Schedule Spotlight Series #7 - Comprehension

Hi, friends!!! Hope you all are soaking up every second of summer! Can't believe it is coming to an end! I am kind of a dork and love ordering my new lunch bag and cup for the new school year!! 

Here is my new lunch bag from Scout! Love or love?!?!?! 
Can't wait to see my hot pink monogram on it! :)

This is the seventh post in the 10 week Schedule Spotlight series!

For those of you just joining in the fun, we are going through our day, minute by minute and hour by hour! Almost as a good as observing…but saving money on gas and sub pay! :)

7:45 - 8:15 ~ Morning Work {Post #1 - June 10}
8:15 - 8:30 ~ Calendar {Post #2 - June 17}
8:30 - 9:00 ~ Math {Post #3 - June 24}
9:00 - 9:45 ~ SPECIALS
9:45 - 10:30 ~ Phonics {Post #4 - July 1}
10:35 - 10:55 - RECESS
11:00 - 11:30 - LUNCH
11:30 - 12:40 ~ The Daily Five Sessions 1 and 2 {Post #5 - July 8}
{Writing Mini Lesson - Post #6 - July 15}
12:40 - 1:10 ~ PE
1:15 - Restroom Break
1:15 - 1:45 ~ The Daily Five Session 3 
{Comprehension Mini Lesson - Post #7 - July 22}

1:15 - 1:30 ~ Comprehension Mini Lesson

After a quick restroom and water break when we get back from PE, we head straight to the carpet for our comprehension lesson. This is one of my favorite parts of the day!!! The kiddos are tired from PE and I turn the lights off to settle them down. 
They hang on to every.single.word of the story! 

I have a flipchart I use every month and we quickly review it to remind of the skill we are focusing on. We focus on one skill each month. 

This was our plan last year:

AUGUST - Characters

SEPTEMBER - Setting

OCTOBER - Main Idea and Details

{This is perfect for seasonal fiction and nonfiction text!}

NOVEMBER - Making Connections

{We do a Kevin Henkes author study during this month!}

DECEMBER - Making Predictions

{Perfect for holiday read alouds!}

JANUARY - Making Inferences

{We do a David Shannon author study this month!}

FEBRUARY - Asking Questions

MARCH - Retelling

{Did the Wizard of Oz for the first time this year - IN LOVE}

APRIL - Summarizing

MAY - Visualizing

We use a variety of resources for our comprehension mini lessons, including The Primary Comprehension Toolkit and of course, amazingly creative bloggers like YOU! 

I can for sure say blogging has made teaching comprehension WAY more fun! :) Here are some of my fave comprehension ideas from some super talented ladies!

Making Connections - {Making Connections posters by 

Live Laugh Love Kindergarten}

Making Inferences - {The Snow Day Case Files and the 

Mystery Box by Babbling Abby}

   

Retelling - I decided to do a chapter book read aloud for this month and I chose The Wizard of Oz! I have never read it to my class before and THEY LOVED IT! We read one chapter every day and practiced retelling events from the chapter. We ended the month with a special mystery reader {my sweet room mom dressed up as Dorothy!} and had a viewing party {we watched the movie and snacked on festive food, like Yellow Brick Road Rice Krispie treats, Emerald City grapes {sparkle grapes with lime jello}, and more! 

I am OBSESSED with these Yellow Brick Road retelling cards from Cara Carroll. Snag these for free! :)

Summarizing - {Summarizing with the Stars from Sarah Cooley}

Link up below to tell us all about your comprehension lessons!

Join us next Monday, July 29 to hear about how small groups roll in my classroom!

Soak up the sun this week! :)

Schedule Spotlight Series #6 - Writing

Happy Monday!!! I am NOT watching the Bach right now...I decided to catch up on TiVo tomorrow morning! I didn't want to succumb Mr. B to it yet another week! :)

This is the sixth {say what?!?!?} post in the 10 week Schedule Spotlight series!

For those of you just joining in the fun, we are going through our day, minute by minute and hour by hour! Almost as a good as observing…but saving money on gas and sub pay! :)

7:45 - 8:15 ~ Morning Work {Post #1 - June 10}
8:15 - 8:30 ~ Calendar {Post #2 - June 17}
8:30 - 9:00 ~ Math {Post #3 - June 24}
9:00 - 9:45 ~ SPECIALS
9:45 - 10:30 ~ Phonics {Post #4 - July 1}
10:35 - 10:55 - RECESS
11:00 - 11:30 - LUNCH
11:30 - 12:40 ~ The Daily Five Sessions 1 and 2 {Post #5 - July 8}
12:40 - 1:10 ~ PE
1:15 - Restroom Break
1:15 - 1:45 ~ The Daily Five Session 3

I mentioned in the last Daily Five post that my first Daily Five mini lesson is writing! I do a mini lesson first thing when The Daily Five starts, so that all kiddos will have had the mini lesson before they Work on Writing.

11:40 - 11:55 ~ Writing Mini Lesson

I have done this differently every year. For the past two years, I have incorporated Writing Workshop into The Daily Five. Because we have both specials and PE most days of the week, there just wasn't enough time to do 2 or 3 sessions of Daily Five in addition to Writing Workshop. 

I still do the essential elements of Writing Workshop, including mini lessons, conferencing, and student author sharing...it is just broken up a little up during The Daily Five. 

I love this set up for one main reason: Not all 18 of my kids are sitting at tables at the same time trying to concentrate and write! During the Daily Five, there are 3 sessions and only 5-6 kiddos are writing at one time. This means that only 2 kiddos sit at each table and have plenty of room to spread out and get in the writing groove! :) This also allows me to conference with more writers more often! If we are doing a lot of publishing or editing on a certain writing project, I will have all 6 of the kiddos who chose Work on Writing for that session meet with me for a writing small group!

We use a variety of resources for our writing lessons, including Lucy Caulkins' Units of Study for Primary Writing, Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers by Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe, and of course, fab bloggers like YOU! 

I can honestly say blogging has made teaching writing WAY more fun! :) 

This was our plan last year:

AUGUST - What Writer's Write

SEPTEMBER - Why Writer's Write

OCTOBER - Fix It Up! Editing

NOVEMBER - Descriptive writing

DECEMBER - Letter writing

JANUARY - Paragraphs

FEBRUARY - Nonfiction writing

MARCH - How To writing 

APRIL - All About books 

MAY - Booklets **Changing to Opinion writing in 2013 - 2014!*

I loved setting the tone for our writing time with the What Writers Write and Why Writers Write ideas from Cara Carroll! Check out her awesome post about this {here}.

Link up below to tell us all about your Writing time!

Join us next Monday, July 22 to hear about how small groups roll in my classroom!

Have a fab summer week! :)

Schedule Spotlight Series #5 - The Daily Five

Happy Monday! We are floating away here in the South...rain, rain, and more rain! Hope everyone had a happy 4th!

My hubs and I are headed up to my classroom tomorrow to move the furniture back in place. I am about to start my 9th year of teaching and I am preparing things ahead of time - things I KNOW I will need. Hoping it makes the start of the year easier!

This is the fifth post in the 10 week Schedule Spotlight series!

For those of you just joining in the fun, we are going through our day, minute by minute and hour by hour! Almost as a good as observing…but saving money on gas and sub pay! :)

7:45 - 8:15 ~ Morning Work {Post #1 - June 10}
8:15 - 8:30 ~ Calendar {Post #2 - June 17}
8:30 - 9:00 ~ Math {Post #3 - June 24}
9:00 - 9:45 ~ SPECIALS
9:45 - 10:30 ~ Phonics {Post #4 - July 1}
10:35 - 10:55 - RECESS
11:00 - 11:30 - LUNCH
11:30 - 12:40 ~ The Daily Five {Post #5 - July 8}

We have settled back in our room after lunch. We have a quick restroom break and then we are ready to start The Daily Five...my favorite part of the day! After the initial 20 day launch period, those kiddos are ready to go! 

11:40 - 11:55 ~ Writing Mini Lesson

I have done this differently every year. For the past two years, I have incorporate Writing Workshop into The Daily Five. Because we have both specials and PE most days of the week, there just wasn't enough time to do 2 or 3 sessions of Daily Five in addition to Writing Workshop.

More about writing next week! :)

11:55 - 12:12 ~ Check in and Daily Five Session #1

For check in, I use a oral clipboard system! I call their name and they tell me their choice. When enough kids have made a choice, I say "Read to Self is closed". The Jungle Guide {or helper of the day} crosses Read to Self on our flip chart, so the rest of the class knows to make that choice for this session. 

Second semester, I allow them to come up to the flipchart and write their class number in a square next to their name.

I like to keep a record of their choice on a clipboard. I have thought about having them make their choices when we come back in from lunch. I might experiment with that this year!

During the first session, I pull my lowest group for a small group lesson. We spend about 5 minutes on the phonics focus for the week and then begin our Guided Reading lesson. 

12:15 - 12:35 ~ Check in and Daily Five Session #2

I do not teach a mini lesson in between the first two sessions! There is simply not enough time before we have to leave for PE!

During the second session, I pull my medium group for a small group lesson. We spend about 5 minutes on the phonics focus for the week and then begin our Guided Reading lesson. 

12:40 - 1:10 ~ PE

1:15 - 1:25 ~ Reading Comprehension Mini Lesson

I am not sure how this will look this year with the addition of our new series, Wonders. My grade level sat down with our reading coach a few years ago and expressed our interest in teaching comprehension strategies with authentic, QUALITY literature. We basically came up with our own plan! We focus on a comprehension strategy for a month and incorporate author studies and quality literature. I find so many of our best comprehensions lessons and ideas from you and the blogging community! 

This was our plan last year:

AUGUST - Intro to Daily Five

SEPTEMBER - Characters and Setting

OCTOBER - Main Idea and Details

NOVEMBER - Making Connections

DECEMBER - Making Predictions

JANUARY - Making Inferences

FEBRUARY - Asking Questions

MARCH - Retelling

APRIL - Summarizing

MAY - Visualizing

1:25 - 1:45 ~ Check in and Daily Five Session #3

During the third session, I pull my high group for a small group lesson for a Guided Reading lesson two days a week. The other 2 days, I rotate around to conference with writers. 

Now its time for PE!!  

Link up below to tell us all about your Daily Five time!

Join us next Monday, July 15 to learn more about what Writing time looks like in my classroom!

Have a great week! :)

Schedule Spotlight Series #4 - Phonics

Happy July, friends! How is it already July??? That means I am about halfway done with summer - how is that even possible?!?!? It will be time to set up my classroom before I know it! 

This is the fourth post in the 10 week Schedule Spotlight series!

For those of you just joining in the fun, we are going through our day, minute by minute and hour by hour! Almost as a good as observing…but saving money on gas and sub pay! :)

7:45 - 8:15 ~ Morning Work {Post #1 - June 10}
8:15 - 8:30 ~ Calendar {Post #2 - June 17}
8:30 - 9:00 ~ Math {Post #3 - June 24}
9:00 - 9:45 ~ SPECIALS
9:45 - 10:30 ~ Phonics {Post #4 - July 1}

We are back from specials! My friends head straight to their tables for a quick restroom and water break! We did not have a snack time last year, but I am thinking this is where I want to fit one in this year! Those babies are hungry!!!

After our restroom break, we head down to the carpet for our Phonics mini lesson. The mini lesson lasts about 10-12 minutes. I really, truly believe that the longer we teach, the more kiddos start to lose interest! I teach very explicitly and it is fast paced. One key to mini lessons is to have all of your materials ready to go. If you are only teaching for 12 minutes, you don't have time to stop to dig for your word cards!

We just adopted the Wonders series for the 2013 - 2014 school year. We were previously using Harcourt. We followed the progression, but pulled in a lot of other resources, including Wright Skills Phonics, The Phonics Dance, and others!
I love to incorporate quality children's literature and poetry into this time! I also love to watch Between the Lions video clips, use flip charts, and of course, Annie and Moby from Brain Pop! 

10:00 - 10:10
I have a focus board with a few phonics picture and word cards and the way I start every Phonics lesson {another auditory cue!!} is to say, "This week we are learning all about the /sh/ sound. A digraph is two letters put together to make a new sound. s and h make /sh/ like in shell, sheet, wash, and brush. 

Then, we usually do some making word manipulation, changing beginning, medial, and final sounds to make new words! Then, we read a poem or story and make a list of all the words we hear with that sound! 

This takes us to our small group time on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays! On Mondays, we have a longer whole group time as we explore the new sound and spelling pattern, and Friday we play a game and take our spelling test! 

10:10 - 10:30

After our mini lesson, I spilt my class into two groups {higher} and {lower}. One group does Read to Someone {buddy reading} with decodeable texts {from our series} while I teach one group on the carpet and then we switch! 

SMALL GROUPS

I work with my lower group first. We do sound stretching and writing in our Phonics Notebooks {those good ole Starfall journals!}

Tuesday - Writing Words {I Do, We Do, You Do model}. 

I stretch and write two words and they copy. Then we stretch two words out together and they write them in their journal, and then I give them two words to stretch and write on their own. These words are not our spelling words, but words that have the sound we are learning about!

Wednesday - Stretch the Sounds

We work with our spelling words on Wednesdays! I simply say the word, and we stretch each sound on our fingers. For example, dish

d - i - sh, dish. /d/ d, /i/ i/ /sh/ sh. 

Then they write the word on their paper! 

Easy, peasy, but effective!!!

Thursday - Sentence Dictation 

On Thursdays, I do one sentence with my lower group and two sentences with my higher group. I heard at a workshop once to echo read the sentence twice, count the number of words and then let them have at it! 

For example,

ME - I found a shell at the beach. 

Echo - I found a shell at the beach. 

ME - I found a shell at the beach. 

Echo - I found a shell at the beach. 

Let's count the words. I - found - a - shell - at - the - beach. 7 words

So, that's that! I wish I had more pictures of this time!!! 

Now its time for recess and lunch!! Woohoo! 

Link up below to tell us all about your phonics time!

Join us next Monday, July 8 to learn more about what The Daily Five looks like in my classroom!

Happy early 4th of July to you! :)