Breaking Down Daily 5: Word Work Organization

Happy November !! 

I have exciting news! I started in a new district this year and I am still teaching first grade! I am so happy where I am. With a new district, comes new curriculum, standards, assessments, and more! I've been so busy, but I'm promising (to myself) that I am going to continue working hard on my TPT, Instagram, and blogging to keep you all updated and in the know! 

During our RTI block, my school utilizes the Daily 5 model so that there are the same routines in each first grade classroom. For those of you unfamiliar with Daily 5 it is a balanced literacy approach. Students will work through stations "read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing, and word work". Every blog you read about Daily 5 is slightly different and some allow much more student choice than I currently allow. 

For my students, I have them grouped and set a timer and have them rotate through the centers (directed by me). This just makes MY life slightly more organized and I am able to monitor and ensure that students are getting to each activity. I also combine my listen to reading/work on writing center (my RTI group consists of 14 kids so this made groupings easier). 

TODAY however, I am here to talk about my Word Work Organization.

Once my kiddo's know what group they're in (I display a chart on my SmartBoard with a timer). Each group has a number 1-4. These numbers are in fact meaningful because I have 4 bins with these numbers. This number has activities that are specific to the needs of the students in that group. I do this because even though we tried to group students for RTI based on similar levels, many of them required various word work needs. For example, I have some friends that are ready for CVCe while I have others that are still struggling with short vowel sounds. 

By doing this, there is a HUGE sense of independence. Typically, these bins contain:

-Daily Activity/Weekly Activitiy
-Supplies needed for the activity (glue/scissors/paperclips etc.)
-Early finisher activities

At my old school, I was blessed to have lots of magnetic letters which led to me purchasing/creating a great deal of magnetic letter centers. I was spoiled and had the letters in the nice Lakeshore containers, but this summer I knew I needed to have magnetic letters in order to make my Word Work time meaningful. (I am a huge fan of word building activities!). I purchased magnetic letters from Amazon Prime (I stalked prime for deals and finally got an amazing deal- letters will be linked below). Little did I know that this magical set of letters was not organized!! I am all about keeping them organized so that time is not wasted looking through of sea of letters for an E- haha! My 19 year old cousin was a life saver and offered to sort the letters for me (as an easy 10 bucks... college kids, you know how it is!) Then, I was faced with how was I going to KEEP them organized... 

NOW, I LOOOOOOVE my teacher tool box, so I got to searching (more like shopping) on Amazon and two toolboxes later.... My magnetic letters are ORGANIZED!!!! After a few days of RTI this is already an incredible system. The letters are contained nicely in drawers, and there is no mess or time wasted! 

(Click the image above to get the labels- Link to ToolBox will be listed below).

Check out the letters here! (nonaffiliated)

Check out the ToolBox here! (nonaffiliated)

Once my friends are done their activity for the day and there is still time left. The expectation is they will do some early finisher work. This typically consists of fluency activities. By having this expectation I am no longer hearing "I'm done!, What now?" comments, which then distracts me from my small group instruction. Trust me, there are some growing pains with this, but overall it has flowed nicely!

 





These fluency books have ben a staple in my bins this year! (Click the picture to check them out!)


That's pretty much the breakdown of my word work organization in Daily 5! Stay tuned for more Daily 5 tips and more!

Happy Teaching!

Opinion Writing Made Fun!

Happy Summer teacher world! How happy are you right now??

The other day I literally spent an hour and a half in Barnes and Noble browsing the children's section.  I found some amazing new books I can't wait to read to my firsties! BUT I'm here to tell you that I found a book that has made opinion writing SO fun! (Opinion writing was always fun... but this book... all the hearts and giggles!) 

You Don't Want a Unicorn by Ame Dyckman is my new FAVORITE opinion mentor text. It is a perfect way to teach the importance of giving reasons to support our opinions (I mean seriously, who WOULDN'T want a unicorn??) The reasons are silly and fun, but can be a great way to end your opinion unit or kick it off! 

Naturally, my creative side got to thinking and I went straight home and created a FREEBIE to go along with the book and opinion writing. I used this as something fun the last week of school. We read the book, identified the author's opinion, identified supporting details. Then, we listed reasons why we would want a unicorn or why we wouldn't want a unicorn on a T-Chart. Then the firsties determined their own opinion and got to work listing reasons! 

Included in the freebie: 

-Lesson overview

-T-Chart Headers

-Graphic Organizer

-Writing Page 

Click the photo to head straight to the product and click here to purchase the book! 

*Please note I do not own the rights to the book and this is not a sponsored post*

Conferring Forms

Ah! I've broken my promise yet again to be more involved with this blog. BUT I have officially completed my Master's Degree in Literacy in a K-8 Classroom! I'm a true literacy nerd so this degree was so fun to complete (kind of...). In other news, I have also become licensed in PreK-2 in addition to my Elementary 1-6 licensure in Massachusetts! These have been two major goals of mine since becoming a teacher and I am so excited to have them completed. I am also so happy to be able to really dive into my TPT and blog life again!





I had my class decorate a piece of paper, laminated it, and hot glued it down to the cap!

Now for what you really came to read about... During my time in grad school I had the opportunity to really dive into reading, reading behaviors, leveling systems etc. This became something I was SO interested in and lead me to really dive into this in my own classroom. I realized I NEEDED to know more about my readers. Sure I took notes during guided reading and conferencing, but I really didn't know their true behaviors and why they were the level they were.

I have created something that I have been using since school started. I wanted to really test it out before sharing with you all. I have looked at various articles regarding reading behaviors at each reading level (A-N) and put together conferring forms. These forms have been literally LIFE CHANGING when thinking about my guided reading time. I have been quickly able to form groups based on strategies. Now I know I am giving them what they need to reach the next level!





So lets talk a little more about these conferring forms!






I love these because I can use them or my classroom assistant can as well while she is reading with students while I run a small group. I use them during conferences or during my mini conferences during my small group time. I use the note take space for running records or for notes on comprehension or other things I notice.








What I love about these more than anything is that I can quickly look at students forms that are at the same level or similar and identify similar needs! This helps me to form lessons for either whole group or small group lessons.

If you're interested in this product head directly to this product by clicking any of the images in this post!


Happy teaching!
-Emily