Literacy Station Update

Just wanted to drop in and let you know how my literacy stations are working out.

I love how well the students are working within their groups.  Students stay on task and are truley engaged in their word work part of their station.  Here are a couple of pictures of them working at their stations.  Some choose to work at a desk while other choose the floor.

Here are my problems:

The books I have chosen (by theme) for the literacy box are on second grade level.  The problem is my students are below grade level.  They are not able to read the books I have chose for them.  UGH!!  I know this happens but it is so frustrating!!  As a temporary solution students are choosing books to read from the leveled classroom library and they have free choice within their level.  I have a strong collection of books however, the weakest area of my classroom are the lower level books.

Here is what the leveled library collection looks like.

Here is a picture of my management board.

We still have a lot of work to do on getting these stations going as I would like but we are off to a great start!

Nursery Rhyme Literacy Center Box

Happy Monday Everyone!  I hope you are all doing well.  I have one week that I can work in my classroom.  Next week I am keeping my two year old nephew for a week.  Then, I return to work the third week.  So, I hope to have classroom pics for you on Friday.

I just finished my second literacy box.  I forgot to take pictures of all the books however I can't wait to show you all the things I have created.  This has to be one of the favorite things I have created.

I chose the theme of Nursery Rhymes because these books will be familiar with the students.

 {click for download}

I would like to show you my Nursery Rhyme Literacy Center pack that I plan to use for word work.  

This can be found in my TpT store.

 First is a short e and short o word sort using the spelling words for the second week in my reading series.  This short vowel word sort address the First Grade Common Core Standard: RF. 1.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. *Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.  This activity includes a recording sheet.

Next is Help your mouse run up the clock with Syllables.  Students will read words and sort into groups based on the number of syllables in a word.  This also includes a recording sheet.

Is It A Sentence? activity has students locate a group of words that is not a sentence and create a new sentence from the group of words.  This activity addresses the second grade common core standard:  L.21f Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences. 

 Next in an ABC order activity to the first letter.  Students will put 12 words in ABC order.

In Nursery Rhyme Synonyms students match words with like meanings. This activity address the Second Grade Common Core Standard:  L.2.5b  Distinguish shades of meaning among closely related verbs  (e.g., toss, throw, hurl) and closely related adjectives (e.g., thin, slender, skinny, scrawny).  A recording sheet is included in this activity.

Nursery Rhyme Create A Sentence is just for fun.  This is something that they all did in first grade and it a great review for the start of second grade. 

I love Roll and Read.  In this version students will be reading short Nursery Rhymes and words related to Nursery Rhymes.

Finally,  vocabulary dominoes.  Students are just match Nursery Rhyme words with their definitions.

Literacy Centers/Stations/Daily 5

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I have wanted to change my centers for some time now. Our school implements The Daily 5 classroom routines.  By the time students get to second grade they are very familiar with the routines.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Daily 5 and I love how easy it was for most students to jump back into the routine.  However, my students took advantage of the familiarity and management at times was difficult.  So this year I am going to try something different. 

  

So here is the plan that I have come up with.   I have found that students love the seasonal books and activities that we do because they seem special because we only bring out those books once during a particular time of year.  I hope to continue with the excitement and make the centers theme specific.  After the first five weeks of school I hope the centers will take on non-fiction topics.  I plan to keep the centers in a storage box like this.

My plan is for four students to work out of the literacy station box for an entire week.  From this box they will find everything they need to work on for the hour rotation we have for our small groups.  If I have four guided reading groups then one person from each group will be at the box.  I believe I will need five boxes to start the school year.  That is only if I have 20 students or less.  All five of the boxes will be similar in the skills the students will be practicing.  This will make it easier for me to introduce the literacy station boxes and students will get plenty of practice before we move to different skills.  

The first box that I have completed is a “School” literacy station box.

Inside the box will hold books for Read to Self:  Each student will have a tic tac toe board they will need to complete for the week.  The idea of the tic tac toe board was taken from Jen Ross of The Teacher’s Cauldron when she posted something similar with Dr. Suess books.  This will allow for accountability with this part of the Literacy Station.  Students must read three books for the week.  They may choose any three books from the nine in the box.  Students will be required to turn in their tic tac toe board each Friday. 

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Also included are books, poems, reader’s theater, etc that students will Read With Someone.   These items will be placed inside zippered bags so they will be kept separate.  Partners will be within their group.

Students will have 5 activities they must complete for Word Work during the week.  These are skills students will practice independently.  At first they will be review skills from first grade.  As time progresses they will become skills that has already been taught and students can practice independently.  For this box I have chosen a Back to School ABC Activity from Ms. Kilburn's Class as our first activity.  This is ABC order to the first level and students should only need a quick review.  The remaining activities come form my back to school pack.  They are pictured below.

 

 

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 There are Extra Items in the box for the students to work on when the required work is complete.  Some of these items are the Create a Sentence, Roll and Read, and Vocabulary Dominoes from by Back to School Literacy Centers.

The box will also contain items the students can choose for Work on Writing.  For the first week we will work on writing a friendly letter.

At this time I have no plans to include Listening to Someone with this station.

 Does anyone take requests to make literacy centers?  I am running out of time and I would gladly pay to have some of the centers made.  Please email me at mechele.barrow@gmail.com if you take requests.