That time has come...

For the first six months of the school year, I ran my small groups with ease.

Okay, not ease per say, but with a relatively stress-free mindset compared to the rest of my day. 

 I knew where to go for my weekly fluency passages (reading A-Z), I had a list of must do's to choose from based on what standards we were working on in whole group and what grade level assessment data revealed.  I've changed up our "word work" a few times, but am now using this great resource:

Based on my notes from our daily fluency practice (and my RCBM progress monitoring), I select what focus skill we'll be using for the week.  So far we've done irregular past tense verbs, silent consonants and soft & hard c.  Next week we're looking at stressed and unstressed syllables.

Over the past several years, I've meticulously created teacher guides for my novels.  Through the amazing generosity of supporters on donorschoose, awesome sales on Scholastic, thorough searching at second hand bookstores, Amazon's fast shipping and shamelessly using my teacher discount at both Borders and Barnes and Noble, I have established a decent classroom library, filled with multiple copies of some great books.  I try to have at least six of each, so I can use these novels with a small group.

However, with twelve small groups, I've arrived at the day I've dreaded.

Some of my groups are ready to read novels I haven't had the time to meticulously prepare...which means I have extra homework!

Granted, reading is by no means a chore.  I love reading!

However, while I'm reading the novel my students are, I'm carefully taking down vocabulary words, writing comprehension questions (with answers so I don't forget), picking out specific parts for a close read, brainstorming homework questions and more.  It takes a long time for me to prep a teacher guide so that I feel confident doing the novel with a small group.  I'm not one of those teachers that can just sit down and read the book with them, I want to be ahead of them so I know if the answers they're giving are correct.

Last week not one, but three of my groups finished their novels and selected new ones that I haven't read yet.  So this weekend's homework is reading at least the first part of these books:

"Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (the first of 4 novels in Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series, a quasi-prequel to the Series of Unfortunate Events)

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordian.  Darn, more adventures at Camp Half-Blood!

They selected this book because they noticed the Newbery Award on the cover and concluded it must be a good novel.  How can you argue with that logic?

I figure I won't finish all of them by Monday, but I can at least get part way through and stay a few chapters ahead of them!

(On the bright side, novel guides for these three books will be available within the coming month on my TpT site!).

On that note, I say goodbye for the weekend and am off to read!

Student Input

Since we are doing affixes and Greek & Latin roots during our whole group reading classes, I decided we needed to revise what we're doing in our small groups.

However, deciding what we need for word work isn't entirely up to me.  I'm not in their brains and I wanted to make sure our 5-10 minutes of phonics/word work was well spent in our small groups.

So I asked both periods a series of questions and had them respond with what they wanted and needed:

By allowing them to have input, they feel more of a sense of ownership in our small groups.

It's not my classroom, it's our classroom.

Word Work

We've been working on affixes and roots, so here's a snapshot of one of our weekly activities:

They identify the word parts (including the base word) and discuss how the word parts work together to make meaning.  They're doing a really good job with it!  You can snag a sample of our word work ppt here!

Phonics

This is the first year I've ever explicitly taught phonics and I'm seeing such a huge difference with my inclusion classroom!

Before taking Explicit Phonics and Lively Letters with my district, I was falsely under the assumption that phonics was taught in primary grades while my sole job was to focus on affixes (prefixes & suffixes) as well as roots.

While I do teach those roots and affixes, there are also grade level skills my students need help with.

I found this great, simple diagram:

We need to be teaching advanced phonics in the upper grades of elementary as well.  FCRR has some awesome free advanced phonics centers that I know my students love!  

We have been working on the /el/, /en/ and /er/ sounds, so I added these to our phonics wall:

Happy decoding!

New anchor charts!

Here are some of our updated anchor charts:

Theme and constructed responses:

Affixes:

Greek & Latin Roots:

Inflectional Endings (phonics):

I need more wall space!

Themes & Poetry

This week we are working on poetry.  Specifically, we're reviewing text structure, figurative language, theme and summarizing a poem.  We're also working collaboratively to summarize the stanzas, identify characters' feelings, locate shifts in mood and practice note taking on the text to become more engaged readers.

We used the poem Casey at the Bat this week and broke it up into a 3 day unit.  The first day was the "I do" where I modeled the skills we're working on, the second day we did as a class and the third day they did part with a partner and the rest for homework.

Then I re-read the entire poem, thus modeling the importance of re-reading for information.  We then referred to our theme chart:

(You can grab it here as part of a TpT bundle!)

We did Casey at the Bat not only because it's a recommended text, but it's also because I'm a Boston Red Sox Fan :)

Today, in honor of Halloween, we are doing the same process with Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven.

I know it will be a little tricky for some students, but it's a fun challenge and it's festive!

In small groups today, we're also trying a new collaborative strategy for writing a constructed response.  Since many of them have finished their first novel, we are going to look for the theme.

I made them a guide for their CRs:

They're going to write independently on a post-it today and tomorrow combine 3 or 4 people's post-its into one group response. I'm excited to give this new strategy a try!

Next, here's a student working on our affix sort, a new process I'm trying this week.

We did Wednesday's activity yesterday of sorting affixes.

You can download your own copy here!

We also have our new centers ready to go!

Small groups in action!

I love small group reading :)

I feel like I'm a literacy specialist since so much of my day is spent with literacy:

9-9:40: phonics, whole group reading
9:40-10:40: small group reading
10:40-11:25: writing
11:25-11:55: science
12:30-1:05: intervention/extension block (fluency, comprehension and vocabulary)
1:05-2:05: small group reading 

Here are some snapshots of our centers:

Blogging:

My students are using kidblog to respond to one another online:

Snapshot of our afternoon blog:

They're doing such a great job!

Reader's theater:

They're doing a Greek mythology passage this week :)  I love that they picked one that aligns to our grade level read aloud, The Lightning Thief. We're also going on a field trip next week to see a performance of Jason and the Argonauts

Our new centers, based on the novels they just finished:

All are available on TpT!

We're also doing our weekly affixes:

On Tuesdays I challenge them to find non-examples of this week's affixes.  Today, it was words that appeared to start with un- or re- and end with -s or -es that were non-examples of these affixes.  They did a good job at coming up with ideas.

Since both of my groups (AM and PM) finished Hatchet, I had them compare their anchor charts:

They did a good job with picking out the same big ideas from the novel and analyzing how Brian developed over time.

Since I don't have enough books for both groups, one is reading The River while the other is reading Brian's Winter with the idea they'll switch when they're done.

We also looked at how the cover illustrations had changed over time:

They were highly amused by the early 90's version :)

My students are so excited about our books and that's just awesome.

Word Work

I've switched up how I'm doing the layout of my small groups for reading.  Because we switch students, there's the awkward minute or so transition time that is lost instructional time.

So instead of waiting for everyone to come in, get settled, get out their fluency passages and charts, then give me a thumbs up to begin, we are going to start with affixes instead.

We have our ongoing anchor charts for affixes, but I'm going to start explicitly teaching them next week.

I decided to review ones they should be familiar with (re, un, s, es), then go through the rest of the year with roots & affixes.

My planned schedule is this:

Mondays: introduce prefix, suffix, practice with a few words of how the affix changes the meaning, add to anchor chart

Tuesday: review affixes, go over non-examples and any helpful hints.  This week, they need a quick mini-lesson on what happens if a word ends in y (change to i) and when to add es (ch, ss, x or sh) or just add s to make a word plural.

Wednesday: word sort (prefix, suffix, both, neither)

Thursday: decoding multisyllabic words: Isolate the affixes, chunk the rest of the word into syllables (identify with CLOVER), practice blending through

Friday: encoding: adding affixes to change the word's meaning

I made my template and posted my first one on TpT, which you can download for just a buck!  I did make the template with the swagger font, which you can snag for free here.  I made it editable, so you can change the font & the words if you'd like!

Syllables

We have been working on decoding multisyllabic words this week during our word study.

Well, day.  Monday was the only day we actually have word study since today was parent/teacher conference day, tomorrow is a field trip, Thursday is staff development day and Friday we are celebrating Nevada day and have no school.

I'm revising my small groups next week to start with blending through multi-syllabic words with a focus on specific affixes and roots.  We'll start with blending and word study, that way when students come in a minute or two late, they don't miss fluency and buddy coaching.

Our word attack strategy:

We also reviewed where to break apart syllables:

And hung this near our CLOVER chart:

Happy word work!

#61 en-, em-, -tion "build a word" on TpT

Today I posted product #61 on TpT!  

It's a word building activity (named build a word) for en-, em- and -tion affixes.  

In this 28 page center, students will independently or collaboratively build multi-syllabic words using syllable cards and these affixes.  They can record their answers on the provided answer sheets or in their interactive notebooks.  

I know my students do really great at these stations and love playing "word detective" or "word builder". 

Utilizing affixes and roots is part of the Common Core State Standards (RF 5.3a for fifth grade) and I am impressed with what a difference 5-10 minutes of word work a day can  make with my ELL students!

Hopefully your students love this center as much as mine do!

(More stations to come with this same format!)

Math and Food

Whenever possible and appropriate, I try to bring food into the classroom.  Students are automatically more engaged in the lesson and it's a great motivator (if you don't do your best, you don't get the treat).

One of my favorite things to do is use Hersey's kisses as a concentration game for math.  I use the white version of these:

I put the stickers on the bottom of the candies.  I use multiplication facts for my fifth graders, but you can use any operation depending on your students' ability level.  I put the product on one candy and the equation on another.

Students put the candies face down and play concentration.  It's a great center for holidays or special occasions.  

The prep work takes about twenty minutes and I'd recommend writing on the stickers prior to placing them on the candy.

(ELA connection: You could do Greek and Latin roots or affixes where students match the affix with the meaning)

I plan to do something like this around Halloween because the students will most likely expect candy so at least there is an academic purpose!

Small Literature Groups

While typing up notes for a novel unit on TpT, I realized I needed to revise my SG notes.  What worked for me my first and second year of teaching doesn't work for me now.

When reflecting on my teaching, I often come back to one of my favorite quotes by Maya Angelou: 

"When you know better, you do better"

Well, I'm going to do better.  I revised my units to add  in answers and increased the complexity of the questions by making them more open-ended.  I also included suggested homework questions for students.  These revised units are available on TpT.

I always have my students divide their notebooks into four sections:

I give them four questions to answer based on the chapter(s) for homework and we discuss those in depth.

For my small groups, I have them keep track of characters, analyze shifts in setting and make note of interesting vocabulary words in their small group notebooks.

We spend most of our time in our group meetings digging deep into the text.  I check their notebooks, set them up for the next discussion (usually allowing them to decide how much they want to read because I set the minimum) and then dive into the text.

Since I have six groups and only an hour each period, I can't meet each group every day. 

Here's our run-down:

First 8 minutes: fluency.

Students work with a partner to "buddy coach".  I set the timer for one minute and half the class reads in a whisper to their coach.  The coach keeps track of errors and at the timer, gives feedback on rate, expression, accuracy and phrasing.  After one minute of coaching, the students track their progress on this chart (from the CORE sourcebook).  Then they switch roles and repeat.

My beloved:

(yes, I'm a little type-A with my tabs)

I get my leveled fluency passages from reading A-Z but I know there are lots of websites and teacher's guides available.  I print them double sided so the students keep the passages for two weeks because that's better for our planet.

They chart on their fluency tracker:

After that, we spend a few minutes going over the week's phonics: Greek & Latin roots.

We look at the roots, add them to our anchor chart and then decompose multisyllabic words to decode the word's meaning.

From there,  I divide the remaining time in two and start pulling my groups.  I leave 2 minutes at the end for clean up and transition time.

To make sure all my groups get equal time at stations, I make this chart for my lesson plans:

That way I can make sure all my groups get the same centers.

This week, our stations are:

1. Fluency binder (like buddy coaching except they select the passage and can work in groups).  I've printed poems, songs, speeches and passages for students to read and buddy coach with.  I used FCRR printables to have students guide their discussions.

2. fluency quiz-quiz trade cards: they rate each other on their expression and accuracy, using these guides which are glued in their notebooks:

3. character jenga (I upcycled a jenga game and put open ended discussion questions for students to quiz each other).  This one gets a little loud but I love the discussions students have with one another about the book so it's worth it.

4. Kidblog.  This great, free resource allows students to respond to each other and to my blog questions on a safe, secure site:

If you view our page, that's all you see.  Students need a log in (their id numbers) and I get full approval of their posts.

5. "build-a-word": They take syllables and create multisyllabic words, recording their answers in their notebooks.  

6. "word-o-matic" (an FCRR center) where they create words.  I printed vowels on one color and consonants on another to make for easy clean up :)

Most of my centers are in manilla envelopes with instructions on sticky labels.  It helps keep students accountable for their behavior.

7.  Writing thank you letters for donor's choose :)  We got our new materials and love them! Thank you again donors!

8. Idiom cards: one of our new donorschoose centers to help with figurative langugage, which we've been working on during whole group reading!

I also posted our group norms:

I got this sweet card from a student today:

Happy reading!
-Ms. Vice