Literacy Centers; Setting up for Success

[Music] you [Music] maybe spending five weeks together on the topic of guided reading so our agenda for that is tonight we're going to talk about setting up for success so we're going to talk about the procedures that you need to model and teach your kids and kind of time you can get your classroom set up so that you're ready to start pulling guiding and reading groups once that's done because if you start that in reading groups to say it just doesn't work then on August 24th we're going to be talking about strategies and activities that you can do with your students so were going to be talking about reading strategies for decoding of our many of them and I'm going to share with you some hands-on activities and fun things that you can do to help your kids with those decoding strategies and then on August 31st we're going to be talking about assessing and forming groups I'm going to share with you one of the questions that I got whenever I first posted that I was going to do this series one of the questions that I saw repeated over and over again was how do you assess your students how do you form your groups so we're going to spend a lot of time really looking at that and I'm actually going to share with you we're gonna I'm gonna put some handouts in here before that night because I want you to hear us because you're actually getting to a running record with me so for those of you who have never done one of those before you're going to learn how to do that with me and we're going to really talk about how to look at those running records and see what our students need to help them continue in their reading proficiency growth and then on September 7th I'm going to share with you the anatomy of our pre reading lesson so we're going to look at those students who are if you use the fountas and pinnell leveling system it would be the level 8 readers so we're going to look at those readers who they're pre readers they're not reading yet they're not able to code at all yet because they have very few letter-sound identification they develop knowledge is really lacking so what would a reading group look like when you pull those students so we're gonna really dig into that on September 7th and then on September 14th we're going to talk about guided reading lessons for levels a so you've got readers who are reading on a variety of levels what do you do to meet their needs so I'm gonna share with you some things for that as well on September 14th so before I get started too much here I wanted to go ahead for those of you who have never done guided reading before you I'm amazed when I go around the country and I present to teachers and I say how many of you have taught that in reading and there are so many hands that don't go up it have not talked to me like it's just not implemented in your district before so you're gonna be at the top of your game if your district doesn't do this and you start doing it so you'll be a leader in your district so that in reading a small group differentiated instruction that support students in developing reading proficiency the small groups are formed based on each student's reading level so if you have four groups those four groups aren't going to be reading the same level text they're not going to be reading the same books you're going to be meeting the needs of the students in each one of those groups so we're going to show you how to do that how you form your groups based on each student's reading level and groups are flexible you're going to have some students who are ready to go on and some students who still need to stay there so your students are going to be moving around at different times sometimes I may have a student up to the next reading level and then they get there and they start sticking out like a sore thumb and I realize oh my goodness this level is just a little bit too difficult for them they're not quite ready to go there yet and so sometimes I do both students back down so we'll be talking a lot about that as well and reprinted reading instruction is targeted and intentional so everything I do is target based on the students needs at that level this is research-based instruction didi and I and we if some of you probably already notice that we have leveled reading units called guided guided readers and their leveled reading units that we have and all of the things that we've put in there are researched based best practices based on where that student is on their reading level so each reading level the word work looks a little bit different and the activities that we do look a little bit different there is consistency but the rigor increases of each level all right so why are we spending time tonight talking about setting up for success instead of just diving right into what you need to do with your reading grades because the first four to six weeks are so important right and I know you guys are all kindergarten some of your first grade teacher so I'm preaching to the choir here you guys know how important the first four to six weeks are but sometimes as teachers we have that end goal in mind and we just want to get there on our journey we just want to eat pedal-to-the-metal get there on our journey and we don't take the time to really set up for success okay and what happens is we're speeding along and we hit a tree and it just doesn't work it's a wreck it's a train wreck a car wreck not good you have to spend that first four to six weeks and I'm gonna give a range four to six weeks it really depends on your students it may only really be three weeks realistically if you have a great class if you have small numbers if you have a teaching assistant your time can be cut in half but if it's just you in the classroom with your students you want to spend at least four four to six weeks setting up for success so what did it really talk about that tonight all right so I wanted to share with you this quote by Maria Montessori this is a quote that you know I keep in my mind every school year when I'm starting a new year and that is the greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say if children are now working as if I did not exist think about that for a minute the children are now working as if I did not exist that truly is I have that in my mind at the beginning of the school year whenever I'm thinking about all the procedures I need to teach and model you know all of the things that I need to make sure that I have in place because I want my students to be able to run the classroom themselves they don't need me I'm just just there's the facilitator and to help them move forward but they can clean the classroom themselves because I put in all of that time ahead of time to make sure that they know the rules procedures and how we do things the beauty of this is not just for Center time it's for all day long if you set up and if you are hearing that in the background y'all I live right by Disney and its fireworks time so I don't know if it might get sticking that up but we can see the fireworks in our yard so I'm hearing about side really loudly for me but so setting up that time in making sure having consistency in your schedule like for your kids to know that we this than we do this than we do this and to be consistent with that the beauty of that is if I'm out and I have a substitute I can say from 9:00 to 10:00 we are doing readers workshop the students know what to do from 10:00 to 11:00 we're doing writers workshop the students know what to do and the students truly do know what to do the substitute just kind of has to be there just to facilitate and make sure that they're staying on task and that they're not killing each other right you know so they know what we're supposed to do she does have lessons that she has to teach like from a read-aloud lessons and that kind of thing in our math lesson for the workshop model and the literacy centers the students know exactly what to do and she just had them help them I don't usually have a substitute full reading groups although I could because our plans are so well laid out I could do that I just don't because I just want to make sure that I know how much support I give my students based on their reading level and I just wouldn't want to mess that up so I don't have them do that all right so moving along step by step week one all right now didi has already shared with you how she does her Literacy Center stations so you're going to notice one thing you're gonna notice is that she and I are a lot different in that area in so many ways we are a lot alike this is one way where we're a little bit different our methods are just a little bit different but we're both equally as successful so what I would say to you is it's great that you've heard didi and how she does her Literacy Center station and it's gonna be great that you hear how I do it because what works for one might not work for another so didi shared with you guys that she has her students in groups of two so she shared her beautiful chart that she had and you saw that you know lots of choice lots of groups that just doesn't work for me that gives me high mine a lot different I put my students in groups of three to four students I try to have no floor I like a nice even lower but you know we don't always have even numbers in our classroom so sometimes there will be a group that's three one year I had lots of students and I had to have two groups of five and that was terrible but we may get work so I put students in groups of three to four students now this is week one y'all so I'm not having my students go to Center stations yet because I haven't talked on how to do anything so I'm going to provide you with activities that they can work on independently for ten minutes because we've got to build our stamina just like in readers workshop and Writers Workshop they could have build that stamina to be able to work independently because I am working on independence so however long they can be independent you may find that your kids are going to be independent for ten minutes and you have to pump it down a little bit because you want it to be successful you want it to be an exciting time for them you don't want to be where you're having to really like get on her and get on them and it's not enjoyable you want it to be enjoyable for them so my role to start with I'm hoping that they can work independently for ten minutes okay and then each day I'm going to add one to two minutes a day if possible if we didn't get to ten minutes that first day we only got to eight so tomorrow we're shooting for nine or ten okay so you meet them where they are and that's how you build that stamina so here's the key for week one my bins are gonna rotate not my kids okay they're not they're not moving groups in fact one of us so did I have them in groups of three to four students whatever table they sit at that's going to be their center group for that first few weeks okay because I'm not ready to I have an assessment I don't know where they are I don't know which are my kids that are you know where my medium students are my list words combined minute whenever I group them I keep that in mind okay I want to have a variety of students in that group so the bins are gonna rotate not two kids and so the way to be successful in this is to make sure that the activities in those bins activities that they can just be successful with they don't need any direction from you so I'm not doing really any pre-made centers right now unless they're very basic and very simple because a lot of my kids don't even know their letters it sounds they can't even write their name yet right and I'm wanting them to do I'm working on building in pendants so some examples of things that are put in those bins would be puzzles very easy to work puzzles not cvce puzzles not even couldn't even do later in town puzzles yet it's just going to be some very basic simple puzzles TJ Maxx Marshalls have great puzzles that they can do not want puzzles they're going to be engaged with for hopefully ten minutes right little mins so you can put some boot bands at a table so one group might be doing puzzles another group I've given a bin of books to now I will tell you that before you do this make sure in my whole group lesson I do talk about how to treat our books how to turn the pages how to put them back in the bin because I do not want them to mistreat my books so if you're going to use book banters wipe your stations there is a great book that you can read and it's called mr. Wiggles book and it's adorable it's a cute little bookworm as the character and he's so upset because the students did not treat his books nicely they smudge the pages they toward the corners they push them down in the book bin and the pages that are crinkled up it's a wonderful book so I'll back that down to read then in the very first books you're honoring mr. Wiggles book and you can go ahead and talk about how to treat the books now any of you are going to Amazon right now to check on mr. Wiggles book the last time I checked was once a couple months ago it's $300 yeah I know right $300 is because it's trick so you can't get it any more so what am I telling you about it I'm telling you about it because my friend Lestat Andreotti has a YouTube channel and she's got this book where she's read the book and shows the pictures she did she have a beautiful reading boy so I'll put a link underneath this video whenever I'm finished so that you can still share that book mr. Wiggles book with your kids some puzzles book man's play-doh now yeah you may want to teach them that the play-doh stays on their mat not on the floor and that kind of thing but again most of your kids are probably played with play-doh and hopefully they know but you you may want to give them a few directions but these are still activities even though you have to give a few directions maybe for how they treat the materia and they don't go on the carpet you don't put it up your nose and your mouth it's still an activity that they can work with independently pattern blogs magnetic letters when they're just doing whatever they want to with them as long as they're saying you know focused and engage because the deal is you're working on independence right you're wanting them this is this is the time where you're teaching them things like law get to it in just a minute things like standing in your spot the appropriate voice level so that's why you're not pulling groups yet if you started cooling groups yet who's gonna who's gonna monitor and teach and model the procedures for literacy centers and what's appropriate and what's not appropriate and getting them back on task so the first few days I'm really having to kind of police it and you know teaching model teaching the moral teaching model but my goal is to gradually phase out those vents and get them working in the center stations and I want them working in write the Literacy Center stations that I want them working in my goal is to build stamina and independence for 60 minutes so somebody like it some of your own yeah okay I can do that I've already been doing that right so it really just depends on where you are if you've not done guided reading groups before you maybe think and 60 minutes is a long time but you're gonna need that 60 minutes so I'm also going to share with you later like how I do my schedule if my kids can't handle 60 minutes how I break that up so that they can handle it but we'll share that in another session all right so like I said my goal is to field stamina so I'm slowly building stamina and gradually phasing out those beds so I'm introducing one new Center every few days if my students can handle a new center every day I would do it but I can't do that because I've got not only am i introducing this the center I want my kids to actually get to work in that station so that again I'm standing there the other kids are doing those busy bands and I am so for example the last the reading walks all the kids want to reading reading well that I had in my classroom so I had to teach them you know the rules and procedures for that reading walk and then I had to let them practice that try it out they're trying it out I'm able to stand there and monitor and say oh maybe you remember I told you you can only have three books in the pile beside you it is time you've got eight you need to put some back so that they don't get stepped on or you know not to overlap the rule is three books could you put some back and let's try that again or although you're standing up in the rocking your leaning over the pins you know the the bars you know you're not supposed to do that the rule is what we sit on our bottom or reading books right so it really gives you an opportunity to teach it and teach it well exactly what it is that you're expecting at that station so working in those busy bins at their table and I can pull a route it's alright hey you guys over here how you just come up and I'm going to show you how to work in the log and so I would model it for them let them try it out and I'm going to give them the rest of that ten minute time they're getting to model it okay and then throughout the day whenever I've got a chance I might call another group of students and let them do it the next day I'm going to call them so however many days it takes me to get each group to actually get to work in the loft try it out that's how many days it takes me so once every group has had a chance and loss I'm going to introduce the next Center remember I don't need to get in a rush because about four weeks before I'm going to start pulling groups so if it takes me a little bit longer it takes me a little bit longer however long it takes to build that stamina so I can you know shuffle more groups into those stations that's however long it takes me but once I taught them how to use the loft and reading the loft that's a station that's open right so I can always have a group that's in the loft you know I'm teaching a second group how to do the magnetic letters that are right so I'm going to teach a model exactly what can be done in that and now I've got two stations that are open as soon as every student has had a chance to practice working in the medic magnetic weather station so that's how I do my stations I just introduced one new Center or station whatever attorney to use I use them interchangeably as you can tell there I just introduced one new one every few days so that the kids can build that stamina and independence because I'm working towards hopefully at the end of that four to six weeks we're ready for sequence 60 minutes of stamina and again if I have kids if you know every class is different some years you get that classroom where it's like wow after two weeks they are raring to go they are just so amazing and then you get some classes that you know for six weeks you're like oh my word how am I gonna pull these fruits so whenever I have that problem I'm not expecting stamina in groups for 60 minutes what I'm going to do is I'm going to start a rotation I'm going to send them off to centers to their groups I'm gonna pull a group when that group is over I'm gonna call everybody there I'm gonna have them clean up and then come back to the carpet I might do my read aloud lesson and then everybody goes back in writing responses the read aloud lesson and then after that we do another station I pull another group then I call them to the carpet at the end of that group I do another it may be a phonemic awareness activity or a phonics lesson or whatever and then I send them back to their stations and I pull my third group I do three groups a day I don't see all my students every day I know some school districts you're required to see all students every day so we'll talk about that when we get into guided reading and how you can do that then so that's how I do it Michael I love to have my guided reading time all up together 60 minutes but like I said if your kids don't have stamina for that you have to meet them where they are and you have to adjust your schedule because you want to be successful you don't want to be trying to squeeze lemonade out of a cow I don't know if that sounds silly but you know what I'm saying okay sometimes it just does not work all right so like I said whenever they're working in their bins and they're not really rotating around and I'm just pulling one group at a time these are the things that I'm working on even the students that are working at their seats with the bed we're really working on working in a group collaborating sharing the materials how does it look how does it sound so you want to really model the difference in using a quiet voice moderates patience because when I'm pulling groups I can't have my students talking in a normal voice to each other because when you have 22 students out in the room they're talking and then you'd pull four of them so now you've soaked 18 out there they're talking like there is no way you can hear your groups so we really work on even though I'm not pulling groups and I start working on using that whisper voice okay we also are talking about working the whole time so when we're building that stamina just like in writers workshop and in readers workshop we're gonna chart our standard RI stamina for literacy centers we're gonna start and we're chart it and we're gonna celebrate we're gonna try for 14 and so then tomorrow I'm gonna remind them boys and girls yesterday we worked on stamina 12 whole minutes of stamina remember today our goal is 14 then I'm gonna set that timer and we're really going to try for 14 so we're working on using a quiet voice root voice we're working on working the whole time and then we're also working on okay don't ask me once I've taught and bottled everything I don't want them coming to me for help because they're like a group and students are coming to me for help they're gonna be constantly disrupting my group I'm not going to be able to give my group what they need and I'm not gonna get be able to get everything I need to do in my room so that I can get them in in that 20 minutes and get them out and see my next group so what I really have to work on that so one thing that I do is once I've taught and modeled things I go ahead and I start wearing what I'm gonna wear when I'm at a reading group you know this is my reading group attire I'm the queen of the reading group I have my reading glasses on because it's very important job I also have these little glasses these are from the target dollar spot I love to let my little come in because there's no business in there right so it's nice I like to give these to my readers as well so we're really serious reading is serious business and we take it seriously so even though I'm not Khloe Bruce yet I go ahead and start wearing this to let them know if I'm wearing my reading crown and I am I classism that means you cannot ask me you have to ask a friend for help okay now I do teach them that if we have a serious emergency like you're really sick you hurt yourself no we had a bathroom in our room they don't need to ask me to go to the bathroom even if I'm nothing was down the hall our procedures in place where they don't have to come and bother me for that but our bathroom is in our classroom so they know let's go I don't need to know that unless you've gone your pants and it's really they don't even know it okay then you can borrow me so you let them know when they can bother you but they can okay so you have to explicitly teach all this stuff you guys know that and then how they work together to clean up so you really have to explicitly teach them how to clean the different stations up as well where the materials go and all that a great way to do this when you're teaching and modeling it like I showed you the picture of my students reading it off take pictures of what it looks like when kids are following the procedures and doing things correctly take the pictures l'union then you can post those pictures in that station or that Center okay so that's a great way to make sure that you don't need to if they can't remember what to do they've got some pictures to remind them okay and they're friends you know there's always a little busybody that's going to help them that we always have great friends who follow directions who listen carefully and so they've always got help within their group now they're only allowed to ask within their group I don't want them going all around the room all right people you have to ask somebody in their group okay another thing that we teach in the model if you have if you have recording sheets that they do with their stations how aggravating is it when you're looking through that and they don't have their name on the paper that is so aggravating right so I explicitly teach them from the very beginning when I'm finished this is the finished work bin okay right next to the finished work bin highlighters so they can highlight their name so there's kids a lot of highlighting right so what happens is sometimes they'll get so there it reminds them to write their name on their papers so that's a really important thing in my classroom this located the word bracket and they know that you don't just put your work in there you've got a highlight your name before it can go into them so that I'm really helps with the problem of having students who don't have their name on the paper okay so like I said we introduce one new Center every few days so I showed you what the box looks like so that's one of the reading areas that they can go to to read another station that I introduced right away is in the ABC station and that is being letters these are these are so easy and they're so easy for you to make to write you just have to have uppercase letters lowercase letters so once I make these it may be kind of hard to see on this picture that these are in all of these charts and things that you're seeing are in a unit concert with Kim asset called kindergarten literacy centers and we have the bundle for the whole year now you don't have to go and if don't feel like you have to run out and buy anything a lot of these things you can implement and make yourself use what you already have right usually you already have so um but at the beginning like I said I want everything to be really simple so these are the main letters and so for the pink card it's just says choose a letter card and say its name and picture use means to make the letter now know they can't reach use a letter card that it whenever you make I plan cards whether you draw them out on our chart or whatever make sure that they can really tell from the pictures what it is that they're supposed to be able to do because you want them to be independent and you don't want to have to sit and explain each and every Center right so for these like I said very simple it's just uppercase and lowercase letters and they not have beens and they're just filling in that with means you can have them use buttons you can have to use pom-poms whatever just so that it's something that they're getting that letter practice and again it's got the uppercase to lowercase anything it's got a picture q for the sound so you you Umbrella DD dog right so I wanted to save the letter name and the name of the picture and when they're saying the picture even if they don't have that letter sound association the picture is helping them you you umbrella right so they're saying that writing station is another one the very first thing that I teach them there's not a lot of materials in there paper and markers said I can write with markers and I can put the top back on so really teaching them explicitly that you want to hear that click sound because we don't want workers a job I work with trap we don't have anymore to use so very very basic stations in the beginning when we start rotating it around and I'm showing them explicitly during that time when some groups are in bands some groups are starting to learn how to use the stations in my room so we open one station every few days so this is just kind of the order I open them in so that they're very simple for the kids to be able to use okay authentic reading and writing activities it is really important when you are doing literacy centers okay literacy is our key here right so you want to make sure that you also have opportunities for them to practice authentic reading and writing so another one that I teach right away after the loft because they just love the long term they all can't wait to go in there so I have to teach them that or they will drive me crazy if you don't have a loft and that's out that's off the table for you so leave the room would be the first one that you would teach them so read the room so I'm explicitly teaching them how to use the pointers to different things in the room that they can go around and read we have probably been charts on the wall we have our name while we have all kinds of print in the room you don't know how to read you that's okay you can read letters you know so search for the room around the room for letters you know some of you are already reading words you can read words you though or you can read sentences now this is where it's great if you've got um you know points and things that you do each week and so you've been reading with the kids and so they kind of have lots of things you want to make sure there are things that they can read I get their names up very first thing very first thing their names on a bulletin board so that the kids do have lots of print that they can read around the room okay so like I said reading letters you know teaching them not we're not we're not all on the same reading path right some of us just know some letters no word so now there's no census so letting those kids who are you ready let me know oh you don't have to just stick to letters you can be where to go so there are three different choices within there very rarely do I have kids who are already reading sentences at the beginning of kindergarten it's always a nice surprise but very rarely do I have that another thing that you want to teach them when you do leave the room this is really important you know they have to stay around the perimeter of the rim so around the things that are on the walls or our easel because I don't want them going over and like Jacob is doing his work so the rules are read the room that you teach them is that it's around the perimeter of the room you have to stay around the outside edges of the room you can't go on all that your friends that are working at their stations okay this pretty much is pretty consistent with read the room they get a clipboard they get a piece of paper and they've got that marker which they already learned how to use because that was the very first thing I taught them so now I can teach them how to use a clipboard and paper and write in the room so they can write letters they know they can write words they know or they can write sentences and a lot of times they're just copying what they see you write or when they see around the room and that's fine too and again that's another one where the rule is you stay around the corner and you can't bother your friends who are working so that's a few of the sinners that I do at the beginning and so now let me let me just say this so now for reading okay for reading they can read and aloft they can read the room they have two choices if there's a lot we didn't wait in the lock we doing for reading they can just sit at their writing table and they can write with paper and markers or they can get a clipboard and paper and marker and they can write the room so they have choices you want to start building up choices within your station so once you a lot of times we do centers and we will do a game or we'll do an activity we let the kids rotate it rotate it through it once a week and then we put it away and we feel like we have to bring out all new things the next week why did we do that when making our jobs so hard on ourselves we don't need to do that kids want to be able to work with those materials over and over again and that's what you really start building that independence because they know how to use those materials and just using it once they're not going to be bored with it they need to have multiple opportunities to work with those materials so keep those out we're going to talk about interested minute the difference between can dues and half tubes and that will make it a little bit more sense okay all right the next slide all right so DeeDee showed you her beautiful chart you know in her choice research base because Debbie dealer has done a lot of research in school Debbie dealer says kids should work in groups of two I tried to be dealers wait like I said it just didn't work for me so this is the one that Kim and I have in our literacy center chart and I'm saying I don't have a real picture for you this is one I just had to do it it's create a shot from our unit because the picture I took last year just is not good I wasn't even thinking that I was going to be doing this I didn't do a very good picture but this is how it works so now this is once we've assessed and grouped our students okay so this is once we've done that but I just wanted to go ahead and show you kind of what this looks like I have five groups and that's it five groups I have color coded vibrates so I have a red group a yellow group a green group of blue group in a purple group those are my five groups okay so I just have their crazy on here next to that chart is what you see over here on the left where it shows their little sweet pictures and the crayon the clay on is laminated on that paper so that paper is laminated and then there's velcro dots on there because I might have some students that just don't work well together and I have to move them around because letting in and Hannah just aren't getting along and so I have to move them I can move one of them to a different group later so you want these groups to be flexible as well if your kids aren't getting along so it's off their pictures are limited and they velcro long enough so that if I can do them so you can see this is the year that I told you that one time I had to have five in a group so this was the year that I had to do back so the red group had five kids it okay so that's how that worked it just depends some of your groups you're gonna have five minute and if that's work it does work I had to have if you have 15 kids it's wonderful but if you have you know 20-some you may have to have constant it but a couple of groups okay so I have the red group the yellow group the green group the blue group and the purple group so you can see today the red group is going to work in the alphabet Center the yellow group is going to work in the phonemic awareness Center green group is working on writing blue group is working on reading vertical group is working on word work so this is after I've gotten through that first initial four to six weeks now as all of my kids are working in literacy centers so you can see how that works what you're going to notice is you're going to notice that there's only one Center right somebody you're like well she's crazy here's the thing I have lots of choice built into each of those stations so they don't have to rotate they spend the entire time say this is Monday so Monday the red group is going to spend the entire time in the alphabet station the yellow group is going to spend the entire time in the three new Coweta station and so on it just makes it so much easier it really helps for me it works so well for me it really helps build that independence my kids don't have to figure out oh my goodness it's time to clean up and switch stations where am I supposed to go where am I supposed to I can't read that where do I go I don't have that because they stay in the same area so that's where the half tubes and the can do is come in that's where it's really important that you really have a lot of choice in those centers so those activities that we worked on when we were doing our busy bins a lot of those are going to be incorporated at the beginning in these stations so they're going to have a half-two that they have to do it might be the bean leathers your have to as you're reading the room you're have to is at writing your drawing a picture and adding details to go with it whatever your have to use do you have to after you finish that then you can choose a can do and a can do is anything that we've done previously so those I'm just keep building and building twist keep you know I keep adding things in the things that was that were the things that were that he lacks we can now be a can-do so that they get multiple opportunities now after those activities have been in there for four or five weeks now I noticed that they're not even choosing that as a can do anymore I'll take it out and I'll clean that out so that it's not taken over that Center and there aren't so many choices on there that it gets overwhelming and it just gets really messy so you'll see though that we have some areas that we work on each day alphabet phonemic awareness writing reading word work those are five areas that we work on and that we stick with okay so when I told you about candy so how do kids understand those candies and how do we keep a record in that each of those five stations and these velcro aren't enough to because like I said sometimes I'll take one away like okay they're not really doing this anymore so I'm going to take that out so here's an example of one of our reading I can sharps and again each of those choices velcro on and it just becomes like a long poster that can hang in the Reading area so I can listen to a story I can read the room I can read with a friend I can write about a story that I've read I can read a big book so they have five choices in that station so usually our our reading have to is our point in the pocket chart or our little story in a pocket chart whatever we're doing in the park usually that's their house so they have to do that they may have to do a little cut up sentence in a book related to that or whatever and then they can choose any of those candies so there are more than enough things to keep them engaged for that 60-minute time that I need because they don't have to be stuck just doing one activity and then figuring out whatever they have lots and lots of choice okay here's just a few more things that I want to share with you and again if you notice I choice when you make these if you want to make these for your students and you wanted to stick with whatever five areas work best for you you want to color code them so I color code them so that if they kind of get mixed up or whatever I know that hot pink color is always my abc center that blue color is always my word word green is always phonemic awareness so I think the other was reading purple is writing so they're all color coded so that I know where things go if they get mixed up so I just kind of wanted to show you a few other types of things that you can add in those stations so that like I said you don't have to go by anything you can kind of start thinking about your own things your own things that you already have in your classroom maybe you know what you can work or you could work into your station time so this this is I can grab my scoop of alphabet soup so just to make it engaging right those magnetic letters in a ball with a soup ladle ladle so they just scoop up magnetic letters drop them in front of them and then they have different mats the methods on this particular chart is they're sorting about letters and have curves letters that have curves and sticks letters and only have sticks so we have a bunch of different sorting mats where they can really look at the features of those letters and sort them accordingly when were named sort put the cards face down in a pile turn over a card and sort it on the mat and it's kind of hard to see down here but it just says in my name and it's a big smiley face my name and it's a frowny face so all they're doing is they have their little deck of cards they're turning it over E oh my name is Deanna yes I have an Ian bunny turning over the next card s nope s is not my name so sorting it over there so they're just sorting those based on in your name not your night now if you wanted them to record it you can do a little exit ticket and have them record it so that you have a record of their work that's totally up to you whether you do that all right but you just you definitely want to listen I'm gonna get on my soapbox for just a second here and let me tell you if you're standing at the coffee machine and your idea of preparing Center activities for your students and I mean I'm sure that's gonna be bi-xenon because you wouldn't be in our group if this were the type of teacher you are but teachers who are standing at the coffee machine running off worksheets worksheets worksheets and so students are just rotating through worksheets that's not engaging it's not research-based for sure and it's definitely not high level learning okay literacy station should be hands-on and should be engaging it's fine to have a recording shoot there's a huge difference between a recording sheet and a worksheet on a recording sheet the students are recording the work that they did they're recording their work they're thinking it's not where it's only one wrong one right answer and I'm not saying worksheets are sometimes you need you need to have that paper pencil thing they put in their folder or whatever I get that homework gives another great time but I just see like there's this huge trend it just seems like worksheets worksheets worksheets are really making their way back and that's just not that's just not really good teaching so okay I'm off myself so box now and I'm sorry I hope I didn't offend anybody I'm just listening I just say what I think and I'm you know I'm sorry if I defended anybody if you are offended let me recommend a book for you okay and this is said with love it worksheets don't grow dendrites is a great book you can google it and also a lot of my friends and I know did he do it I think Kim did it Elizabeth cause I'm kicking in kindergarten I can't remember who all did it with this so I don't want to keep naming names and then it be somebody who didn't but we all did a book study on yes I think maybe two years ago and so we have some great blog posts about it so you can google it you can go to our blogs type that into the search and you'll get some some really great information okay all right I'm more so folks about that now and then I also told you that phonemic awareness is always green coded so here's an idea here's an activity a type of activity that you might do it to mEEMIC aware this is same sound I can lay off the cards so all the cards are face up I can spin the spinner so I would spin the spinner Mouse mmm and I'm gonna find a card that starts like mouths okay I get the card now it's my serve my partner's turn they spin the spinner lands on the house again they find a carpet so just very basic at the beginning so that they're really working on the skills those really basic reading foundational skills that they need to be working on again you can have them draw some of the pictures you know that they spun or whatever if you're wanting them to have some accountability on an exit ticket okay just a few more things to share then here I'm just about to let you go and a couple more of the charts for like the reading station this yellow writing station is purple so big books I can take a picture look so this is after nine oh so you're going like touching my big books y'all books are meant to be enjoyed and if you've really taught your kids book handling skills it's gonna be okay I promise so big books they can take a picture walk reading letters that they know okay giving them little props that they can use so in this instance giving them magnifying glasses when they're doing this we're reading a little array they're using a pointer in my big books I give them nine different glasses because I don't really want them slapping my big books with the pointer I just don't and they can take a picture walk real letters you know read words you know read the sentences and the only big books that I hide out for them to choose from are the big books that we've already read together and you know that joy Callie big books all of those are very repetitious and picture based so they can be successful with them because they've memorized them because you read them before so they're working on great concepts of print when they're using these as well one to one matching and that kind of thing another writing like this one is adding details so very simple very basic for the beginning they just choose a card to draw and so like in this instance the the card that they it shows it just has waves you have to add more details so you have to incorporate waves you have to draw always now you have to add more details so in this example that we just gave a pirate ship with a pirate the Sun and the waves and then they have to tell a story about it so they're going to tell their friend part of the directly a story about because even if I have a group of four and five I'm still going to have them they still have partners within that group okay so sometimes you have like three so I'm going to choose some within a group of five if you guys just differ before it's a tus I'm going to choose them so however that works out but so whoever their partner is now that they've each join their picture they're going to share their picture with their partner and they're going to tell a story about it so really working on those oral language skills as well and letting them understand this is a very big this is the same thing we're working on in Writers Workshop in unit 1 is that our pictures tell a story and through our pictures we can tell meaning so all they're all you're expecting them to do is just add more details to that picture tell a story about it ok so again these are very simple you go back for just a second these are very simple things that like I said you don't have to go and buy anything these are very simple things that you could just implement and incorporate into your classroom stations as you're getting ready to go all right so I just wanted to kind of end the way I began just letting just reminding you that our goal as teachers is the greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say the children are now working as if I did not exist so really making sure that we go slow so that we can get to where we need to be on our journey you you're going to get there right but when you take your time you see the sights it's a much more enjoyable trip then if your pedal to the metal trying to get to your destination as fast as you can it usually ends up you've missed that right and it's really hard if we go if we go too fast too quickly it's really hard to go back and rein in our kids if they're out of control I'm not doing so that's what all of that great teaching at the beginning is so so important I have talked about an hour so I have time for a few questions if you guys want to I don't want to keep you too long oh my gosh I've been hold on let me turn my volume young so I can see the questions here because what's been seeing on my screen I'm not seeing any of your question so some of you have been asking me like why is she ignoring me number one I can't walk and chew gum at the same time so I sure enough can't talk and try to look at questions at the same time I'm just not that talented so I'm going to go back though and just see get there yeah somebody says eight policin Amy and worksheets are not engaging yes is this something that will help me start sinners is everything for these sinners sold in your TPT story yes Meredith it is and I didn't put those on so or anything because I really don't think you have to feel like I'm doing this just to sell you stuff now I will tell you that in all of these sessions you're gonna see stuff that we have created but I hope that I'm gonna tell you enough that you're going to be able to do it on your own if you want to but that's why you went on the honor roll when we end here I'll put those units on sale off it's a bundle on sale and I'll put the link in here if you wanted to go and look at it okay they are very helpful for starting out I really think so so what I'm going to do I'm going to put the bundle on sale and I'll also put unit horn on sell that way you may just want to get unit one and just let that get you started and then you pull your own stuff and create your own stuff and that's totally fine so I don't want you don't feel like you have to buy the bundle if you know one will just be all the help you need to get started okay so are they both free bus didi says she already put the link for her bundle but let me go put it on sale y'all so y'all need to give me just a little bit of time and I'll go put it on sale okay actually saying she just bought this and used it as a tutoring group Thank You Ashley Angie says I joined wait what resources are these from so Angie I'll put that in the comment section like I told you I would do and remember you can go back Angie if you since you joined late you can go back this it takes a few minutes for this to populate in the group but then it'll be group there and you'll be able to go back and watch it a Mary Beth is asking do I teach each activity whole group first no you may have missed the first part well I have them in their little groups convinced and I'll just pull a group from that and start showing them the different stations and how to work through it now sometimes we trying to make will make our literacy centers we try to make them where the skills just build and the activities sort of say the same but at the same time we want the kids to get built for so there is sometimes within our centers where we have to introduce and teach them how to do new things but usually whenever I'm going to do that here's the trick to that I always do a game with my kids whole group for phonemic awareness or phonics or whatever so if I know coming up next week I'm going to put a totally new type of game or activity in a station I'll play it with with them whole group first because activities work best if the kids have already been exposed to them okay using what you've already used in your teaching so I make sure I stay on top of it I know and next week I'm going to be putting a totally new activity in the phonemic awareness station so I'm gonna play it with them first and I'll make sure everything on boys and girls I kind of I love that you've enjoyed clean this game guess what next week it's going to be added to your phonemic awareness station so I'll make sure I played it with him already like two or three times so that they are independent with that okay let's see I'll marry red it's your first time in Canada you're gonna listen there is no talking I'm only talking about interest rate but I've tied it for 20 years kindergarten first grade couple combined and a couple years I've taught kindergarten first grade together that's what my class was last year it was k1 a group of k-12 new learners or more Hodges there is no better grade to teach thinking about Meredith you're just going to love it just know that the first month it's all okay seriously it's oh my goodness you know at the end of the year we get river students in May and June and they are so independent and they're so amazing and you send them off you know for the summer and then they're going to be in person and then August comes and you get your new group of little sweeties and they're just like oh my goodness they're just but it's like the old way we use had to pop popcorn you know when you're gonna use you use the pan on there on the stove if you take that rid off soon you got that's how kindergartners are at the beginning but that once you set those expectations and you've modeled and you might make it so much better and you're just gonna love it so that was the first month scared you off okay okay Annabelle says she has the bundle and she loves it alright alright so I know it I'm trying to read on my phone really quickly I'm so sorry you're seeing the top of my hand Aimee Lisa Amy says and he says is this for K only here could the units be used for first two they are really basic skills any but especially that unit one is really great for setting up your expectations and procedures so it would be great for review and like I said reading the room writing or there are some really authentic reading and writing activities in there so I think it would be totally fine for a first grade all right I think that that's oh no y'all just don't have a ton of questions tonight so yay all right so I will put that on sale and I'll delink below yeah I don't see any more questions so if I missed them I'll go back and reread and make sure that I answer them so thank you guys so much for joining me I really appreciate it I'm glad that our technology started working thank you guys for hanging with me and they work through that at the beginning and I will see you guys next Thursday have a great night and if you've already started school you need to be getting in bed soon and either get your school years off to a great start I will see you guys later

Channel: Deanna Jump

Views: 30,470

Rating: 4.9135137 out of 5

Keywords: Literacy Centers, Guided Reading, Kindergarten

Id: DOVZGTkJ6Gw

Length: 51min 51sec (3111 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 26 2017