Literature Circles - ELA Lesson Plans #8

Before we get into this week's lessons I want to answer a couple of questions from readers.  How long are my shared reading lessons?  Well it all depends, on average they are 20-30 minutes.  Some years they're longer, this year they are are usually around 20 minutes.   When you have a class that spans a huge gap in reading levels, reading time is best spent in guided reading.  Another question was; Do I differentiate? YES! Every one of the lessons in my classroom is  differentiated and we differentiate everything from reading materials, support tools to workstations, etc.  Some weeks you will see a very low lexile level in a text that I've differentiated for students while we kept the response for higher kids pretty challenging.  Feel free to email me with more questions that you may have or leave them in the comments below.  You can find the lesson plan pages at A Modern Teacher.

Learning is being kicked into overdrive this week.  So far we have covered all of the basic standards in depth and from the foundation up.  Students should be able to hold reading conversations that would blow your mind.  They can ask and answer questions.  They can find key details, do character analysis, etc.  Now it's time to give them ownership of their learning with your guidance.  We are moving into Literacy Circles.  We are going to start with text that we read together in class and end the week with self selected texts.  Students will begin by completing posters that retell the story with the lesson and character traits.  Once they understand what to do, they will select what goes on their posters at the end of the week.  I will edit this post later on to add anchor charts, but our guidelines are as follows.

Literature Circle Jobs
-Reader
-Writer
-Illustrator
-Questioner
(jobs will change daily to help students)

Literature Circle Options
-predict
-infer
-discuss character traits
-ask and answer questions
-discuss character reactions
-retell the story
-discuss the story's lesson

Literature Circle Rules
-Everyone participates
-Everyone listens respectfully
-Everyone leads parts of the discussion

This week there will be no writing lessons.  We will be conferencing and editing our last writing assessment.

Letter Bead Word Building

Need an inexpensive way to make a word work station that builds fine motor skills? If so this is the post for you!

You'll need:
Letter beads
Bead Organizer
Letter Stickers
Pipe Cleaners

I bought all of these materials from the Dollar Store and cut the letters for the top of the organizers on my Cricut.  You could also save $1 by writing the letters with sharpies.

To put the center together simply sort the beads, place stickers in each section and provide pipe cleaners. You could even have students sort the beads for you during their work station or center time.  You'll find some close up pictures below.

Central Message - ELA Lesson Plans #7

One of the mini lessons that I try to weave through my day is on falling in love with reading and introduction to new series.  If you have ever read the book "Miss Malarkey Leaves No Reader Behind" you'll be able develop a picture of me in your head of how I do this.  This week we will be exploring the series "Little Critters".  More specifically we'll be looking at their fall series which I purchased from the restaurant Cracker Barrel.  I'm sure you can find them on Amazon.  You know I'm a sucker for thematic weeks.  This week will have a subtle fall feeling from the critters series to our football workstations.

This week's post will look a bit different because I have my formal evaluation and just like every year, I'll leave you with my long lessons and free differentiated materials.  Each week you only get to see my lesson outlines.  I hope that you can use these long lessons and differentiated materials to see how you can reach all of the learners in your classroom.

The lesson plan template I use is from A Modern Teacher.

Click below for free resources to accompany this week's lesson outlines.

You can find a blog post on how to plan for formal evaluations/observations and more free resources by clicking on the photo below.

Character's Response - ELA Lesson Plans #6

This week's lessons focused on how character's respond to events.  The texts that we used were wonderful for this standard.  I will forewarn you that they are each very deep and you should pre read the text and decide what is best for your class.

In the text "Amazing Grace", the main character endears the reader from the start with her love for reading, story telling and imagination.  During the climax of the text Grace's classmates tell her that she can't play Peter Pan in her class play because she is a girl and person of color.  Grace's grandma steals the show with her reaction to the events teaching students that they can be anything they want to be.

In the text "Something Beautiful" the character is dismayed at certain parts of her neighborhood.  The focus being her courtyard which is riddled with trash and has graffiti on the front door.  The girl goes through the book collecting information on what makes life beautiful and ultimately decides to be proactive and make her neighborhood beautiful one action at a time.

The text "Fly Away Home" features a homeless father and son.  It shows their daily struggles and their reactions to the events in their every day life.  In the text the boy learns to be patient and wait for his turn to fly away home just like a bird that he encountered.  Make sure to have the tissues handy this week!

Are you interested in what my workstations look like? If so, take a look below.  Each week I differentiate reading stations for my students.  They have a great hands-on learning experience while their reading grows.  Click on the picture below to link to the units in my store.  

2 Minute Bat Craft

 Need a quick bat craft or Venn diagram for the classroom? I came up with this one to compare and contrast bat books.

1.  Cut 2 circles out per student.  I used my circle cutter.  It was a very wise $10 investment.  I can cut out a class set in under 5 minutes.
2.  Students cut one of the circles in half and glue on as wings.
3.  Have students add a face.

It's really that quick and simple!

Pumpkin Science Literature Connections

One of my favorite long lessons takes place during October with the book "Pumpkin Jack" by Will Hubbell.  In the book a boy has a jack o' lantern that he loves.  The pumpkin has to be placed outside where it decomposes and eventually goes through the lifecycle process again. During this same time we do pumpkin character book reports.  I always ask for a volunteer to leave their pumpkin so that we can see if what happened in the book "Pumpkin Jack" could really happen? Would a pumpkin decompose and start the lifecycle over again? If this happens, does it mean the book "Pumpkin Jack" is realistic fiction?  For years now, the pumpkin has always started a small pumpkin patch for us.

In the top photograph the pumpkin had just one seed left in it.  It started a plant in a pot for us.  The plant blossomed and we lost it over Winter Break.  (We are in Florida and I'm not sure our weather is quite right to start a viable pumpkin during October.). In the bottom picture, we left a lot of seeds and we received quite a large pumpkin patch.  You will see from the photograph on the bottom that we even got the start of pumpkins.  Once again we left for Winter Break and the patch died.  I'm content with taking a pumpkin and sticking it outside to see what happens.  Having a donated pumpkin is even better.  If you want to actually take care of the pumpkin and grow new pumpkins, you might want to research the best times to plant pumpkins and estimate the amount of time it will take your pumpkin to decompose.  Please leave any questions that you may have in the comment section.  There's also a link to a free pumpkin craft that I use to with this lesson at the bottom of the post.

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Crayons In The Classroom

Crayons are such a HUGE part of the classroom.  Every teacher knows the trials and tribulations of having, needing and using them.  Below you will find some tips that may be new to you, an incredible giveaway and a freebie just for being you!

Tip #1 Engagement

Up the engagement in your next lesson by stocking a center with fun twistable crayons.  

These crayons have lasted my class three years so they were worth the expense! You know how excited you get when you have cool supplies to use so just think of how excited your students will be.

Tip #2 Rewards

Offer special crayons like these Silly Scents as a special reward for well behaved students or as a prize in your class store.  They last forever! I like to stock up after back to school time when everything is marked down.

Tip #3 Calm Down

If students need a repetitive task to calm down, have them sort your crayons.  It's an added bonus that you have color sorted crayons afterwards! You can even throw them in cute drawers or containers.

Tip #4  Build Independence
Set your classroom up so that students can get what they need and put away extra items that they find in the classroom.  We have a crayon bucket that we place all lost crayons in. When students need a certain color they can just go get what they need.  If they can get their own supplies, then you have more energy to do other things.

Here's a freebie for you!  Just click below on the Sweden photo.  Before you finish up, one last tip.

Tip #5 Fine Motor Skills
You can use this freebie to help build student's fine motor skills.  I love to put these sheets out for bell work.  They can have fun coloring, build fine motor skills and your administration won't freak out when they see the kids coloring.  We use this Sweden unit when we're learning about cultures from around the world.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am joining some of my friends with a STOCK YOUR CLASSROOM Giveaway.

• Visit each blog and enter each rafflecopter.
• A different winner will be chosen from each rafflecopter.
• Enter between October 1 - 5, 2017.
• Each of my friends will choose a winner.
• Winners will be emailed.
• Winners will also be announced on our FB pages or Instagram pages.  Make sure you follow our pages to see if you won.

PLEASE NOTE: Winners will have 48 hours to respond to our email.  If no response, we will choose a new winner.

You can win the prizes below by clicking on the following:

• Michelle @ Teach123 - Glue
• Fern @ Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas - Markers
• Megan @ Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade - Flair Pens
• Amy@ Learning Lessons With Amy Labrasciano - Crayons