Guided Reading Question

Oh, I have so much to tell you! 

First - another round of thinking out loud. {I got really good feedback on my desk question! Thanks!!} Do you do this? In Guided Reading, I jot little notes while my students read.  I've been putting it on a form like this:

{And you may be saying, of course I do that! Jump into the 2010's Mrs. S.!} I have each students' number and I put my little notes there. I try really hard to jot something about each child at least once a week. 

As I'm jotting these notes, it's good because it helps me stay focused. And when my student gets done reading, I have something to say besides, "Good job." But I've been thinking that I don't really refer back to that too much - I think because each student is on there - so I'm not really able to see what a particular student has been doing over the course of a month or whatever. So I made a form like this:

 And my thought was I could have a sheet for each child and basically have 9 weeks of data about one child on one page - and might see some patterns, etc. But then I started thinking - this year, that would be 18 piece of paper. I was sorta imagining myself trying to keep that organized - and finding the one child that is right at that second reading to me. 

So I'm wondering - any thoughts. Do you jot about your students while they are doing guided reading? How do you do it?

And this is pretty cool to me. We had indoor recess at least 3 of 5 days last week. And 4 of my little sweeties made a book. {I really wonder about their choice of a cover, but whatever!} I think it's about volcanoes - they are learning about that in science. Anyway, they wanted to put it in the class library. And what teacher wouldn't say "sure" to that! So not only do we have some class books {thanks to some posts at Forever in First}, but we also have one totally created by students book. 

I know I said I had a lot to tell you, but I'm going to save the rest for later. Heck, I might post every day for the next couple days. Ha! 
Happy Friday - and one more week to go!! Ho Ho Ho

Pinterest Linky Party

Well, Diving into Learning is having a Pinterest Linky Party.

I have to admit that I haven't been a consistent Pinterest pinner - does that make sense? I'll go in spurts and pin a bunch of stuff, and then not for a while. I often forget what I've pinned and then when I go back, I say to myself, man, that's a great idea. But Diving into Learning had a couple ideas on her blog that I repinned. 

The linky party gave me an excuse to look at my pins again, and you guessed it, I found a couple good ones. 


I'm going to use the poster below in my some of my Guided Reading groups. I'm hoping that my higher groups can start talking to each other without me as the middle man :)

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I like these ideas - I'm thinking I want to give my Guided Reading groups sticky notes and have them do a couple of these ideas below.



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I "borrowed" this from Diving into Learning. What a great idea for a quick number line! I'm going to try to use it next week for some of my sweeties that seem to be still clueless in 2nd grade! I have tons of baggies (they are on our school supply list) and hopefully some of them have that zip thing at the top.

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If you are interested in seeing my other pins - you can go to my Pinterest Boards.

Ha, ha on me - I see now that this linky party is called:




Happy Pinning to you! Sara

Guided Reading Plans

Well, I have to make an edit to yesterday's blog post. Today I'm not with my kids because we're having a

SNOW DAY!

But I have to tell you, it is not a pretty kind of snow day. It is a bitterly cold, windy, wet, nasty snow day. I'll take whichever, but I'm certainly staying inside today :)

So what does any good teacher do with a snow day? Especially when the rest of her family is snoozapolzing? Well, I finished up lesson plans for the next five weeks. Our basal reading series goes in 5 week units, so I try to plan those five weeks at one time. Then I just have to make little tweaks when I get to that actual week. 

Last Saturday, I wrote about reading Teaching with Intention and how I was going to try to take one subject and really make an effort into the plans for that. I had mentioned Writing and Whole Group Reading, but I decided to really take a look at Guided Reading. 

I wrote out plans Guided Reading for all five weeks - well, I've done that before, but it's been bare bones. This time, I noted if I wanted to make a chart with the kids, if I wanted to divide up a story and have each kid summarize it, etc. 

Also, our district is moving toward Rigor and Relevance. I have to admit that I don't understand all of what the district is expecting from us, but one thing that has been talked about is questions we ask our students. 

Here is a link to the type of questions that our district wants us to start using with our kids. They really want us using Quadrant C and D questions. So I even made notes about questions I wanted to ask my students. 

So, for example, for one group, their Monday will look like this:

Square M
Preview Story Thoroughly, discuss difficulties Anticipation Guide Make mini posters for each heading

This group's story for the week is about different groups that do weaving in different ways. So I've made a note to discuss difficult parts of the text. I'm also going to use an Anticipation Guide. These are kind of fun - my kids last year seemed to enjoy doing them. Go here for more about them. (Ha! Just realized that's also a link to my first blog post - a year and a day ago!) I'm also going to start little posters for each different group that the book talks about - Navajo, Asante, Maya, Maori. I'm hoping to have different kids fill in the posters and then talk about them to the small group.

I'm excited to see how this all works as I go through this unit. I'm hoping it helps me remember all those great ideas I thought of - and it holds me accountable for pushing my kids.

I am now done working! I'm going to go watch DVR things and consider cleaning the bathroom. Don't know how far I'll get with the 2nd - but the 1st is a certainty!  

Hope you've had a good day, too! Sara