Made It Monday 6*27*16

Well I didn't "make" this but I did update it. A couple of years ago I started drafting long range plans. Something that keeps me on pace and looking at the big picture. Around this time every year I finish my plans.  

Math- My pacing in math is closely aligned with our county math pacing guide. One thing that I do differently is that instead of teaching multiplication in two weeks, I spread it over several months. We spend 3 days on each fact. *Day 1-Intro Strategy, Practice Page *Day 2- Partner Dice Game, Flash Cards *Day 3- Fact Assessment. So I spend the first 20 minutes covering the fact and the next 40 minutes teaching the other math concept we're learning.

 

Content~Science and Social Studies- This year we were told by our administration that we could no longer alternate teaching Science and Social Studies... meaning a two week unit on Map Skills and then doing a two week unit on Animals. We have to now teach it concurrently. So we alternate every other day. One day science, one day social studies, next day science and so on. I sat down and mapped out the entire year, by day. This was necessary because I didn't want a science and social studies assessment to fall in the same week. 

 

Shared Reading- I really struggle with shared reading. Since being in third grade I really haven't been able to really plan and execute lessons I thought were meaningful. But my students seem to do well on the state test so I guess something is better nothing. So for the 6th year in a row, I am once again changing how I teach it. I'll start off the year with a unit on Reading Strategies and Skills, as well as Genres. Then I'll switch to a format that looks like this...

• Monday- Time for Kids Magazine Lesson
• Tuesday- Time for Kids Magazine Lesson Day 2
• Wednesday- Fiction Book Lesson (titles located in plans)
• Thursday- Fiction Book Lesson Day 2
• Friday- Review of weekly Mountain Language Sheet, Cold Reads, Standardized Test Prep

The fiction books and strategies listed in my long range plans are from Amy Lemon's Rooted in Reading Series. It's very comprehensive but I'll only be using the grammar lessons and some of the comprehension lessons.

 

Word Study- This year I did something different thanks to my team BFF. Instead of 2 or 3 word study groups I had 5. The Monday Group, Tuesday Group, Wednesday Group... you get the picture. I only met with one word study group a day and all students were on a 6 day cycle. If I introduced the sort to the Monday group, they would take their test next Monday. So it took 2 weeks to introduce and assess all five groups. The Thursday Group's 6 day cycle looked like this:

• Day 1 (Thursday)- Sort Introduction with teacher, highlight features on word cards.
• Day 2 (Friday)- Cut words out, sort, record in Word Study Journal
• Day 3 (Monday)- Sort, record in Word Study Journal
• Day 4 (Tuesday)- Sort, record, word hunt (searching for words in literature that have the same spelling feature)
• Day 5 (Wednesday) Sort, glue
• Day 6 (Thursday)- Word Study assessment with teacher. 

Writing- Like I said earlier the grammar lessons I choose came from the Rooted in Reading Series. I'll spend one day a week focusing on that grammar concept and the other days will be a writing workshop format. I used my county's expectations along with our standards to choose what kind of writing we'd be doing that week.

If you like the template I used, you can download it from Ginger Snaps, I've used it for years now and I love it!

Hop on over to 4th Grade Frolics for more Made It Monday ideas!