Don't get me wrong, there is still all types of learning going on around here ( I SWEAR IT!!) I just haven't documented much due to the crazy assessment weeks we are in! I promise more thought provoking lessons and ideas VERY soon! :)
Before I jump into all that glorious learning, I want share a quick update about my latest creation! My kids have been going all types of gaga over my Halloween themed coordinate graph mystery pictures (see more HERE), so I thought I'd make Thanksgiving themed coordinate graphing/ordered pair MYSTERY PICTURES!!!! So many people have told me how much their kids LOVE these, and I know my kids do as well! When I tell them they are working on some HARD Common Core math concepts they always think I am joking and love telling me how "easy" this "hard" common core math is! ;) I am so glad many of your students have loved them as well! I will be creating them for all holidays, so stay tuned! For now, click HERE or the pictures below to check them out! See a quick preview below (many more pages included in the complete product):
Back to reading... I just wanted to share a quick lesson that I did with my kids in our reading workshop. I shared with you our "Good Readers Stop and Jot" anchor chart last week. I typically wait to do this lesson until a little later in the year, once we have talked about comprehension strategies a bit more, but this year I decided to come out of the gate with it, and I am SO happy I did. I have always struggled to get kids to really expand upon their reading through their writing. Pulling anything out of them via pencil and paper was pretty painful. Summaries were all but 3 sentences and sticky note use was at an all time LOW last year while reading. I tried so many different things, but this year I think I found the secret. It really is nothing ground breaking and I have no idea why I didn't think about this sooner, but I used our "Good Readers Stop and Jot" lesson and piggy backed off of that for a lesson I shall call, "Good Readers Write Long off Sticky Notes".
I started this lesson by referring back to our anchor chart about stopping and jotting down thoughts we may have:
I reminded them of all of the ways they could think about their books and of course encouraged them not to be limited to only those ideas. I then handed out 3 sticky notes to each student and read aloud the book, "Owl Moon". I always tell my kids they don't have to use their 3 sticky notes, because perhaps they don't have 3 thoughts (lower readers may not). But, I am usually blown away when every kid does use all 3 and asks for more! :)
As I read the story aloud, I encouraged students to stop and jot their thinking, but then also modeled this for students throughout my read aloud in a softer "thinking voice". You can see my sticky notes below:
Closer view...
Woohoo!! Look at all that thinking!!! Then, after a few days of practicing this strategy, we took it a step further and talked about stretching your thinking off of a post-it note. I modeled this by using the sticky notes I had created when reading Owl Moon.
Now, as you can see, my sticky notes are pretty involved. For teaching/modeling purposes I wrote a few things on one sticky note. I would typically write each individual thought on a separate sticky note.
To encourage students to expand on their thinking and reflect on their reading, I created this super easy cheesy document to slip into students' reading binders. It contains a box to stick their sticky notes and lines to the side to expand upon that individual sticky note.
Here are some pictures of students practicing this strategy all week! The writing and reflecting has been phenomenal! I swear it must be something about writing on the sticky notes vs. simply writing a summary or reflecting on notebook paper!! I'll take it!!
Thanks for stopping by! :)