Small Groups Matter

Why Should I be using Small Groups? How will they help my students? How do I organize and Plan for small groups? I had all these questions and more when I first started teaching and learning that small groups are where Mastery happens, and the whole group is where you introduce and practice. Let me share my ideas, tips, and resources with you. Small groups allow you to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of small groups of people. We are already trying to close gaps and deal with the inconsistent attendance of students now. there are so many resources that can be used to do. However, there are a lot of things to take into consideration first. For instance:

1. What do I use to decide who to pull for small groups?

When I decide to form small groups I use a variety of data points. You can use  teacher observations, benchmark results, journal responses, unit assessments, district assessments, MAP tes and even previous years data if you want to start off at the  beginning of the year.  I usually grap Staar data from the previouus year. I do several types of analysis. First, I look at what Teks  the bulk of the class failed on each assessment  then I  look  to see if there was a common one across all of the assessment. This will be a whole group less   Second,  I look at the questions and determine the skills for each question and create lessons or activities that students  can do independently in stations, in partner ships or small groups.   Thirdly,  I look at students and group them in different ways. First  according to ranking; DNM, Approaching, Meets, Masters, Second based on teks, third based on question types, and lastly by lexile levels.

2. What materials will you need for small groups.?

When creating lessons for your small groups, you need to make sure to create a basket of resources: pencils, highlighters, paper, index cards, sticky notes, mini dry erase boards, markers, mentor text to model strategy or skill, a ring of question cards, books for students to practice skill or strategy you introduce or reteach, anecdotal note pages, the data you use to form that group. a prepared lesson, with prepared activities and questions that you will utilize with the groups. Materials also depend on grade level as well. When I taught elementary, I would add magnetic letters, word cards, abc charts, different blend charts mini anchor charts to give to students at the end of lessons.

3. What resources can I use to help me with number 2?

I love using Jennifer Serravallo's work: Reading strategies. It is arranged by goals, and within those goals skills and strategies are broken down by levels. So if your usinng lexiles it will be crucial to find a conversion chart. It provides question prompts, visuals and even possible trouble spots and how to deal with them. She has another text entitled Understanding Text and Readers. It will help you understand what it is students are expected to be able to do at certain reading levels. That goes to the next resource I recommend, the Bands of Text complexity, which provides you indepth information on what to teach into to move learners acrosss text bands. Use common Read Aloud text and passages to model skills and strategies to students, Pull question stems to work through with students. Show them how to process and analyze them, Teach into tier 2 vocabulary- I usually get these words from teh test questions from the state test I used to group students with. I make sure I understand what type of Small group I need. Is it a strategy group, a Read aloud group, a guided reading group, etc. Depending on the type that is the type I need to look into and study and prepare lessons around. I have even prepared quick small group lessons around reading skills. I find short passages, use questions stems to scaffold students through the passage and how to apply the skill to the passage. You can use any of Fountas and Pinell's resources for small groups, the text Reading with Meaning that helps studentss to focus on discussing and understanding what they are reading.

4. Another Small group can be Book clubs. Yes I said book clubs. You can pull groups of students and help them process and comprehend utilizing the same text. You can preselect books, create questions similar to the ones that they struggled with on assessments and teach into those and have kids to respond to them after reading independently. Having kids read and discuss books alone or with you helps learners to build their stamina and to problem solve learning difficuties with scaffolding and collaboration with group members. I recommend keeping these groups to no more than 4. The more in the group can cause a lot of difficulties and back sliding of learners. You have to teach what it is students need to be doing during these groups when they are not meeting with you, model and guide them for a couple of reading assignments before setting them loose.

5. How many people will you pull at a time?

I recommend keeping groups to 4 students. However, I have had groups with up to 6 studentss in them. I would avoid haveing a group bigger than that, because that defeats the purpose of small groups. You need the groups to be small enough to be able to tend to each students needs. Small groups allow you to focus on one kid at a time. It allows you to differentiate within the group. You can even pull 2 to 3 students for groups. It all depends on what the purpose of the small group. You can even pull partner ships as a small group and teach them how to help one another process text, write about text, and move across text bands.

6. How often will you pull each group?

Depending on which group you pull will determine how often you pull them. I recommend that students that are below level I recommend they are pulled everyday, on level at least 3 days a week and above level need to be met with at least once a week. Create a variety of schedules on paper and determine which one works for your class. You will find your self modifying and adjusting not just your schedule but your groups as well. Remember small groups should be flexible. Students should not remain in the same group for a long period of time, and most small groups if below level should be processing through a book a week or so. The goal is to make sure within a week you have seen every student in your class. It will be some weeks that you want be able to pull every group, don't beat yourself up about that. If you don't get to pull all groups, that is where you utilize conferencing to check in with those students comes into play.

7. What will the rest of the students be doing while I am pulling small groups?

The rest of the students can be reading if it is reading workshop. generating writing entries for writing workshop, engaged in math games or practice if math , science or social studies. You can create stations for students to practice skills and strategies previously taught. Those station activities can be task cards, games, bingo board options, technology options, and word work options. These stations will work for all subject area. However, as we are focused on Reading the best thing for students to be doing during small groups is independnetly reading, writing long and strong to a prompt about their reading, engage in partner work abouut their reading, completing graphic organized about the text. or you may choose to provide them with reading response questions to complete over their book. Make sure students understand the expectations and know how to perform what ever task you have them do in order for them not to interrupt your small groups.

8. Where will you hold your small groups in the classroom?

Make sure you position yourself where you are able to see the entire classroom. You want to be able to see from every angle. I usually pick a corner or the back center of the room and set up a table with a chairs around the table. It will let kids know that you will be monitoring students and that they are going to be held accountable for their actions.

9. How will I monitor student progress?

Organization and management is key. Determine how to best keep track of your small groups, the data from the work they do and the anecdotal notes you take. I recommend creating a document of some sort and record all your information on it. I always record the skill, strategy or activity that students do, how they did on it and what the next steps are. I record the text I use if it is an illustrative/picture book, and keep a copy of the passage that I used if that was the case. I have used a binder for each group, where I separate students by a dividor with pockets. I have used a 5 subject spiral that had pocket divisions between each section. I have even used just a folder. Either way you need to find what works for you. How do you want to organize your lessons, data and observations. Another part to monitoring student progress I use is these 4 guiding questions:

1. What is it I want learners to know when they leave the group?

2. How will I know they know it?

3. What will I do for those that do know it?

4. What will I do for thos that don't get it?

These questions guide my next step lesson plans. I need to create common assessments that will provide me with numeric data based on teks I addressed in thet small groups.

 OTHER RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

1.   Rethining Small-group Instruction in the Intermediate Grades:  Differentiation That Makes  a Difference  by Nancy Boyles

2.   Simply Small Groups:  Differentiating  Learning in any setting. by Debbie  Diller

3.   Making the Most of Small groups..... By Debbie Diller

4.   Climbing  the Literacy Ladder: Small Group Instruction to Support all Readers and Writers k-5

5.  Teaching in Reading Jennifer Serravallo

6.  Small Group Reading Instruction:  A differentiated teaching model for beginning and struggling readers by 

7.  Reading with Meaning  by Debbie Miller

8.  Any of Donalyn Miller's Books

Needing more tips, ideas and resource to run Reading workshop, check out my E- book series in my tpt store Educating-Readers.  Grab some and do your own self development aobut the components of Reading workshop,  How to use data in Reading workshop and te Importance of classroom Libraries when it comes to Reading workshop and soon look for the information here to be included in a Ebook on Small group Instruction>

20 + Test Prep ideas for the classroom

 Are you gearing up for testing? We all know that once January hits most districts start planning for testing. It is a time to pull standards, and data, and organize for small groups. I disagree with bombarding kids with passage after passage to prep them. I think creating daily activities, stations, and small groups is a great way to engage students; and prepare them for testing.

Here are some more great ways to think about using for test prep:

1.  Do daily practice:  You can grab short mini-passages with 1 to 3 questions that allow students to practice and exposure to the new test item types daily.  

              Make sure to only take 5 to 7 minutes

2. You can pull question stems from old STAAR passages to help kids analyze the vocabulary used,  and to determine the skill being assessed. 

           Create word walls with question stems, reading skills, and common vocabulary used throughout old tests.  Vocabulary such as convey, contribute, develop, portray, indicate,  and highlight.

3.  allow students to rewrite the question in their own words to demonstrate an understanding of what the question is asking. 

             This will show you who is and isn't understanding the question. 

4.  Pull old test questions and practice analyzing answer choices,  and model how to determine the differences in answer choices, which one focuses on what the question is asking.

          This will show you if kids can identify the skill being asked.

5. Students can sort questions by determining where the answer would be found

                 In the text  (stated) or in their head( need to infer).  Using QAR strategy.

3. Pull only the questions that represent the skills that students struggle with during the school year.  Analyze them and dissect how to answer the questions.  

        For example, Summarizing questions show students how to determine if each sentence is part of the story and where they fit in the story. 

                           For fiction text have them label where each sentence is found BME, 

                           For nonfiction, look for main ideas and supporting details.

4.  Now it is possible for students to have to choose from summaries written in one sentence, or determine what sentences to add to an incomplete summary and even remove sentences from the summary that doesn't support the summary. 

        You can provide them practice in writing one-sentence summaries, use old tests,  pull the summary questions, and practice rewriting them as one sentence

         You could take summaries and remove sentences and add three other choices and see if students can pick the sentence that belongs.

         You can add sentences to summaries that don't belong and see if students know which ones to remove. 

5. Use a previous test made by the teacher,  the district made, and/or staff to create daily short passages, 

            Take an excerpt, and write the questions in the form of the new question types and do them as daily work. 

6.  Have kids practice reading different genre passages and analyzing them for the characteristics of the genre, which could be possibly asked about on the test.

7.  Search Pinterest, you may find activities or test practice passages that can be used in small groups, whole groups, or even as rotation stations. 

8.  Introduce and discuss each new test type:  Mult-select, grid,  Multi-part,  Inline questions, SCR, Match Table Grid, and Hot text.   

              Start planning these types of questions into your daily lessons as do nows and exit tickets, and even when questioning during read-aloud.

9.  Create a question bank jar.  Pull a question daily for kids to answer or apply independently to the text they read. 

10.  All of the above will allow you to be able to form small groups or tutoring groups for those struggling or needing extra support. 

11. Have you ever considered board games.  A great way to engage kids in friendly competition, while they are still learning. There are reading that you can purchase. I have games over; Main idea,  supporting details, context clues, summary, compare and contrast, author's point of view, and inferences. I pick 1 day a week and pull out 2 to 4 games and students will rotate through them at 15-minute intervals. 

12. Have them use a large piece of chart paper, or even draw a chart on the desktop with reading skills as the categories and add an I don't know category.  Make a set of sorting cards with these skills on them for each student.  Have the students sort them based on their understanding of each one.

----- main idea, details, Authors point of view, inference, vocabulary, author's purpose, text features, text structure, summary, character development, compare/contrast, cause/effect, theme, figurative language, author's craft, prediction, plot development, drawing conclusions,  context clues--------

13. I love using poetry to teach reading skills. The students love it as well. Poetry is great to teach figurative language, tone, and mood. 

14.  There are now two types of written responses for the STAAR  test we take in Texas.  

                     The short-constructed response (SCR) and the Extended Constructed response ( ECR)

Students are expected to write a response to a prompt related to one of the passages, which can now be subject-related passages.

          So get the other subjects involved and have them start having students write claims and give evidence to support a prompt about a concept being taught.

15.  The new test is also now combined with writing. There is no longer a writing Staar and a reading Staar.  They are together, so plan with your writing teams if you teach separately, and hold kids accountable for grammar and conventions when writing responses in reading.  

16.  To avoid drill and kill, I always do 4 corners with reading passages and questions allowing for group discussions and teacher feedback.  

17. You can create Jeopardy games over genres, skills, vocabulary, question stems, etch.

18. How about spending a week on each genre: 

• talk about genre characteristics
• give activities related to the genre characteristics
• use the test question stems and vocabulary
• provide kids the opportunity to read in class.
• provide opportunities for kids to write responses to questions from various genres

19.  Have students work on passages in pairs, allow them to read, discuss and answer questions together and support one another.

20. Be intentional by having days where kids are just reading the entire class to help build stamina, you can pull small groups or hold conferences during this time. 

Most important for me is to make sure I am giving feedback daily, progress monitoring daily, allowing for daily practice, and pulling students who need additional support and guidance.

Standardize testing doesn't have to be drill and kill, there are ways to make it interesting,

Reading Workshop : Journals Usage:

       

ASSESSING STUDENTS COMPREHENSION

USING BOOKS, STICKY NOTES AND READING JOURNALS

        As an Educator,  I hope that like me that you reflect on your year, your lesson plans, your classroom management, arrangement etc.  The first thing that I look at and reflect on is how effective did set up, explain and model the usage of resources for the Reading workshop.  When we were hybrid,  the students had a daily prompt in google slides that was loaded to canvas where they responded to daily over the books they read, or a short article or passage I attached to the prompt.  It went well but I was really missing the paper journals we always used pre Covid. So I was excited to know that we were going full in this year.  I purchased  composition books , and had admin to order more for me to make sure all 90 kids had one. 

    So what do you use for journals?  I loved using journals for all subjects when I was self contained. Journals are a great tool to have students to reflect on lessons, do Do Now/daily prompts, exit/reflection prompts and for daily responses to independent task.  So you want to give them  a try this year? Let me share my thoughts with  how to get started.   First of all ,make sure you set up a model journal for yourself.  I do everything I have the students do.  They need to know they are not just doing busy work and that teachers value the task so much they are doing it as well.

        My  first 3 weeks are used to get to know students and set up expectations and norms for the class and setting up journals is one of those expectations. I tell kids a head of times that we will be setting up journals and they have the options to bring pictures to decorated the cover, but know they will be glued down to the cover so get permission from parents because the picture will be damaged if they try to take it off at the end of the school year.  It needs to be one they know won't be returned.  So on the day of journals set up  I read aloud one of  Amelia's Notebooks By Marissa Moss.  I show students a set of her books and we just list out what we notice Amelia using her notebooks for daily.  I will then bring out my journals from previous years and place one on each groups table and allow them to do the same thing.  List out what they notice I did as a Reader.  We would then discuss and share out what they had in common and discuss the differences and determine what else we need to add to our anchor chart to demonstrate the expectations for their own journals for the year.  

     Next we discuss how she made the covers of her journals her own as well as my journal covers.  This leads to the discussion of why they bought pictures to school and the supplies in the middle of the tables.  Students will be given a set time to decorate, and teachers job is to walk around, monitor and provide feedback to students.

     I  then pass out journals  and white cardstock.  I have kids to write their names, and class period on a piece of white card stock paper that I precut and clue it to the center of the journal.   Each table will have scissors, glue, pictures I created for those that don't bring photos and a few magazines they can cut from.

   After kids have decorated their journals, we began working on setting up or creating of the journals.  There are many ways this can be done,  this is just one of many.  I find myself changing them up some years.

JOURNAL SET UP TIPS:

Page 1:  What do good readers do?  draw a person in the center and write words, or phrases of things you think a good reader should do?  For example:  make predictions, ask questions, read daily, choose just right books-  

Page 2:  Title :Goals

Page 3  Genre charts

Page 4:  Reading survey

Page 5:  My reading life analysis

Page 6/7   How to choose book mini anchor chart/ Book list/

Page 8/9    unit Vocabulary/Tier 2 vocabulary

     I  block off  a number of pages ( usually 10) to use for Do Now's , Exit tickets or a long written response to a sticky note or teacher given prompt. ( iI usually set up by  nine weeks since there will be a unit page after the sections. )

       Students will glue in the unit page that I have copied.   This will be page 21.  From this point on  the next unit page will be a different color followed by 10 pages for reading responses.   We have a total of 5 Reading units.  Students respond to independent books using stick notes, or premade sticky notes that are placed on a wall  poster that I have numbered based on seats in class.  students will place these on their number on designated days by the teacher, those not posted are glued in their journals. 

      So what I did was prewrote journal prompts, and question stems based on 6th grade standards that can align with any grade standard talking about writing about one's reading, responding to ones reading or providing text evidence to support their reading.

I have a Fiction Reading set, a Nonfiction Reading set, and questions stems for general Ed blended with higher level questions I used for my GT class in my TPT store Education Readers by MrsEduc8te.

               

                

     These resources are a great way to check students understanding,  create discussions between partner, to use during conferences, to use as formative or summative assessment.  I have even used them during my Read Alouds, stopping to monitor student comprehension.

   I definitely prefer to have the hard back composition books over the use of online.  It is easier  to hold kids accountable, because they are working on them during class, I can give immediate feedback to students. Where as on line,  they have to submit the task, tell me they submitted if they want some feedback, and then un submit  the journal to do their next entry.

                                                                             

Not your ordinary Test Prep

As a reading teacher, I am always looking of ways to enhance my instruction, and to come up with engaging ways for readers to teach reading skills to 6th graders. We all know once January hits, things get really crazy. We have to contend with Telpas calibration, Telpas writing collections, Telpas testing, preparing for state testing. So how do we prepare for state testing usually is cramming test passages after test passage down kids throats. I don't know about you but I feel that is a waste of time and energy. There is a better way!

I can pull test questions from the State test and engage students into a discuss about what they notice. So here is how it works in my class.

First Idea:

Day 1:

1. We lay the questions out and read through them and students work as a table and pull vocabulary that we are unfamiliar with and make an anchor chart of them.

2. We categorize whether the words are Academic vocabulary or Tier 2 vocabulary.

3. They then work together determining if the word a word necessary to answer the question or to understand the questions

4. We then discuss how to determine the meaning of unknown words:

- we talked about using context clues, use the ideas in the text

- we talked about using a Thesaurus and a dictionary (online and textbook)

5. Students by now have narrowed the list down with the help of me guiding them through the questioning. SO they work to create frayer models over the words they still don't know the meaning.

6. We create an anchor chart of representing Tier 2 words and academic words.

Day 2

1. we read through the questions and determine where we could possible find the answer to the text: Using QAR- which I previously taught.

they have a large poster of the QAR chart and they sort their questions. Students are then allowed to walk around and do a gallery walk of their table mates poster and go back and determine if they want to change anything based on their walk.- they put a sticky note on it and explain why they moved it if they did. Teacher checks each table giving feedback.

Day 3

1 We work on identify the reading skills that the questions address. We talk about/review the meaning of those skills we have learned and make an anchor chart of those we haven't addressed.

Day 4

1. We read the questions and work through which question doesn't effectively address the skill the question is asking about.

2. Strategies to answer questions is addressed at this point.

Day 5:

1. We talk about different reading genre and create anchor charts of the characteristics

2. students are then task to work in pairs and read the passage that the questions we have worked on all week and answer the questions.

3. Teacher is doing voice overs to help to scaffold and guide students as they answer, reminding them of strategies.

More great ideas that I have used are:

• Sorting activities,
• Task cards
• Do Now- Staar like question stems
• Create Jeopardy games
• Use Padlet or Booklet

Another great idea is to use the learning targets that have been found to be on most of the old state test and and create lessons specific to the Teks and the question types can be rewritten over a mentor text.

I have create bingo reading response boards around Teks, or use the question stems from a standard test and write questions about a read aloud or reading passage students will be reading independently.

So you see there are so many other ways to prep students for Standardize state test rather than having kids do passage after passage. I feel like doing that harms more then it helps. Kids are so tired of looking at passages they will either excel or fail. In my opinion most kids will get tired and not take the test serious and just skim passages or just mark without reading the questions.

Doing these activities, I feel exposed them to the staar in various ways. The structure, the vocabulary, the questions, and test taking strategies using unconventional tools and activities.

You can use mini passages to teach and practice skills that can be tested,

challenge kids to use vocabulary in sentences and in oral discussions. I just know heir are more creative ways to practice and set kids up to be prepared for a state exam.

Yes eventually, I expose them to a passage from each genre with the questions and we work through them as a class, in partners and groups, after working a passage for every genre.

The kicker to all this is I start way before the state test date, I hold kids accountable all year, my word walls are up , anchor charts are up, I reteach in small groups. I don't wait until the month before or weeks before the test to start prepping them for the test.

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10 PD books EVERY READING TEACHER NEEDS IN THEIR TOOLBELTS

 As a Reading teacher,  I love learning and sharing what I learned to help others.  My two favorite things to provide is PD on certain topics and ways to use book in the classroom.

10 of my favorite tools and resources!

First of all, I have to admit I have an addiction.  My daughters call it  insanity!  I call it an amazing opportunity to learn.  I love books.  I constantly am buying books from yard sales, book stores, via amazon or scholastic I am always looking for the next great book.  You see your classroom library is your biggest asset if you are a classroom teacher.  Before I share my tools I have to share  my classroom library and let you see what I curated.

My Top Ten Resources

1.   Understanding Text and Readers  by Jennifer Serravallo

                   A great tool to match readers to books and to understand what they should be able to do at a given level.  It gives tips and ideas on how to help readers grow.

2.   Reading Strategies  by Jennifer Serravallo

                     A great book to use for small group instruction or intervention after teaching a whole group lesson.  If students don't get a particular skill or strategy than used the table of contents and find a section to support your goal.  You could use it as a main source of reading instruction as well.  Their are 7 goals that you can plan out.

3.   Reading conferences By  Jennifer Serravallo

                      A great book to  for new teachers or teachers needing a refresher the components of a reading conference and what happens in each one of them.  It provides tips to set up conference, tools to use during conferences, ways to manage the paperwork and  schedule conferences whether they are individual, partner or groups conferences.

4.   The Book Whisper by Donalyn Miller

                     It helps reading teacher understand how t better get students engaged in reading and tools that will not only support them but challenge them as well.

5.  Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller

                      If you read book Whisper you have to read this one,  again she opens your eyes and gives you insight and have you question your practices.

6.  Disruptive Thinking by  Kylene Beers

                       It provides prompts and tips for you to ponder and analyze in order to improve your educational instruction,  help students become engaged readers and plan for individual student growth.

7.  Literacy Continuum -  By  Fountas and Pinnell

                          Another tool to help teachers analyze book levels, and what students need to be able to do to move to the next level.  A great resource to become familiar with the characteristics of a reading level.  It includes vocab, word study and grammar work.

8.  Taking Action:  A Handbook For RTI at Work-  by Austin Buffum
                            A great book for educators to read and understand how to use RTI effectively as well as understand the different Tier levels and what needs to happen at each level, who is responsible for each level, and how to implement with ease.

9.  Reading Text complexity Bands-  A  set of chart that provides skills and strategies that readers at various levels should be able to do with the text they are reading. You can easily doo a google search  and find resources that repesent these bands.

10.  How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classroom:    by Carol Tomlinson

                It  covers the fundamentals of differentiation and provides additional information on how to go about differentiation.

Always keep up with current research related to your niche, in order to grow and stay current.   These are just 10 of the many books that are stacked around my house.  I love to read and learn.  

If  You want more titles go follow my FB page;   www.facebook.com/rhonda.educates.5/  

Where I am constantly providing tips, resources and ideas to use in the Reading Classroom.

  

No More Reading logs please

                 Are you tired of Reading logs?  Looking for a new way to hold kids accountable? 

                                                     Things to do in place of Reading Logs

1. Laminate the question cards and have kids pull one as a Do now, during independent reading time and even as a exit ticket to check to see if kids are reading and comprehending.
2. You can have them placed in a center of a poster and have kids do a discussion around a common text.- specified day
3. Have partnerships pull cards and pose questions to one another. - share time
4. You as the teacher can pull a question a day to have kids to respond to during whole group discussions or independent reading.
5. You can create centers with the cards as well. They will go well in the library, check them out on TPT mrseduc8te.
6. You can have students write long and strong over a prompt for a Formative grade.
7. Have kids do a task for a day in their journal from the Reading and Writing prompts
8. Have kids do one pagers.- Summative
9.. Have kids to book reviews- weekly
10. Have the create a test over the book with and answer key- Summative
11. Have a conference with students and use Bands of Text complexity to check understanding
12. Do a informal RR- designate so many students per day.
13. Have kids to complete a plot diagram if it is a Fiction Text
14. Have kids to complete a Nonfiction response activity
15. Have students do a Book swap and read each other's book and then they can come back together and both can share what they learned or understand from the books.

 

Above are the activities that I used in class. I laminate them all and created different activities around them ore even do a choice board chart. Check it in Mrseduc8te TPT shop

Post Pandemic: Now What?

        Can you believe how time has flown?  It seems like Summer just dropped by and kept going.  Even though I taught Summer school, it usually seemed like I had longer than I have this year before school started.  I can say though I was able to relax and and get some not only physical rejuvenation but mental  rejuvenation.  I don't know about you, but after least year.  I questioned whether I wanted to return to the field of teaching.  I literally started looking for other  jobs that will allow me to still do what I love to do teach or work with books. I made a pros and cons list to determine if my passion for the job outweighed my exhaustion. As the days eeked by, my shoulders relaxed, my headaches subsided, my tossing and turning subsided.  I realized I didn't want to give up.  It was Reading that helped me to find a since of peace and serinity.  I want to share my love of books with kids.  I want to show them how reading can take them places they can't afford.  This Summer I was able to read for enjoyment and professionally without having to plan anything.  I felt good about Reading again.  I realized that in order to show a love of reading a lot of things had to take place first. .  I am excited to see what this year will look like without having to do everything everyday using technology.  

       I say all that to say, it's a new school year, now what?  With everyone being requred to return on campus,  it is a little scary since here in Texas the mask mandate has been lifted, and  vaccination numbers are high.  I can't help but wonder what precautions will be taken?  Will we still be required to sanitize after every class? Will we be required to continue to do medical check ins?  Will we have to use shields? Will we have 2 separate lunch rooms with staggered times. Will we get ppo? Will there be sanitation stations?  Will teachers be given necessary cleaning supplies if requested? What about classroom supplies?   What will happen with the 6ft distance rule? So many questions but hardly any answers. On top of all these questions swirling around in my head, we are also still under construction, and have the possibility of having to share rooms this year, due to the new plans.  I have to wrap my mind around that part.  I don't like sharing?  At least that is what my kids say. I say I live in controlled chaos, so I gotta get it together if I have to share a room.  

       Anyway it's that time to prepare for the new year.  I am ready to gear up.   What are you planning for? What do you deem to be most important. For me,  I think building relationships and making students feel safe to be back in the classroom.  Here are some of the things you can do to get to know students, and make kids feel safe. I started creating this list this in my back to school journal.  Yep I have a journal that I use to plan in every year.  I have one from every year I have taught after my 5th year.  I go back and look at them every Summer. They help me process and develop my new list and plans.

                                        20  BEGINNING OF THE YEAR SHENANIGANS!

I do a daily picture book Read Aloud that lends itself to a teaching point related to behavior, instruction, management, and/or organization.  Sometimes we create charts about these books.  My goal is to model reading behaviors and writing about reading before actually getting deep into instruction.

     As students enter the classroom, I welcome them with open arms, provide directions as to what they will be doing and options to sit where they choose. At theie seats, I usually have a welcome poem and a bag of goodies( pencils with  positive says on them, erasers, life savers, gum and pepperments) and the first activities materials.  These activities are what happens most of the class, with independent reading taking place for last 15 minutes of class.  I only have 5  50 mminute classes. When I was in elementary i would do a few of these activities, and then spend time introducing subject area things, such as I did a read aloud to introduce the library, one to introduce journals, one to introduce choosing books, and several other lessons such as Fake reading vs Real reading,  small groups,  partnerships, using rubric, etch  I actually included my Reading Workshop E book in the Beginning of the year Bundle or everythinng in the bundle can be purchased separately as well. 

However, lets talk about typical beginning of the year things that anyone can do to build a repoir with students and create a safe zone for a community of learners.

Start off:

    1.  By making name tents-  students are allowed to decorate them with symbols and words that represent them.-  They share these with their tables and the class.--  I also make one to share. (cardstock of various colors, markers, color pencils, and a model)

   2.  Get to know Bingo boards-  Allow  kids to go around and find classmates that can sign off on the different options on the board-  they must get everyone's signature and ask them a follow up questions abou that square. ( I sign one  the boxes before making copies)

  3.  Introduce yourself to the class.  I create a powerpoint slide about me.  I talk about likes, dislikes, family, career, goals and teaching experience.  Afterwards,  kids get the option to make their own posters about themselves, or complete an  All About Me printed handout.  I let them share these with their tablemates- or we hang them around the class, and do a gallery walk learning about one another.  

  4. Ice Breaker Ideas: 

            --Would You Rather - 2 options that pick a side and walk to the propriate corner and discuss their optons. (nonsense options)

           -- This or That-  Similar to Would you Rather different types of options

           -- I have --  Do you have

          --  M & M  sort:  pose questions that represent each color of the  M&M's. I have kids to complete a response sheet, or you can put a large sheet in middle of table, they can choose what color they want to answer by laying the color on the mat and take turns answering .They keep going until they have answered at least 3 question prompts

          -- Same concept as above can be done with colored tooth pics.

          ---Create an ABC chart where the kids try to come up with names of things that represent your subject area( math words, social studies words, reading words, etcf)

          ---Do a scavenger hunt- have them locate certain things in the class and around the building(get permission) give them a certain amount of time, when they reach the end and have all their signatures, they  can come share their adventure-  I have done this in groups with middle schoolers before. 

    5. Circle up-  Here is where I start sharing some of my feelings,  I  talk about words like effort, grit, kindness, fear, respect, self awareness, responsibility, etc.  I use my SEL posters and create a bulletin board as  I talk about each one of the attributes that learners should exhibit and practice.  We talk about 2 to 3 words each day for a while at the beginning of  the year, talk about mindset.

   6.  I use this prompt every year:  If there was one thing I  wanted my students to know about me it would be....   because.....    I switch it up and have them write on notecards instead of sharing out loud.  If there was one thing I wanted my teacher to know about me it would be..... (you will be amazed at what you can learn)

7.   As a reading teacher, we make book marks- decorating them  with titles of our favorite books, characters, movies, games,shows-( the goal is  to bo back and use these to make a reading list)

8.  We  work together to create an anchor chart:  What needs to happen for learning to take place in our class?  ( usually this happens after we discuss the school wide plan)

9.   I have kids bring 3 items from home that represent them, and we do a daily share.  I assign 3 to 5 people to bring and share.

10.  You can discuss the subject area, what will happen, what is the students job vs Teacher's job. 

11.  You may want to assign jobs to students to make them responsible for the classroom setting.

12.  Set up journals, or folders, allow  kids to decorate,  I give  options, I teach reading so they can use magazines,  their own pictures from home, images of book covers that  I provide. I then have them go to the first clean page in their journal and draw an avatar and add images and phrases of what they things makes a good- reader, writer- mathematician, etc.

13.  Writing- a different prompt daily- 5  to 8 sentences responses( this is something I did when I taught reading it was just about getting the starting to generate entries.

14.  Reading Teachers can have students bring their favorite book from home to share. If you teach writing you can have students talk about their favorite genre to write and why, same with any of the subjects.

15.  As  Reading teachers, I use 20 minutes  for kids to independent read.  I put baskets of books on the desk and observe student behaviors and book choices. I take note to use late.  I also confer with students you can talk about  their books, or just get to know the students, ask questions. and even read with them to model reading behaviors. Writing teachers can do the same as they are writing to prompts daily. (this will give you background on what students do and don't do, strengths and weaknesses)

16.  Give students a tour of the classroom and talk about student  responsibility  in each area.

17.  Talk about expecations for turning in papers, sharpening pencils, using bulletin boards or stations you may have already in place.

18.  Talk about procedures for the RR, the Hallways, cafeteria, library, morning meetings, meeting areas.

19.  Talk to students about Homework expecations if you plan to give it, using supplies, labeling supplies. Talk about what will happen when students are absent.

20.  For the subject areas that use workshop model:  Talk about each component, what will happen, what their job will be vs your job.  At this point, I provide them with a Reading Survey to complete, it helps me be able to make book choices and guage their feelings about Reading.  You can find a survey on any subject area.

         I personally have done alot of these. Check out some of my get know activities by hitting the link in the top right hand corner, My tpt store, Mrseduc8te.  Here is a look into what you will find. The bundle includes all three of the one below plus,  a BOY lesson plan suggestion, and goals setting component.  You can purchase the bundle or each one separately.  Lots of things for setting up the beginning of the school year available.

       

      This is not an exhausted list.  There is so many things to think about at the beginning of the year before starting instruction in relation to  Behvior, management, procedural, and  instruction.  Think about front loading .  You want to make sure  that you set the foundation so you want waste time setting it throughout the year.  That is not to say you want have to revisit them or add some, it just means that I prefer to use my firsts 3 weeks, getting to know my students, building relationships  and  setting the foundation for my subject area. Once I get these things in place I can pay attention to helping students build their reading lives and forming reading identies.  

       The beginning of the year is crucial, it sets the tone for the year.  We all know this year will probably one of the most important years of our careers.  We will have learners coming that may not have been in school for over a year.  We need to set in scaffolds and routines to help those students. 

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