Reader's Notebook Organization

Conversations in Literacy: Reader's Notebook Organization: When students come to my table for reading, I like everything neat, organized and easily accessible.  Saves me and them  a lot of time th...

This is a great blog post from Conversations in Literacy about how to organize notebooks for Reading Groups.  Awesome!

The Three Billy Goats Gruff mini-unit

Reading:


Characters
Setting
Retelling 
Sequencing
Sight Words


After reading the story, we recreated the setting and characters.  The river looks black, but it's really dark blue.  The kiddos got to draw their versions of the three goats and the troll and create the river and bridge. Then we made our characters into finger puppets and took turns retelling the story with friends.  Later, we use our setting and characters to solve math problems (see below).

 

 

Sight Word Game-Over the Troll Bridge!!

(bridge and playing cards below)

Object:  Cross the bridge before the troll gets you!!

In a bag place all the sight word cards, 3 trolls, and 3 billy goats.

Players take turns pulling a card.

If you get a sight word card, read it and place it on a plank.

If you don't know it, put it back in the bag and lose a turn.

Billy goats are lucky!  

If you pull a billy goat, he goes onto the next plank, and you take another card.

Look out for the Troll!!!  

If you pull a troll, he takes all your cards and puts them back into the bag!

Math:

Problem Solving

When we created our setting, we made sure that we had 8 planks on our bridge to use for the math problems.  Students use their goats, troll, and counters to solve the math problems on their bridge.

Billy Goats Problem Solving

3 Billy Goats Game High Frequency Word Cards


Copy of Sight Word Bridge 3 Billy Goats



Enjoy!!

Sight Word Slap Jacks

I'm always looking for new ways to practice sight words with my kids.  This game I was going to originally introduce with cards from 0-30, but I got the sight word cards cut out first!
 Partners take a deck of sight word cards and divide them between themselves.

 

I post a sight word on the board to be the 'jack.'  

The kids flip the cards one at a time and read the words.  When the 'jack' comes up, the first student to put his/her hand on it gets the pile.

 The partners then wait for the next 'jack' word and keep playing.

We had to have a little discussion about what happens if you lose all your cards before our time is up.  Instead of getting upset that you don't have any cards to flip, you wait for the 'jack' word like a tiger in a tree!    That really perked up the kids who were getting sad about losing all their cards.

Here are the words I use:
High Frequency Word Cards (3)

Sentences Workstation

Another great idea from a teammate!  Thanks, Vero!


These are sentences that are all mixed up.  I use mostly sight words and at least one word in the sentence that they have to use more brain power to decode.  


The kids put the words in the correct order, read, write, and illustrate!  Fun!  


They love the mystery!


Step 1:  Pick a set.

Step 2:  Unscramble

Step 3:  Read and record

Step 4:  Illustrate!

Enjoy!

Patterning Station

Here's a patterning station we started this week!  It's easy-peasy, but the kids love being able to add their own touches to the patterns.

I insist that they label the pattern units.

Well done!

The basket for this station has many pattern cards from which to choose!

ABC Station

I introduced a new ABC station last week.  Most of my kids do have the letters and sounds down pat at this point, but I do have a couple that could use the review.

For those who have a solid grasp of their letters, I have them say the sound the letter makes, or come up with a word that begins or ends with the letter sound.

Here's how to make the game:

1.  Cut a sentence strip in half lengthwise.

2.  Place alphabet stickers along the length of it.

3.  Laminate.  (I used clear contact paper.)

4.  Program tongue depressors with 2 sets of the alphabet. (I used stickers.)

5.  Have 2-3 tongue depressors with a symbol (star, crown, etc.)

To play the game:

1.  Partners take turns pulling a stick, saying the letter, sound, or word, and placing it on their strip.

2.  If you pull a letter that you already have, you put it back in the cup and lose a turn.

3.  If you pull the star or crown, you put all you sticks back in the cup!

That's it!

The kids have really enjoyed playing this one!

Enjoy!

Sight Words

Here's a quick sight word station idea.

Each 9 week set of sight words are color coded on the tongue depressor and clothespins.


You can see the one on the table has dots.  Each dot corresponds to a letter in the word so the kids know exactly where to clip on the clothespin. 

The kids love to stand them up!

Enjoy!