A Year of Many Changes

Every year brings change, some more than others.  This year at our school, to say that we've had a lot of changes would be a bit of an understatement.  Three weeks in, you would think I would be adjusted, but I'm still far from it.  We have added a school wide morning spiral time for English Language Arts and Math.  This is about 45 minutes if you include unpacking & morning announcements.  I love the idea, especially because it gives us an opportunity to drill some of the areas we didn't get to cover as well,  hit areas kids are still struggling on, and give an overall good review for ALL of our kids.  After that we have a 30 minute intervention time for our students reading below grade level.  In the past this has been something we do first thing when the kids arrive in the morning, however due to students being late we often times had the ones who needed it most missing out.  While we haven't yet started this time, I have started "training" all of my kids about what they are expected to do during this time if they are in the classroom (something else that is new).  Our goal is to have ALL kids reading & doing activities with their books during this 30 minute chunk of time.  Thus far, we have been using Reading A-Z and some of their comprehension & extending activities to go along with it.  So far so good, but it has been a lot of prep work, A LOT!

We have also started to lend ourselves (the entire school) to the guided math model.  If you haven't heard of it or are interested in learning more about, I suggest the book Guided Math in Action.

I started reading this book this summer and am really excited to get started with my small groups.  The hardest part for me is alloting enough time for my math block since so much of my day is already gone because of morning spiral and intervention time.   Basically, we will do a whole group lesson, small group or independent practice, and then move into math centers while I am pulling small groups to work with.  The small groups will vary when it comes to what I am working on each group with.  For my low babies, I will be working on basic number recognition and fluency.  For my higher ones we will be doing more problem solving.  With all of this though, they will be expected to share and talk about what they are thinking and how they got their answer/solution.  Getting students to explain their thinking is extremely difficult, hopefully through guided math students will feel more comfortable in explaining their thinking.

Is anyone else doing the guided math model in their classroom?  I would love to hear suggestions and how you make it all work! :) 

In addition to all this, I mentioned that I had some news to share in my last post.  You may or may not remember me saying that I had 24 babies in my class.  Yikes-e-wowa!  Since all of our classes were above the 22:1 ratio, we officially opened up a new section of 2nd grade.  This means that all 6 sections that we currently had, lost 1-4 kids to this new class.  Being that tomorrow starts week 4, it is a hard transition for teachers, students, but I think mostly for parents.  I have no doubt that gal we hired is going to be amazing!  She has reminded me of things I used to do and need to get back into the habit of!  I am excited for some fresh and new energy, especially since she is right next door to me & I will be mentoring her!  I am also kind of psyched about having a smaller class!   It is amazing the number of space that is added when 3 kids are moved!

Like I said, this is the year of many changes.  I'm crossing my fingers that things will settle down & start to smooth out SOON!  I am ready for some normalicy, again!  I really miss being able to create and with all of the things that have been going on, I haven't had the time or energy!  I have started an interactive book about maps & continents (2 different ones)... ehhh about 2 weeks ago!  I am excited to hopefully get them done this week so they are ready for me to use within the next 2 weeks! :)

Now that I'm done sharing that spiel, here is at my last week through anchor charts!  I loved when Lindsay from For the Love of First Grade shared hers this way, I had to do the same!  Especially since I never manage to have time or remember to take pictures during the day.  

 In writing, we began actually WRITING!!! We talked about how all stories need a beginning, middle, and end.  Day 1 I drew the pictures while telling my story, please don't judge my drawings, these were sitting sideways on the rocking chair, gotta get through the mini lesson quick drawings.  Day 2 I used my pictures to start writing my story, and day 3 I introduced the green editing crayon.  {Check out this post for more about editing crayons} When I wrote my story I purposely misspelled words, didn't capitalize, used incorrect verb tense, and missed punctuation.  I try to not reinvent the wheel for EVERY.SINGLE. lesson.  It works out great & the kids really seem to get it better!

Two weeks ago we began working on our STAMINA!  Initially our goal was 5 minutes, day 1-3 were tough, but on day 4 they rocked it with 10 minutes!  Some days are better than others, but I am super proud of how hard these kids have been working!  So last week I introduced buddy reading!

 They especially love using their questioning spinner they added to their reader's notebook that they use after reading their book to check each for understanding.  Of course, I didn't snap a picture of that, but it is from Deanna Jump's Interactive Reader's Notebook.  I strongly suggest this unit!

In social studies, we continued talking about being good citizens, specifically historical figures that were good citizens.  We studied Thurgood Marshall, Abigail Adams, and Sojourner Truth this week.  After we studied each person, students added interesting facts to their social studies notebook about each person. 

 This week, we have our parent orientation.  If you haven't checked out the Hey You! Parent Reminders from Teacher to the Core, you should!! I'm obsessed, I also love the Student Shout Outs she has available!!  I couldn't resist buying both! :)

I will leave you with this, advice I try to remind myself quite often, especially here lately!

Why not Daily 5?

Yesterday, I mentioned in my post that I don't do Daily 5 in my classroom.  I also mentioned that I would explain why later on... so what better time to explain than now?!?  Two years ago I went to a Daily 5 training, got the book, & FELL IN LOVE!  It was my first year teaching as a mommy & let me just say not having to plan literacy centers was absolutely amazing!  My kids loved Daily 5, I loved Daily 5!

Today, I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried it Tuesday to share my Daily 5 experience!


So now you're probably wondering why am I no longer doing Daily 5?!? What happened?!  Well the following summer, I went to a another training where my views on Daily 5 were completely transformed.  I realized that through the 5 components of Daily 5, my kids weren't really getting what they need.  I was not really reinforcing the strategies & skills I should have been in literacy centers by using Daily 5.

Since I took this training at the beginning of the summer, I had all summer to really let it soak in & figure out how I was going to make my centers better for my students.  How was I going to reinforce the strategies I'm teaching?  How am I going to make sure that my kids are doing a better job of retaining the information they are learning?  How am I going to do all of this and still make it fun for my kids?

Well... after collaborating with Diana, one of my best friends and teammates, my centers now look like this:

Students will still do writing, independent reading (read to self), buddy reading (read to someone), spelling (word work), and listen to reading.... SOMETIMES!  Never will they have all of these in one week.  In addition to these I have added word study, seat work, art, book study, science, and social studies.  Wait .. Let me stop for a minute... I do not have all of these centers every week either.  I rotate through different ones based on what my kids needs are.  So here is a model of the two-ish week rotation that I do.

There are 6 different centers, 3 rotations a day.  The six stations include buddy reading, word study, art, seat work, science, and work on writing.   I am realizing as I am looking at this that they are not actually properly placed like normal.  Normally, students would go to each center every two days.  We would use this rotation for about 2 weeks.  So what do I put in the centers?

Buddy Reading may be simply reading to another -- Sometimes though, I put in activities where they read a
story together & determine the main idea, infer, predict, etc.  It can be as structured or unstructured as I would like based upon the week.

Art is usually tied to another subject ... writing, social studies, science, phonics, &.... sometimes even math.  I love all the cutesy stuff shared on other blogs... my problem though is I don't have time to set aside to just do that cute little activity with the class as a whole.  So, I put it in a center & tie it to something we have been working on & voila, we have cute & productive learning going on!

Word Study is my phonics center.   This is where I place different games, sorts, & pocket chart activities for my kids to work on that reinforce our phonics strategies that I have taught. 

Seat Work may be some activity or assignment that I need the kids to do, but haven't had time for them to complete in the day.  It also becomes a time for unfinished work if they have any. 

Science ... well is science.  Depending on what we are learning about at the time, I may put in a little exploration lab, observations, science journal activity, sort, or assignment that will reinforce their learning here. Sometimes it may be two or all three of these at th same time in the center, depending on how lengthy each different activity is.

Work on Writing is another place that I can structure their writing or let them just go free!  More times than not, I let them write about whatever they want.  They can write books, in our class journals, create scripts, cartoons, letters, recipes, lists... really whatever they want!

Each day I rotate the numbers and students know where to go!  Each center rotation is between 15-20 minutes (for my 2nd grade babies) and they will end up going to each center 3-5 times (depending on holidays, assemblies, etc) before I switch out centers again.  As you can see I still have some parts of the D5 in my rotation, but it is not just D5 & my kids are still getting the reinforcement of strategies that they need!  Last year was my first year to do it this way & it went wonderfully!  Planning for centers wasn't too bad, especially because I wasn't switching them every. single. week.  I always make sure to put enough options & extensions in each center so that if they get done with the first they have other options.  Doing centers this way has also allowed for me to differentiate easier than in the past.  Last year my kids L-O-V-E-D centers, probably more than any other year. 

While the planning time to make the centers is more than D5, I can say that my kids retained & understood material a lot better than they did in the year(s) prior.  The centers are meaningful.  My kids are still learning.  My kids are having fun.  I feel like if I'm not doing these things, well then I am not doing my job as good as I really should be doing it!  So there it is.  That is why I don't do Daily 5.  Am I saying you shouldn't? No.  Am I judging you for choosing to do it with your kids?  Absolutely not.  I am just stating that for my kids, it wasn't enough.  I struggle enough to get through everything I need to each day as is, I couldn't not use that time in a better way than D5!

I hope this helps give a little insight!
You can purchase my set of literacy center signs, just posted to TPT {here}.  These signs are saved as png files, like clipart, so you can resize to accommodate your needs!  I have also included a blank template for each of the squiggly framed sign for you to use to make your own! :)

My newest set of literacy centers is also up on TPT now & on sale through tomorrow evening! :) Here is a peek at what is inside this set of centers!  There is even a freebie in the preview from TPT! :) 

Happy Tuesday! :)  P.S. Don't forget to enter the amazing 100 Followers Giveaway going on NOW! :)