Book Clubs: Books in a Series

I wanted to share a couple of anchor charts and some of the organizational tools I am using for the beginning of my current unit, Book Clubs: Books in a Series.

 

 

I decided to use a hot pink star as a visual cue for my students. 

 

I placed hot pink stars on the baskets of series books in the classroom library.



I added a hot pink star to the focus board to show students were studying a new unit, book clubs, but were still focusing our learning on following characters into meaning.



Students will have their first book club meeting tomorrow, so check back for more details!

Students use the following chart to help guide their Book Club conversations.

Students came up with reading behaviors that demonstrate what Book Clubs look like and sound like.

Character Traits the Common Core Way

One of the more difficult skills to teach third graders is to reference the text and provide evidence for their thoughts. During our current unit, I think I have encouraged and/or required my students a million times to show evidence from the text .

 

I try to provide them with a variety of activities to practice this skill. Some students catch on to the skill and are able to use it simply by writing a jotting on a sticky note. Other students need a template while still others must have a fill-in activity sheet to follow exact steps in a process.

 

Whatever type of response my students use, I always post examples on the Focus Board so they can reference it whenever they need to during their Independent Reading time.

 

 

During the unit, I was on Pinterest searching for some anchor charts to use. I found a couple of ideas I liked and tweaked them to create my own charts.

 

 

Pinterest Chart--above

 

 

 

My own chart--above

 

Student response activity after a lesson using the anchor chart

 

Pinterest Chart--above

 

My own chart--above

 

 

Student response after a lesson using the anchor chart

 

 

Student response after a lesson using the anchor chart

 

 

Student response after a lesson using the anchor chart...and what I discussed with the student during conferencing

 

 

This is what one student wrote about the character traits for the dog, Winn Dixie, in our read aloud lesson! Check out what he said for the evidence!

 

 

Students posting their jots about character traits

 

Student jots

 

 

Student jots

 

 

I conferenced with the student about how to find evidence in the text.

 

 

Dust Cover Dilemma?

I take the dust covers off of my books that are in the classroom library so I have accummulated a huge stack of them in a cupboard.  I was setting up my Focus Board for our new unit and I decided to use the book jackets to enhance the board. Since we are starting biography book clubs and studying nonfiction narrative books, I chose books suited to those two areas.

I hot glued them onto a map holder that is above the board.

 



A Change Will Do You Good

Change happens all of the time in education.  For several years my school district used the Imagine It textbook program to teach literacy.  No comment... I am a whole language girl at heart.
 
Last year I decided to publish this blog with all of my literacy centers that I used during workshop time to differentiate learning for my students. 
 
Well, this year the change came around again...for the better this time! My school is piloting a balanced literacy framework to meet the demands of the new Common Core Standards. I intend to be able to use some of my literacy centers during word work or during times when I need to do assessments and even possibly (gasp!) when we just need a break from the norm. So now I have decided to add on to my centers and share some of the organizational tools, minilesson ideas, read aloud ideas, and anchor charts that I use in my classroom.  Thank you for reading and I hope I can give you a little something new each time you visit me.

 

Organization

 

 

 

This is my meeting area for Reading Workshop, Writing Workshop, and read aloud. I need this open space in the back of the room because I have a student in a wheelchair and she needs an open traffic pattern.   I hotglued clothespins to the wall to hold my anchor charts for teaching since I am not near the board and I don't have an easel.  On the cart next to me I have a basket of supplies (markers, pins, scissors, post its, correction tape), a basket of books (including my Reading Notebook), and some questioning cubes I can use for reluctant sharers--you can read my post titled Rolling Out the Questions to see how to make the cubes.

 

 

 

 

 

My classroom library is arranged by topics, genres, and levels.  I have two bookcases that have baskets of books sorted by similar topics.  This year my students like animals so we have several different animal baskets.  The books have the Fountas and Pinnell levels written inside of them, but I also write the range of levels on the outside of the basket.  You want to read about pigs and you are a level R...sorry there are no books in the basket for you.  I also have a bookcase where the books are put into bins that are simply all of the same level...an entire basket of L, one of M, etc.

 

 

 

  

 

I have an area in my room with leveled Social Studies books and leveled Math books.

 

 

 

The books I plan on using to teach minilessons, read alouds, skills groups, and writing connections are housed on shelves and sorted according to the Common Core mapping units for 3rd grade. 

 

 

 

I am not an ornate font and glitter with bows and decorations teacher, so my Focus Board is nothing fancy. I made it to be easily updated and maintained.  You can visit Pinterest and Google images for cuter and fancier versions! The mini pocket charts are from the Target Dollar Bins!

 

 

 

Next to my focus board I activated my students' schema by having them make mini books of their favorite stories since our first unit is Stories Worth Telling Again and Again. This is a little link to the previous years when they were used to making a Question/Concept Board.  I wanted to feel a little something familiar amid all of the new things being introduced.