teacher based off an assessment called PALs that we have in Virginia.

I still need to develop data sheets for Writers' Workshop so if you have any advice about that I'd love to hear it!

Guided Reading:
Jan Richardson's Next Step in Guided Reading and the two sisters' CAFE have been my bibles! They have given me great direction in what to look for when students are reading and how to help them. I copied a few of the resources from these two books to put in the front of my Guided Reading binder so I can easily refer to them if necessary during Guided Reading.

 Small Group Reading Sheet:

 

Two samples of how I've used the summary section:

Individual Student Reading Record:

In addition to the group data, I will pick one student during a session to record individual progress. This sheet is mostly comprised of a resource from The Next Step in Guided Reading  but I added the goal and strategy section, which I saw in CAFE. I've uploaded both of these reading group data records to Google Docs for you!


For Guided Math:
I keep a formative assessment record, which I have previously posted about. I also keep a small groups data sheet (similar to the reading groups sheet) where I record anecdotal notes and a brief summary of what the students and I did.

 Small Group Math Sheet:

Observation Tasks Record:

Next, I keep an observation task record with individual students' conference sheet. For the observation tasks, I meet with one student at a time for about 2 to 3 minutes and give them a short task do. I have them explain their thinking aloud and justify their answers (I record their responses and/or any notes that I want to remember on the conference sheet). This brief one on one time is very telling! Another great opportunity to clarify students' misconceptions.

 Sample observation task the students did with Judy Clocks:

 

Individual Math Conference Sheet:

 

Here are two samples of what I recorded for these two students' conference. I write a "p" if I prompted them.

I have uploaded the math small groups data record, the observation tasks record, and math conference record to Google Docs for you! Enjoy!

Poetry

Is the weather just as nice where you live as it is here in Virginia?! Who knew it would be 80 degrees in March!! I was hoping for some fun snow days this winter but I'll take sunny and 80 degrees!

For Writers' Workshop this week we wrote about poetry. We began by having a poetry picnic where the students got a "taste" of poetry by exploring different poems. I got the idea to have a poetry picnic from A Year of Reading.  I first asked the students what they knew about poetry. Only two students had something to share...one said sometimes it rhymes and the other said it expresses feelings (impressive answer!). Then I told them we were going to have a poetry picnic, and I passed out the poetry picnic bags to each group. The poetry picnic bags I gave them were: "Get a taste of Jack Prelutsky's poems", "Get a taste of Shel Silverstein's poems", and "Get a taste of an assortment of poems". I also had a station at the SMART Board where they did Poetry Splatter. At Poetry Splatter, the students choose a poem and fill in the blanks with words to create a poem (similar ides to Mad Libs). We did the poetry picnic for 20 minutes (5 minute rotations). They loved it! As a closure to our picnic, I asked the students what they learned about poetry. Lots of hands went up this time! Some of their responses were, "It's funny!", "There are poems about nature.", "You can write a poem about anything!" etc.

I love when I see them sharing a book together!

Poetry Splatter: The students took turns choosing a word.

The rest of the week they were poets and wrote two poems- acrostic poems and riddles. For acrostic poems, I showed them examples and then we did an interactive one together for Leprechaun. Next, they each wrote one for their name.

For riddles, I read a few of the poems from If Not for the Cat by Jack Prelutsky and the students had to guess what animal the poem was talking about. They loved guessing! Then they brainstormed and wrote their own riddle poems about an animal. I needed to remind a few students to pick an animal they knew about. I have uploaded the brainstorm graphic organizer (each bubble coordinates to a line on the poem template) and the poem template that I created to Google Docs for you!

Here is a student sample of the riddle poem:

Translation: My animal slides on it's belly. Has white paws, a cute face. My animal lives in Antarctica.

Too cute! A baby polar bear!

I cut out the "Take a guess!" opening ahead of time and taped a piece of construction paper on the back to fit the opening for them to draw their animal. 

What do you and your students do for writing poetry?

Fantasy and Realism

Happy Friday, Friends!

Did you catch any leprechauns today? We didn't but the leprechaun did visit our room...chairs and desks were turned over, toilet paper was thrown about, gold coins were dispersed across the room, and the toilet water was green!

I want to share about the comprehension strategy we focused on this week- classifying fantasy and realism. To introduce the topic, I brought out my magic wand and asked the students if magic wands are make believe or real. Then we went into a discussion about fantasy and realism with an anchor chart I created :

I did a few read-alouds (Duck for President, Grace for President, My Teacher for President, Scaredy Squirrel) where we had discussions about the fantasy and realistic details in the story. We also played Fantasy Realism BINGO where I read a story detail and the students chose a fantasy or realism square to cover on their BINGO board. I created the following fantasy realism assessment for the students:

I always consult Bloom's Taxonomy when creating lessons and assessments for the students. I love that Bloom's Taxonomy has a combination of lower level and higher level thinking tasks. For this particular assessment the students: analysis (identify), application (illlustrate), and evaluation (justify). In the first section the students identify whether the story detail is fantasy or realism. I included story details from the stories we read as well as details from stories we did not read to make sure they could apply their understanding to other contexts. In the second section the students illustrate an example of realism or fantasy. They could illustrate one of the details above or from another story they had read. The last section (where "Teacher Check" is written) is where I asked each student how their illustration depicted fantasy or realism...this gave them the opportunity to prove that their illustrations correctly showed fantasy and realism. If their justification was reasonable, I made a check mark.

Hope you find this helpful for your classroom!

p.s. I read an informative article called The Six T's of Effective Elementary Literacy Instruction. The article was published in 2002 but I think the information presented is still relevant. Check it out!

We are Bucket Fillers!

In first grade, getting along and saying kind words to each other is something I encourage and repeat. I'd heard about the bucket filler concept and thought this would be beneficial for our classroom community. The relationships I build with the students and they build with each other are so significant to the classroom environment. And I definitely want those relationships to be positive!!

If you are not familiar with the bucket filler concept, the premise is that everyone has an invisible bucket, and we can fill each others' bucket by saying kind words and using kind actions, which in turn fills our own invisible bucket. The other side is that we are sometimes bucket dippers (bullying). Beth Newingham wrote a great article called Have You Students Filled a Bucket Today? She gives a much better explanation!

I checked out Have You Filled a Bucket Today? from the library and read it to the class. This book was a great resource for introducing the students to the bucket filling concept. We had a great discussion on how to be bucket fillers.

 I created the interactive bucket filler bulletin board  above to help remind us to be bucket fillers. Each student signed our pledge (words from Suesstastic Classroom), and they each have their own actual "bucket" in the form of library pockets with a picture of a bucket (from What the Teacher Wants). During Work on Writing or when they have finished their work, they may write bucket filling messages (template from What the Teacher Wants) to each other. I uploaded the bulletin signs I created to Google Docs if you are interested.

So far, I love the implementation of this concept...the students are all about writing kind messages to each other and recognizing when someone has filled their invisible bucket or dipped into their invisible bucket. I peeked inside their buckets, and they were writing the sweetest messages to each other! I love it too because when I see or hear them not using kind actions or words, I can say, "How can you change your choices so that you are filling ____'s bucket and your own bucket?"

How do you build a sense of community and relationships with your students?

Word Study Poems

I love creating word study poems and using them with the students! I start by introducing the sound we are focusing on and challenge the students to find the different letter combinations in the poem that represent that particular sound. We echo read the poem once or twice. Sometimes we choral read it too. Then the students take turns and wikki stick where they hear that particular sound. After each word, I chunk the word and the students echo the sounds. Sometimes I have them turn to a neighbor and share the words with that particular sound too.

The sillier the poem seems to be the more they like it! They are great at echo reading... they say the poem EXACTLY like I say it, which is hilarious at the more expressive parts. For instance, today we did the long i poem (I haven't thought of a title for it yet) and they LOVED shouting, "Take a hike, Kyle!" They kept asking to read that line again and again!

Here are my most recent poems:

You are welcome to use these poems but please, cite me. :) Check out my other poems too!

I'll be posting my guided math assessment records (for free!) soon so stay tuned!!

Linky Party

What a great day! The school I am at hosted an event this evening called One Book, One School. The past few weeks the whole school has been reading The World According to Humphrey. We recently finished the book so tonight was full of activities (each grade had created activities for the students and families to do) related to Humphrey. Lots of families came too...it was so fun to meet the other students in the school and meet their parents! The principal was cooking hotdogs and the music teacher was dressed in a hamster costume! What fun!

Kindergarten Lifestyle is hosting a linky party where she is going to take all the blogs that link up and make a Pinterest board. What a great resource that will be! I love that teaching blogs have opened up this whole other dimension of collaborating and sharing!

Have a happy rest of the week!

An Assortment of Happenings!

Hope you are enjoying the weekend! I took a much needed nap this afternoon...isn't it nice to catch up on sleep?! Here is a picture walk with explanations of what's been happening in the classroom lately:

For Dr. Suess's birthday, the students made Thing 1 and 2 glyphs. I got the template from Kimberly Edgerton's TpT's shop. To introduce this activity, I created a Prezi on hieroglyphs. I asked the students if they had ever heard or seen the word 'hieroglyphs'. Then I showed them a picture of hieroglyphs, which turned a light bulb on in some of their brains...one student said, "Hey, I've seen those in Scooby-Doo!" I explained to the students a brief history of hieroglyphs (how 5,000 years ago people used pictures to communicate and tell stories, etc.). Then I explained how pictures are used to communicate information in our world today, typically in the form of graphs. I accompanied this explanation with an infographic. Then they created and shared their glyphs! If you click on the Prezi link above, you can see the pictures and glyph key I used. 

The students planted sunflower seeds! Some of their seeds have already begun sprouting! We did this activity while learning about George Washington Carver since he studied agriculture. I poked holes in the bottom of the cups and set them on plastic paper plates for them to drain excess water. The students love checking on their plants!

Compound cards! Before the students created their cards, we did the the Compound Boogie by Dr. Jean. They loved it and were singin' and dancin' right along! I love to get them up and moving!

I Spy time! I got this idea from Teacher Tipster. I placed ten mini Judy clocks around the classroom, and the students had to find all ten clocks and record the time in their math journal. 

We'd been having a issue with mixing up the tag pens with the wrong set of books (the tag pens only hold a certain amount of memory). I did have each pen in a bag with a set of books but that just wasn't working out even though I had modeled and modeled how to take care of them. So Dollar Tree to the rescue! I got these baskets from the Dollar Tree and they have solved our problem...the tag pens now stay with the right books!

Poem for the week that I created and the students wikki stikked: short oo. They always notice when there is a new poem up and are eager to read it!

I implemented Writer's Workshop this week! The students are writing stories about our Noun Town we created the other week. I have emphasized to the students that we become better writers by writing. Everyday I asked them, How do we become better writers?" and they respond, "Just keep writing!!" (the way they say it reminds me of Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.") On the first day, we brainstormed what they could write about. Then over the following three days they planned their stories with a story map and a beginning, middle, and ending map that I got from The Teacher Wife. I created my own planning maps and story too to serve as a model for them. Once they had their plans and checked them over with me, they began writing their stories. They're really getting into their stories! I just love reading about their ideas!

The Mystery Box (labels from Babbling Abby) is one of my favorite activities. I got the box at Hobby Lobby for $1. The students get so excited when I bring it out! I've been using the Mystery Box to introduce our themed story for the week. I give the students clues as to what might be in the box, and they have to use their inferencing skills to make an educated guess. Examples of what I have put in the Mystery Box are a toy red-eyed tree frog (for the story The Red-Eyed Tree Frog), friendship necklaces (for the story That Toad is Mine!), and a bear puppet (for the story Lost). 

If anyone has any suggestions on Writer's Workshop or would like to share how they implement Writer's Workshop, I would love to hear about it!