Guided Reading in the Common Core Classroom

Guided Reading has been around for a while. It may have been called something different in the past, but this method is still the best way to help your students succeed in the Common Core reading classroom.

Guided Reading is designed to help students read both literature and instructional text at their instructional levels while incorporating reading strategies to help them make sense of text.

One of the most important parts of guided reading is the teaching and utilization of graphic organizers. These organizers help students make sense of text in a visual way. You can access three of the FREE graphic organizers we use in our classrooms by clicking on their names: Venn Diagram, KWL Chart, and Describing Wheel. We also have a super bundle of 25+ graphic organizers that you can access by clicking here.

A  second method we use during guided reading are reading comprehension guides. These guides are designed to teach students how to use various reading strategies in a fun and engaging way. Click here to access our FREE guided reading tips, hints, and strategies. This resource has been downloaded over 13,000 times!

Click on the following names for two FREE examples of reading guides we use in our Common Core classroom: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and James and the Giant Peach. Each guide also includes an answer key.

To access over 50 guides we have created for intermediate level (grades 3-5) novels, you can click here. Title such as The Lightning Thief, Swindle, Bridge to Terabithia, Rules, The Red Pyramid and more can be found.

If you would like to get started on creating your own reading comprehension guides, remember to focus on strategies such as: predicting, comprehension, questioning, inferring, visualizing, and summarizing to name a few. Guides can be adapted for any grade level and any book. Try to include some fun activities as well (end of book projects, word finds) to keep the students excited about the books!

Our students are actively engaged during guided reading and it has made all the difference. Watch your district and state assessment scores rise by using guided reading in your Common Core reading classroom!

The Big Football Game FREE Resources and Activities!

The Big Football Game is right around the corner and we have some great FREE resources that you can use in your classroom! You can access all of these great freebies by clicking here.

The first is a persuasive writing activity where the students get to design a ticket stub for the big football game and write a persuasive letter for approval from the commissioner. 

The second is a bingo activity where the students make their own bingo cards by placing the names of players and words associated with the big football game on their boards. The teacher is provided with the words to call out too!

The third is a game board that includes game cards. Simply cut out the game cards and have the students roll dice and use game markers (we use game pieces from other games) to move along the board. This is a lot of fun!

The fourth is a KWL activity where you can find out what your students know about the big football game. This can be a fun mini-research activity for some of the big football fans in the classroom!

The fifth is a pretend facebook activity where they develop a team profile page that is loads of fun!

The sixth is a geography activity where the students have to answer various map questions about the two teams involved in the big football game and where the game is being played.

Once again you can access all of these free resources by clicking here.

For some great Common Core Writing Activities associated with the Big Football Game you can click here. It is only $3!!

We hope you enjoy celebrating The Big Football Game with your class!

Please make sure to visit this site for more great FREE resources in the month of February.

Common Core Free Resources Edition #3

There have been some great activities shared in our first two Common Core Free Resource editions, and there are some amazing ones below. Make sure to download them and share!

Primary
Erica Bohrer has a very popular Freebie titled 1-120 Charts Common Core Aligned which is great for 1st grade students. There are various 120 charts and a fill in the missing number activity.

Primary/Intermediate
Lory Evans has a free resource titled: Let's Make it Plural that is suited for students in grades 2-4. It is designed to help students learn the specific rules for pluralizing nouns.It contains, posters, 24 word cards to sort under headings, and 5 different activities for students to complete.

Make sure to check out her blog at Lory's Page too!

Intermediate/Middle
Miss Nannini  has created a wonderful resource titled Teaching Dialogue in Writing suitable for students in grades 4-6. This pack contains numerous resources to help teach dialogue to students. Check it out!

Secondary
Kristen Bowers of Secondary Solutions has a great Free resource titled: Improving Word Choice in Writing, great for students in grades 6-12. There are over 250 synonyms provided for common words in students' writing!

Once again, thanks for stopping by to check out the free activities. Come back next Friday for more great Common Core resources!

Creativity in the Common Core Classroom Website!

We are excited to announce the launch of our own website filled with activities, lessons, and resources for reading, writing, math and social studies aligned with the Common Core Standards titled Creativity in the Common Core Classroom!

For the past 30+ years combined, we have worked tirelessly to create lessons that are fun, meaningful and engaging. With the recent adoption of the Common Core Standards by most states, we wanted to keep our creativity while still teaching the important concepts to students. We now have the capabilities with a website to share these teaching resources with others.

As you can see below, we have added key tabs to the top of all of our web pages. Each tab has a pull down menu where you can find even more resources at your fingertips. For example, if you move your mouse over Language Arts, a drop down menu will appear with the options of Reading or Writing. 

We also have included a page where you can access over 100 of our FREE resources! Subjects included in the free resources are reading, writing, spelling, math, and so much more!

We hope you take the time to explore our website and find something of value to use in your classroom. We will be continually adding and updating resources so be sure to check back often!

Creating Structure in the Common Core Reading Classroom: The Daily 5

Reading is fundamental. With the adoption of the Common Core Standards, this phrase has never been more evident. The new standards emphasize three critical areas for reading success: foundational skills, literature, and informational text. How can you prepare yourself to teach to the Common Core Reading standards, but yet keep your creativity? Both Eric and I will be covering the structure, the method, the strategies and the motivational tools in upcoming blog posts to help student succeed in the Common Core classroom.

The first part of creating a Common Core reading classroom is having a structure in place. In our classroom, we use The Daily 5. If you are not familiar with The Daily 5, click here. The Daily 5 is a great way for students to take pride and ownership in their daily learning in the Language Arts classroom. When we are meeting with our guided reading groups, the rest of the students are either doing read to self (reading silently), read to someone (reading with a partner), working on writing (writing choices), listen to reading (listening to books on cassette, or mp3 players) or word work (doing numerous activities related to the grammar and structure). We have found that students truly enjoy being able to have the freedom to make choices on a daily basis of what they would like to accomplish. We just have the rule that they must select “read to self” every day.

Click here for a link to 18 FREE Daily 5 resources that we use in our intermediate classrooms, or below to access them individually. Since the resources are saved in Microsoft Word, they can be edited to fit your grade levels too. 

Daily 5 Choice Cards for Pocket Charts

Daily 5 Good Fit Books Powerpoint

Daily 5 Signs for Class Library

Daily 5 I PICK Poster

Daily 5 Introduction Powerpoint

Daily 5 Listen to Reading Fiction Worksheet

Daily 5 Listen to Reading Poster

Daily 5 Listen to Reading Nonfiction Worksheet

Daily 5 Listen to Reading Sign Up Chart

Daily 5 Read to Self Poster

Daily 5 Read to Someone Poster

Daily 5 Read to Someone Reminders Poster

Daily 5 Reading Journal

Daily 5 Reflection Sheet for Students

Daily 5 Student Check In Sheet

Daily 5 Weekly Reflection Log

Daily 5 Word Work Poster

Daily 5 Work on Writing Poster

Common Core Free Resources Edition #2

Here is our Second Edition of Common Core Freebies! We, once again, have three amazing teachers featured below. Enjoy!

Primary
Deana Jump has a wonderful FREE resource titled: February Math Journal Prompts. These prompts will add some critical thinking skills to your primary math Common Core classroom!

Intermediate
Tracey Kellar Graham, Smart Chick, has a very creative Common Core math activity titled: Coordinate Graphing with Smarties Candies! This is a fun way to teach the coordinate grid system with your students while using Smarties candy!

Secondary
Tracee Orman has a super activity titled: Martin Luther King, Jr. Dream Speech and Activities. It is a must download if you cover this great man at all at the secondary level!

Thanks again for visiting our blog. Be on the lookout for three more FREE resources next week!

Common Core Review Stations for Quiz or Test

A great way to get students involved in quiz or test review is through stations! Our students love to not only get up and move around, but to compete as well. Through review stations, students are actively engaged in their learning.

The first thing we do is pick out 4-5 main concepts that we want students to master. An example would be a math unit on fractions. We would want students to know how to solve: equivalent fractions, adding fractions, subtracting fractions, and comparing fractions.  We then design questions/problems for each of the stations for students to answer. We put these questions in a folder.

After the questions are developed, we break the class into groups. We usually mix abilities in each group so there would be a high, middle, and low level learner in each. We have found this to be the most effective way to make teams as equal as possible. It is also fun to see the low level students get energized and involved with their teammates!

When we introduce the stations, we make sure to go over the rules and guidelines. Click here to access the rules and guidelines. We allow the teams to make up their own names that relate to the unit of study. For our fraction unit we had group names such as: Fraction Destroyers, Denominator Dominators, Numerator Ninjas, and First Place Fractions.

For each station the students have approximately 10 minutes to solve the problems that are in the folder. Points can be awarded to each team based on the number correct for each activity. When the students finish, there is an answer key taped to the bottom of the folder. They then can check their work and award their group points. You may think that groups will cheat and look at the answers right away, but if the rules are reviewed up front, you shouldn’t have any problems. Especially if the material that you have for each station is review for a test or quiz.

A fun twist we recently added to our review station activity was the “take a shot for your team” challenge. Before rotating to the next station, a member from each team comes to the front of the room. The object is to throw a ball into a regular storage crate from about 5 feet away. If it lands in the crate, the team gets 3 points. If it lands in the smaller bowl in the crate the team gets 10 points (see picture below). 

That way if a group is struggling with the review sheets, they can still feel success with earning points from taking a shot.

At the end of the stations, we add up all the points and find out which team was the winner. There are no trophies or awards for this team, just satisfaction in knowing that they placed first. We always talk about how each group worked hard, and reviewed the concepts for the test. We encourage all the students to take home the sheets from the stations to practice at home too.

Our students now look forward to review days and their parents appreciate having problems to review at home as well. Try review stations out in your classroom. We bet your students will love it!

Please continue to follow our blog as we will be sharing more ways to be creative in the common core classroom!

Common Core Free Resources Edition 1!

For the rest of the school year, we will be featuring FREE resources from some of the best educators in the United States on our blog. Each featured resource will be creative, and aligned with the Common Core Standards. We will have the resources divided by grade level groups: K-2, 3-5, and 6-12. 

We are lucky enough to have three popular contributors start us off!

K-2

Rachelle Smith has a wonderful freebie titled: Reading Responses. The 18 page packet of responses will help students comprehend when reading fiction, non-fiction, or when they listen to a book/cd digitally.

Please check out her amazing blog by clicking here.

3-5

Kristen Bowers of Elementary Solutions has a great FREE Common Core resource titled: Note-Taking Chart/Graphic Organizer for Any Book. This Note-Taking Chart is a simple graphic organizer to help students in grades 3-6 take notes when reading or after reading a chapter of fiction.

6-12

Amy Brown, from Science Stuff, has another FREE Common Core resource titled: Scientific Method: Can You Write a Clear LabProcedure? FREE! This is a great Common Core Resource that works on writing informational text for upper grade levels!
In this simple activity, students will use a unique and unusual structure out of a variety of common objects. The student will then write instructions for how to build the structure. Students will swap sets of instructions and attempt to build the structure of other students using the instructions written by the other students.

We hope that you have enjoyed these three FREE resources that you can use in your Common Core classroom. Be on the lookout for three new resources next Friday!

Creative Common Core Graphic Organizers

Organize Using Organizers!

 “Reading is thinking” is what we try to instill in the minds of our young readers. And in order to think in the Common Core classroom, students must be taught how. It’s important that students understand that in order to become a better reader, he/she will need to organize his/her thoughts. In our classrooms, we have our students use a variety of graphic organizers (Venn diagrams, cluster webs, story maps, timelines, etc.).  Click here for a free example of a fact/opinion organizer.

What we try to have students understand is that they must match the appropriate graphic organizer to what they are reading- which takes time but is well worth it in the end. We use graphic organizers with our guided reading groups. We talk about the book and what graphic organizer would be the best fit for what they are reading. Whether our students are reading fiction or nonfiction, they become more engaged when they are provided a choice in how they wish to organize their thoughts. And it’s amazing to see the growth by the middle part of the school year! Click here to access our FREE retelling graphic organizer.

What we do with the students in our guided reading groups is have each student periodically share out with the others and then compare what they have written on their graphic organizers. Having each student use the same organizer allows students to learn from each other and modify their own organizer. It also adds a sense of responsibility and accountability to their learning.

While there may be hundreds of graphic organizers to choose from, we generally stick to the 20 or so that we have developed. That way, students become familiar with each and understand how to use each one. We also use graphic organizers with our comprehension guides. Most of our comprehension guides (click here for a free guide that includes many strategies) are book specific but having students complete a story map, Venn diagram, or some other type of graphic organizer only adds to the overall comprehension. 

Click here to see all of the organizers that we have available.

Students who understand that organizing the information in a book will be successful in the end.  And, once again, we are always pleasantly surprised and proud to see our students’ reading scores soar!

Creative Common Core Review: Game Boards!

Getting ready for assessments can be tedious and stressful in the common core classroom, plus students always dread the word “test.” How can you make test preparation more fun and meaningful for students? That can be answered in one simple word, “games!”

We have found that active engagement of our students in test review helps them to build confidence, and also provides our students with a fun way to review for a test. One popular game that we use with our students is game boards. 

Game boards are an excellent way to involve all the students in the review process. We break our students into groups of two or three. We then provide the groups with: a game board, game cards, a die, and something to use as their player markers. We often use markers from other games that we have in the room (Monopoly, Trouble, etc…) Students then proceed to roll the die and move along the board stopping to answer questions that relate to the assessment.

As players move along the board and answer questions, they will be engaged in learning and will want to finish the game. We make sure to let each player finish the game regardless if they are second or third. If there are cards left over at the end of the game, you can have a bonus round where the cards are split between the players, and whoever can answer the most correct is the overall winner. That way if a student didn't finish first, s/he can still have a chance to win! But the overall purpose of the game is to review, so winning shouldn't be stressed too much with your students.

Here is a link to a blank game board and blank game cards saved in both Microsoft Word 2010 and as a PDF. This will allow you to either type or hand write what you want to put onto your game boards and game cards. Click on the picture below or here to access the blank game board and game cards that you will be able to edit.

Also, below is a link to a game board we use as a review for a novel unit so you can see what a completed one looks like so you have an idea of what to add onto your own game boards.

These game boards can be used for math, reading, writing, grammar, social studies, science, or any other curricular area. Your students will love this great way to review! Click on the pictures below or here to access the FREE example.

 

Please continue to follow our blog as we will be sharing more ways to be creative in the common core classroom!