One of my very favorite parts of incorporating small groups in a Language Arts block using a Daily 5 framework is the variety if offers students. I have yet to meet a student that has not LOVED Daily 5. I think their absolute favorite rotation within Daily 5 is what we call the “Technology” rotation. You can incorporate “Listening” (which is what many teachers call this rotation), but if you call it “Technology” there are so many more fun things you can do with this rotation.
Congratulations! You’ve finally got your small group framework nailed down (see blog post Part 1) and now it’s time to focus on the rotation of “Word Work”. This the time when a group is working on things such as grammar, vocabulary, spelling, mechanics, or conventions while you are pulling your small group and working with them.
So you’ve finally managed to get your small groups running and students are working independently from you, but what do you do now? What do students work on and how do I chose? What resources do you use for each rotation? Here are some ideas to help you simplify your planning for your small group rotations. We’ll start this week on the “Read to Someone” rotation:
Pencils, pencils, pencils. We still use them you know. Computers, smartphones, devices are all the rage but the good old pencil is still a valuable tool for students. I would never have imagined that keeping sharped pencils in the hands of second graders could be so complicated! Having entered a second grade classroom after teaching fifth and sixth grades for so long was a transition, but I found out that of all the adjustments that were needed to be made, managing pencils proved to be the biggest “challenge” at the beginning of the year. Upper grade students managed this beautifully, but I quickly found I needed to reach out to veteran primary teachers for solutions as to how to keep sharpened pencils in the hands of students with minimal disruption. Here were some great ideas provided by these talented and seasoned teachers. Maybe one of them will work for you!
Wow, a blog! Who would have thought we would ever do something like this? Certainly not us, but here we are! Who are we? We are The Teacher Team. We are a husband and wife team who come from a long line of teachers. John is a high school teacher and is the Department Chair in the Science Dept at his high school and Carol is an elementary school teacher having taught all grades, K-6. Carol is currently teaching 6th grade but has a wealth of experience in all things elementary. We both have worked or currently work in Title I schools and are transitioning existing lessons and creating new lessons with common core standard content and methodology. We both embrace and actively teach with technology, and love to share with others what we have learned. We view our teaching style as facilitators, providing a rich and inspiring curriculum where students discover the joy of learning themselves. Our schools are very different demographically and we think this adds to our perspective as educators. As we move forward in this blogging adventure we hope we can share some insight into our world of teaching and education.
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