Chapter Books, First Two Weeks

I try to read these smaller chapter books in a week so I show the students how to chunk.  Take the number of pages and divide by 5.  This is how many pages I need to read each day to finish.  I am taking longer than my week and not meeting the goal, so what can I do?  So I will model next week finding those extra moments to squeeze in a page or two.

Horrible Harry and the Drop of Doom

Cam Jansen and the Missing Tennis Trophy

We do turn and talks with random students.  Next week, the third week, we will have assigned read aloud partners (not ability paired) and students will sit in the same spot.  A turn and talk is when the pairs turn to each other in response to a prompt the teacher gives in the middle of the read aloud and sit eye to eye and knee to knee.  The students then talk as the teacher mills among them listening in to their conversation.

Picture Books, First Two Weeks

Here are the picture books for the first two weeks. The first five are  about how we treat each other and how we can feel nervous as we start school.

Day 1: Fill Your Bucket

Day 2: First Day of School

Day 3: Alice and Greta

Day 4: The Color Magic (Alice and Greta)

Day 5: Greta's Revenge (Alice and Greta)

 Day 6: Diary of a Fly  (student teacher brought in to go with writer's notebook)

Day 7: The Day You Were Born

Day 8:  President Obama's Speech on video as this was Constitution Day

Day 9: Twilight Comes Twice 

Poetry

I read aloud at least three times: poetry, a picture book and a chapter book.  Sometimes there is a fourth time in science and social studies.  I am influenced here by Lester Laminack.

Poetry 

Week 1 - The First Day of School by Judith Viorst

Week 2  - Where in World is Henry - a poem that goes well with map work in social studies

We say the poems every day following Lester's suggestions of focus for each day: Monday say it, Tuesday tell what it means, Wednesday look for style, Thursday act it out, and Friday say it from memory.  These first two poems were not memorized in a week, but most of our poems are shorter and seem to be memorized. 

Writing Workshop, The First Two Weeks

Writing Workshop

Day 1: Intro Writer's Notebook - A place to gather your ideas, plant seeds - show mine, always date

Day 2: Intro Writer's Notebook again with student teacher showing hers, always date

Day 3: Getting Ideas - Heart Lesson by student teacher based on Georgia Heard work.

Day 4: How to Find a Topic -  Take an idea from heart chart and break it into titles and put these ideas on a topic page in back of notebook.

Day 5: How to Find a Topic - Use Write Track, a writing handbook, and read their suggestions.

Day 6: Write Small - Use pie as big idea, divide into parts to find the smaller ideas.

Day 7: Write Small - Second intro again showing pie. Ex. Camp is pie and all the things you do there are the pieces. Write about one piece.

Day 8: Write like Suzy Kline - Description of Drop Of Doom ride shows a way to use details, rewrite an entry you have so it sounds like Suzy Kline, second writing is a RD II.

Day 9: Write like David Adler - Description of Cam doing a jumping jack, you can add details to something you have with an *.  In share time, let's show ways we write like Kline and Adler.

Reading Workshop, The First Two Weeks

Ok, I'm going to organize my thinking by reflecting on the mini-lessons of my first two weeks of school. I use Guiding Readers and Writers by Irene C. Fountas and  Gay Su Pinnell.

Reading

Day 1: How Books Are Organized

Day 2: How Readers Choose Books

Day 3: Making Good Choices

Day 4: Thinking is Reading: text to self, funny, surprising, like, don't like

Day 5: How to Buzz, steps in how to talk with a partner

Day 6: When to Abandon a book

Day 7: Using a Reading Log

Day 8: Review Thinking about Reading Chart and How to Buzz, post it marks a spot to talk

Day 9: Added to Thinking about Reading Chart - Author's Craft as we are noticing the ways authors use details