Momma with a Teaching Mission: reading

Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts

There aren't many words to describe the year that was 2020. As educators, we learned and grew so much! If you didn't know about Google Classroom, Nearpod, Bitmojis, Screencastomatic or Zoom (just to name a few) before March of 2020, you definitely climbed that learning curve! I have been so proud of my fellow teachers in all that they have learned, never skipping a beat. When the rest of the world was shut down, here we were learning how to teach and do what was best in our circumstances for our students. Wow.

So where do we go from there? Many schools are returning back in person, I have been back in person since October 2020, with all my students being in person. I know many teachers who are continuing to expand their bag of tricks with teaching both in person students, as well as online learners (at the same time). Some fellow educators are teaching a hybrid A-B schedule, and some of my friends are also still teaching from home with their students being all online.

So now that I am back in person, have I mentally blocked everything I experienced and learned in the past year? Well some things LOL, but definitely not those great teaching practices that have helped me to enhance engagement and my teaching within the classroom. Here are some things I found really have been lifesavers while returning back to in person learning after COVID.

First and foremost, Google Classroom. Posting assignments within Google classroom has been a sanity saver, especially for students who are absent or missing work. I also love being able to post links to websites or articles that students can access without having to print everything. I have my Google Classroom set up by days of the week, then after the week is over I will create a new topic (that week's date, for example 'Week of March 1st') and then I will move assignments from the M, Tu, W, Th, Fr topics down to that 'Week of' topic. Google Classroom is super user friendly, and absolutely my top pick for what I've continued to use within my classroom, even with all my students face to face.

My Bitmoji classrooms are another favorite, and not just a favorite of mine, but also my students. I love how you can use the Bitmoji classrooms for a variety of uses. What we used to do around the room SCOOT, with task cards posted, and a recording sheet, students can now do a SCOOT within the Bitmoji classroom. I also have independent reading and reflecting centers, for students to listen to a book being read, and then respond to it--- this is a crowd favorite among my students. I've created new Bitmoji classrooms each month, and they enjoy listening to the books and different themes featured each month. Another use for the Bitmoji classrooms is if you have a class website within Google Sites. Kids enjoy and take pride in their class website.

I have to say I was not on the Nearpod bandwagon when I first learned about it a few years ago. Probably because I thought I didn't have the time to learn this new stuff!! I learned about Nearpod the beginning of last school year, before COVID hit and I'm so glad I did. Not only does Nearpod have a library of already created lessons, but you are also able to create lessons within Nearpod, this is so cool!! My kids love to compete, so they love the time to climb lessons, and beg me to make more every time we play!

What have you found that are your favorite tools that you are using, or plan to use when you return back to in person teaching?! I'd love to hear about it!

Momma with a Teaching Mission

Y'all I ain't gonna lie. It has been a hot minute since I've been an ELA teacher, 3 school years in fact. I enjoyed my time teaching science and math, as I feel like that is my stronger content, but the past 60 few days teaching all subjects has been a pretty fun challenge.

We had been working with cause and effect, and I really wanted to challenge my kids. I work at a PYP (Primary Years Programme), and we really encourage thinking globally, creating inquiry based lessons to challenge the students with real-world tasks and problems. When I first kicked off cause and effect, I showed 3 different images and had students turn and talk, as to what they thought the connection was with the items. I showed them a stove, a pumpkin, and an empty pie pan. I wanted them to make the connection of pumpkin pie. On day 2 I showed them 3 more images, candles, a cake, and balloons, and wanted them to make the connection of a birthday party. I created this interactive making connections you can use whole group, or send to your students through google classroom and have them complete it. Then I had them create their own clues, and within one of our centers, students used post-it notes to guess what the connection of their classmate was.

Our overall unit has been about Energy, and our first line of inquiry has been the different forms of Energy, so one of the books I read aloud to the students was

Then the next day, I placed 9 different brown paper bags around the room. I had the students work with partners (works out since I have 18 students currently), and set the timer for them to spend 2 minutes at each bag. They looked at the items in each bag (around 3-5 items) and they were to determine what the connection was.

A few days later I placed different effects around the room, and had students worked with their partner to once again travel to the different bags and write on sticky notes what were the causes of the effects.

Then we went back to the book we read aloud, Energy Makes things Happen, and I gave each group a page and they were to find a cause/effect relationship from the page they were given.

I gave them around 7-8 minutes to find this in their text and label the cause and the effect. They did really well!

Finally, I had them think about all the different cause and effect relationships we had talked about over the course of the last few weeks. We shared out some we remembered, and then I had them write one down to add to our anchor chart shown below.

Momma with a Teaching Mission

Welcome to Relfect and Refresh, a two part linky party where teacher bloggers share their reflections on the 2014-2015 school year and ways they are planning to refresh their teaching in 201-2016. What a year!

Ok so looking back on this year--wow did it fly by!! It was a fantastic year, and I truly feel like I grew as an educator! My team changed from my 1st year (previous year), two of my team members left, and we gained two brand spanking new teachers. So my role had to change. I had to go from the newbie, to the one with experience, more of a leader :)

Communication
So I feel like I had all the good intentions of having a great line of communication with my students' parents. I signed up for Remind101, but only 2 of my parents signed up for it! I was shocked! So I did a couple reminders when I started the year, but then kinda gave up since I was only reaching 2 parents! Now, I will say that because we were departmentalized, our communication as a team goes ROCKED! We were able to meet with parents as a team, we were able to discuss students and their abilities or disabilities as a team. That part of my communication this year was amazing!

Organization
My first year teaching I took over a classroom of a retiring teacher. She left me LOTS of stuff, which I was super grateful for. However, I felt like my 1st year teaching, it really wasn't my own spin on a lot of stuff. Now mind you, I also had a baby my first year teaching, so I had a lot going on :) So I was more than happy to use everything the retiring teacher left me, but this year I was able to really purge things I didn't need, and create my own space. Things that worked for her, didn't work for me, and after a year under my belt I was able to recognize and change what I needed and thought. I re-arranged the room. Which I know doesn't seem like a big deal, but when the teacher I replaced came in to sub for me for a 1/2 day at the beginning of the school year, she commented about the new set-up. The older games I got rid of, and I was able to create my own items and organize them in my pull-out drawers :) Old books that were left to me that were of no interest to my kiddos, I sent home with some of my students that wanted them, and the others I gave to the newbie teachers on my team. I really felt good about my organization this year!

Content
So all I have ever known is the common core. When I went through my student teaching, MD had started the common core that year. Last year, my first year teaching, I got a slight understanding of the standards, but this year, with creating my own assessments and lessons, I feel like I truly got an incredible grasp of what my kiddos are expected to do. I highly recommend trying to create items for your students to help you really dig deep and understand those standards.

My Big Summer Project
So, next year, my entire school is taking on our departmentalized model that I was a part of in 1st grade this year. In my school, the teachers are either assigned to primary reading or math (grades K-2), or intermediate reading or math (grades 3-5). So, I am assigned to a primary reading spot. I'm thinking I will be more with the higher level (2nd grade) students. So my summer project is going to be digging into those 2nd grade, and even 3rd grade common core standards. Why the 3rd grade standards? Well in my school, we have a huge gap from students going to 2nd to 3rd grade. So I want to make sure to push those 2nd graders to make sure they are ready for 3rd grade when they get there.

I feel like it's been an amazing year. I've learned so much. Next year, I am super excited about the change in primary and intermediate. I will also be a 'team leader', which will be a new role for me! So there will be a lot to learn, and I am so excited!! Stay tuned :)

Make sure to check out my other bloggin' friends and their reflect and refresh posts!

An InLinkz Link-up

Momma with a Teaching Mission

Happy May!! I have to apologize for my MIA here lately! At school, we are completely changing up instruction for next year, and I am on like 4 different committees. I feel like all my time and energy has been spent on all that! Those of you that have read previous blog posts know that I teach in a departmentalized first grade. There are 5 of us teaching on this team, and each of us is responsible for all 97 kiddos. We have switched what we teach each marking period to keep things fresh (for us and the kiddos). These are the subjects we rotate-- math, writing, science/social studies/intervention, FUNdations (our phonics program from Wilson) and 2 small reading groups, and WHOLE group reading and 2 small reading groups.

The first marking period I taught all the guided reading, which our students lovingly called rotations. They loved it! However, for one person to teach all the guided reading (which included doing all the F&Ps for all the students) it was a little bit overwhelming. So, after the first marking period we decided to have the person doing the FUNdations pull 2 small guided reading groups, and the person teaching the WHOLE group reading also pull 2 small guided reading groups.

The 2nd marking period I taught writing, and the 3rd marking period I taught math.

After seeing the success of our students progress, our administration decided to switch things up for next year. We are going to operate as primary and intermediate. As far as teachers go, we are either a primary math or a primary reading or a intermediate math or an intermediate reading teacher. This means you could have multi-age classrooms, but hopefully we will be reaching the kiddos at their level.

So, we have been given our assignments, and I am a primary reading teacher. I am super excited about this new role. My only anxiety is that I won't be with my team! Which I'm sure you all can understand and relate to if you've ever switched grade levels or positions! My two closest teammates are both going to be Primary Math teachers. A part of me wanted to go to my principal and say "Hey, can you just switch me?" BUT.... I knew that she placed me in the Primary Reading position for a reason, so I will do it :)

So these last few weeks of school, I have really though about my guided reading instruction and really hitting the kiddos at their levels. This is what I have done for different kiddos with different groups.

The kiddos that are reading right where they need to be (f&p level H, I or J), I have been having them picture walk through the text before reading. We discuss our predictions. I also write any words I think they may have trouble with on index cards, and we decode them and talk about their meaning before we read. As we are reading, I have the kiddos 'whisper read', that way I can hear each kiddo and see if they are having an trouble with certain words or fluency. I also add the light pointers to make it fun :)

The kiddos that are struggling, that are reading on a (D, E, F or just below level), we do a lot of work on a whiteboard. I have them practice spelling words first. Then we will practice decoding words, and reading them fluently in sentences. We don't do as much work with vocab as I do with the kiddos on level and above level, just because I feel that I really need to hit being able to read first. Although, I do still expose them to new vocabulary (just not as much).

My kiddos that are reading above where they need to be (levels L and above), they have no trouble decoding words. They read beautifully. The trouble they have is really comprehending what they have read. I use the strategies from C.A.F.E. to help with their comprehension, as well as a lot of time spent on vocabulary. I am currently reading "Frindle" with the one group of kiddos, which is a level R. They can read the book, but they have trouble understanding it. So before each chapter, I pull out the vocabulary words that I think they don't know or may be challenging, or may have multiple meanings. As they read, they put sticky notes where they words are, that way they are reading with a purpose. When they are done the chapter, we will go back where those sticky notes are, and we figure out from the context of the sentences what those vocabulary words mean. They love doing this, they say it's detective word :)

I also pull groups based off exit tickets to re-teach. But the groups above are groups I pull daily for their guided reading instruction. These groups generally have 4-6 kiddos in them.

What do you do in your guided reading or small group reading instruction? I would love to hear from you!

Wishing you all a fantastic remainder of the school year!

I had to add this for some comic relief :)