Guided Reading and Literacy Center Schedule

Guided Reading and Center time is precious.  Keeping students informed on where to go, what to do, and when it should happen can be a huge time-sucker.  It can cut right into your sacred group time. 

I decided to create a schedule that can be displayed on my board and easily changed out every day to keep student aware of what the day's guided reading and literacy schedule would be.  After introducing how it would work, we practiced a few times, and students quickly got the hang of it.  No longer did I have to worry about interruptions during guided reading groups or while meeting with students with questions such as "Where do I go?"  and "When do I go to _____?"  To get your materials, click on any of the links or pictures below.



**************It's 50% off for the first 24 hours!****************

Guided Reading and Literacy Center Labels

 



 

 

 

Reading Street Vocabulary Sale

If you're new to Reading Street, or if you've been using it a while, you may be on the hunt for some supplemental vocabulary activities for the main selection stories.  I have sets of fun and engaging activities and games for all 30 5th Grade Reading Street stories in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  Starting with Red Kayak, each and every story is available.  I have seen so much growth in my own students since I have started incorporating these authentic activities.  These are not boring, skill and drill types of activities.  They have been created to encourage students to make connections with the words and apply them outside of the context of the story so that they can make real world connections.  There are previews of each unit.

I have recently created bundles or sets for each of the 6 units.  If you buy the entire unit, you will save 20%, when comparing this to the price of each individual story.  I have also created a set for all 30 stories, which is a savings of over 25%.  You can find all of my 5th Grade Reading Street Materials here.  You can also click on any of the pictures below to view the items in my store. 

Red Kayak Reading Street Vocabulary Activities

 

Unit 1 Reading Street Vocabulary Set (all 5 stories)

 

At The Beach Vocabulary Activities

 

Unit 2 Reading Street Vocabulary Activities (all 5 stories)

 

The Fabulous Perpetual Motion Machine Vocabulary Activities

Unit 3 Reading Street Vocabulary Activities (all 5 stories)

 

Unit 4 Reading Street Vocabulary Activities (all 5 stories)

 

The Skunk Ladder Vocabulary Activities

 

Unit 5 Reading Street Vocabulary Activities (all 5 stories)

 

King Midas and The Golden Touch Vocabulary Activities

 

Unit 6 Reading Street Vocabulary Activities (all 5 stories)

 

No More Book Reports, Introducing...Book Recommendations

That's right- NO MORE BOOK REPORTS.  I have always said that I had some of the greatest teachers when I was growing up, but if there was one thing that I didn't enjoy about their classes was doing book reports.  They were always so boring, and I felt like I was always writing the same thing.

Being a teacher now, I can understand the objectives behind them (kind of), and I appreciate that I did learn some skills like summarizing, distinguishing between main ideas and minor details, and learning about plot.  However, I also remember how boring they were for me, and I can only imagine how boring they would be for my students if I assigned them.  I'm not blaming my teachers at all.  Times were just different.  No big deal.  I'm pretty sure that the ones who are still teaching haven't done a traditional book report in years anyway.

So, in order to keep the objectives in place but to make it a bit more interesting and personal for students, I have created my own version of Student Book Recommendations.  Allowing students to critique and rate books empowers them and gives them ownership of their work.   They love to see their critiques displayed and read by other students.  I like to refer students to the display of Book Recommendations so they can browse them to see if they find something they are interested in.

For the past couple of years, I have designated a specific wall or bulletin board in my classroom to display student recommendations and the materials students need to complete the activity.  Sometimes, I assign them as a literacy center, use them after a group finishes a literature circle book, or allow students to complete them instead of doing their Reader's Workshop Response Log.  

Coming soon will be a picture of the bulletin board with the student recommendations that my students have just finished.  

Here are some values I have found in this activity:
1. Kids are excited about being the expert, or person who gets to critique something.
2. Kids love to see their work displayed.
3. The kids enjoy when other students ask them about the book after reading their recommendation.
4. Kids like being able to choose which books they write about.
5. I learn which books my students are really interested in without having to take a formal poll.
6. This can be a quick assessment.
7. Kids are interactively positively with reading.
8. It makes a great looking bulletin board.

Click here or on any of the images below to get your own set, which includes:

- Teacher Information/Suggestions for Use

- Student Directions

- Student Writing Forms in 8 styles (1 pictured below)

- Student Rubric

- Book Recommendation Cover Page

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 



Literature Circles

One of my favorite activities to do with my students is literature circles.  I think it's because they love them so much.  It wasn't always like this for me.  Why?????  Well that's because it used to seem like a daunting task.  With literature circles, it's all about student generated discussions to foster deep understanding of the text.  It's very difficult to get students to be able to discuss among themselves.  So, I spent a lot of time several years thinking about different learning styles and Bloom's Taxonomy to develop activities, games, and journal pages for students to use in literature circles.  Now, with some training, students are able to run their own groups while having powerful discussions in which they learn so much from one another.  Below are some of the materials that I use and some pictures some AWESOME fifth graders working on the activities.  Click on any of the materials (or this link) to get them for yourself!



Cameron & Zolin work on
the Acrostic Poem for
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

 

Kat & Manuel work on the Party Invitation
for
The Mouse and the Motorcycle.



Nayeli and Melissa work on the
Party Invitation for
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Emely and Jessie work on the
Acrostic Poem and Party Invitation
for Someone Named Eva.

Everardo, Adriana, and Odalys work on
the Character Interview Activity
for Homer Price.

Camila and Alyssa work on the
Word Search Activity for
Homer Price.



       

Jaylynn works on the Word Search
for Someone Named Eva.



Get These Materials for Yourself
 

Literature Circle Bundle with all Literature Circle Materials



 



Character Map Activity

Acrostic Poem Activity



 

Book Recommendation Activity



Word Search Activity

 

Illustration Summary Activity

 

 

Literature Circle Activity Rubric

 

Literature Circle Job/Role Cards

Literature Circle Question Cards

Literature Circle Journal Cover

Literature Circle Journal Pages

Literature Circle Student Evaluation Form

Literature Circles in Action

My students are amazing...simply amazing!  I am so impressed with the work they have been doing in literature circles. 

Literature Circles can be really difficult to manage, organize, and keep straight.  It seems that once all of that is done, it's even more difficult keeping students engaged with interesting conversation and activity.  With much hard work and effort on their part, my students have really been running their own literature circles successfully.  I rarely have to sit with groups for more than a few minutes at a time because they are able to generate interesting conversation among each other.  They understand their roles and take them seriously, but most importantly they end up learning from each other based on the conversations they have.  Here's what I just happened to listen in on today.  (Because of the file size, I had to break it up into 3 videos.)  In the third video, you can see the value of literature circles as one group member figures something out with the help of the others.  I was so proud!  If you're interested in how my students were able to get to this point, read on.  Enjoy and way to go kiddos!

Students doing their literature circle jobs and having a conversation about the book Island of the Blue Dolphins. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

This didn't just happen overnight.  As you can see, the students have a lot of materials in front of them.  First, I spent two weeks during shared reading using the same book to model six different roles that the students would be expected to do in their groups. 

 While completing their reading assignment, they complete a literature circle journal that requires them to analyze vocabulary words, summarize, ask questions, make predictions, infer, visualize, and think about an idea they'd like to share with their group.  This along with the role cards are what they they use to guide their discussion. 

 

  

After they've had about 10-15 minutes to discuss, they have the option to complete items from the literature circle activity set or play a literature circle game- both require more discussion and higher level thinking. 

 

They stay on task for 45 minutes.  It's amazing to have seen them come this far, and the best part is that they are enjoying their books and really working well together, and that's what it's about.

If you want to know more about these materials, just click on any of them.

Freebies...Yay!!!!

I have to admit that I one of the things I love the most in life is a great deal.  Finding useful and FREE teacher materials is one of the things that I love to find the most.  I'm sure I'm not the only one out there, so in light of that, I have linked several of my free items in the column to the right.  There are math FREEBIES and reading FREEBIES.  If you find something you like, please let me know.  I appreciate kind and honest feedback.

Cheers to all the great FREEBIES out there.  Enjoy!

Elissa