Summer Language Arts Stations

I finished up some summer themed Language Arts Stations. In the event that we are able to have summer school in July and August, I wanted to have some low-prep stations for students. 

I created 10 low prep stations that are aligned to the Virginia 2nd grade standards but most certainly can be used in Common Core classrooms as well. These are perfect for end of the year review for 2nd grade or beginning of the school year review for 3rd graders. 

Simply print and laminate station directions and task cards, cut task cards apart, run copies of the recording sheet and store together in a drawer cart or even large zipper bag. 

Click Here to download. I'm finishing up some Back to School Stations now and hope to have those posted this weekend!

Spring Language Arts Stations

I've spent the early part of my Spring Break creating language stations/centers for my 2nd grade classroom. Even though school has been cancelled for the remainder of the academic year, I'm going to prep these now so I'll have them ready for next spring. 

I created 6 low prep stations that are aligned to the Virginia 2nd grade standards but most certainly can be used in Common Core classrooms as well. 

Simply print and laminate station directions and task cards,  cut task cards apart, run copies of the recording sheet and store together in a drawer cart or even large zipper bag. 

Click Here to download. Wishing you happy and healthy Spring Break!

We Go Together Like... Postcards

On March 23rd, Virginia's Governor announced that all schools would be closed until for the remainder of the academic year. It was such a heartbreaking blow, I know I was hoping to at least return in June, if only for a few days. But now our statewide shelter in place is in effect until June 10th, and you are strongly encouraged to stay home unless visiting the pharmacy or grocery store. 

We've completed 3 weeks of Distance Learning and next week is our Spring Break, then we return to Distance Learning, except now we'll start to introduce new content. 

I wanted to send out another set of postcards, wishing them a happy and healthy Spring Break. 

I've uploaded a PPT template if you'd like to do the same. Download to your computer and add your text. 

I saved mine as a PDF and printed "Actual Size" on "Both Sides" "Flip on the Short Edge" and cut on the light gray line. 

Click here: Postcard Template

Postcards: Keeping in Touch

The last day I say my students was Thursday. They cancelled school on Friday so teachers could work on Distance Learning Lesson Plans, then by the end of the day the Governor had announced that all schools in Virginia were to be closed for at least 2 weeks. 

I thought it'd be a cute idea to send them a post card to let them know I'm thinking about them. 

I've uploaded a PPT template if you'd like to do the same. Download to your computer. Delete my Bitmojis and add your own or any picture will do. You may need to crop to make sure it fits. 

I then saved mine as a PDF and printed "Actual Size" on "Both Sides" "Flip on the Short Edge" and cut on the light gray line. 

Click here: Postcard Template

Super Bowl Weekend Kick Off

I've been having classroom Super Bowl Parties for years now. This year it will fall on a county early release day so I won't be able to do all the activities I'm use to doing. I also won't be making my famous Hawaiian Meatballs, our county is getting very strict about food in the classroom <insert sad face>. 

For Morning Circle we'll go over our Game Plan for the day. Then I think I'm going straight into Tackling Teamwork. I'm reading Game Day and using aspects of this Game Day Unit if I have time. 

After the read aloud, we'll complete our Kick Off. Teacher's Clubhouse has this Sports Jersey Glyph I purchased years ago. They recently revamped their entire unit with tons of great activities, The Big Game. 
We have to break for our quarterly PBIS Awards Assembly but when we come back we'll complete Sportswriter. There is a Teamwork writing in the Game Day Unit as well as Football Writing Prompts in The Big Game Unit that I'll use during this time. 

Since it's an early release day the students will eat lunch in the classroom. Scholastic Bookflix has Miss Nelson Has a Field Day, so we'll watch that while we eat our lunch. 

After Halftime we'll have our Scrimmage. I created a Football Jeopardy Game for students to play in teams. 

I'm using this Super Bowl Prediction Forever Freebie for my students to make their predictions. I shrank it down to four to a page and will use it to make a class graph. My students will also work on this Football Word Search as they snack on a special Super Bowl Trail Mix <a recipe I have yet to come up with>. 
Do you do anything in your classroom to celebrate the Super Bowl?

Winter Language Arts Stations

I've spent the early part of my Winter Vacation creating language stations/centers for my 2nd grade classroom. I've been itching to create and/or blog but school has been so crazy! We found out in November that we were getting a 6th teacher and they needed to be hired by Christmas and ready to start in January. That meant we had to split our classes, so I'm going from 25 students to 21. While I'm sad to see them go, I'm ecstatic about the smaller class size.

I created 6 low prep stations that are aligned to the Virginia 2nd grade standards but most certainly can be used in Common Core classrooms as well. 

 

Simply print and laminate station directions and task cards,  cut task cards apart, run copies of the recording sheet and store together in a drawer cart or even large zipper bag. 

Click Here to download. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a restful vacation!

Moving Forward with Comprehension

After reflecting on my first year back in 2nd grade, I realized that my guided reading instruction needs improvement. This past school year I focused on guided math and I'm feeling pretty confident about that so now is the perfect time to take a look at reading. 

I'll be sharing my takeaways from the following chapters from Jan Richardson's Next Step Forward in Guided Reading:

Chapter 1: Guided Reading Essentials

Chapter 4: Early Readers Levels D-I (DRA Levels 6-16)

Chapter 5: Transitional Readers Level J-P (DRA Levels 18-38)

Chapter 7: Moving Forward with Comprehension Instruction 

This post will share my take aways from Chapter 7: Moving Forward with Comprehension.

This chapter focuses the comprehension aspect of reading instruction. The Top 12 Comprehension Strategies are shared along with 29 modules to address them. 

1. Comprehension Monitoring
2. Retelling
3. Developing Vocabulary
4. Asking and Answering Questions
5. Main Idea and Details
6. Analyzing Characters
7. Analyzing  Relationships
8. Inferring
9. Summarizing
10. Evaluating
11. Using Text Features
12. Understanding Text Structure

If you haven't visited http://www.janrichardsonguidedreading.com/resources-1, you should, she has many free resources to support her books. I also love the Reading Strategies Book from Jennifer Serravallo for comprehension instruction as well.   

I recently started reading groups and quickly realized that I didn't have enough time to do all the parts of Jan Richardson's lesson plan so I had to do some tweaking. Now I'm knee deep in running records to determine each child's instructional reading level. Once that's complete, I hope to jump back into reading groups. 

What resources do you use to teach reading comprehension?