Sensation Science Integrated in your Reading Block! {with Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching}

Hello Friends~

Welcome to the Elementary Entourage! I'm Dianna from Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching here today to share about SCIENCE in your READING block!

YES! Informational studies integrated into your Reading block has so many benefits! Here are a few:

• High Interest
• Complex Text
• Content Vocabulary
• Academic Vocabulary
• High Levels of Comprehension through Oral and Written expression
• Research Opportunities
• Covers Informational Standards
• Covers Science Standards
• Can Implement Technology, Writing, Speaking and Listening Standards!

Another advantage to integrating Science into your Reading block is the ability to pair texts! Grab a fictional text that goes along with your Science topic. There is so many possibilities and you can cover so many standards each day by using this Instructional Approach.

You can implement Science in your Reading block through:

• Read-Aloud
• Shared Reading
• Interactive Reading
• Guided Reading
• Close Reading
• Cloze Reading
• Buddy Reading
• Independent Reading

My personal favorite way to implement Science into your Reading block is through Close Reading with small groups. I love this opportunity to engage students with high interest content at a high lexile range. I find students are more willing to attack the text using their strategies if they are interested. It especially helps me from an instructional stand point interact with students and use a variety of reading strategies and skills! I love to use a range of topics with subtopics I can focus on during blocks of time that also correlate with the Science topics covered in the grade level. 

I use this time to revisit text frequently as I work through the standards with students as well as focus on word solving strategies, fluency, comprehension, phonics and more!

Below is an example of how I use Science Close Reads in my small group instruction:

{Click HERE or on the photos below for a direct link!}

Click HERE or below to try a FREE SAMPLE for yourself!

You can find a range of Science and Social Studies topics in my store that you can integrate in your Reading block by clicking HERE!

5 Apps for Effective Small Group Instruction {with For a Love of Teaching}

Over the past two weeks, the amazing teacher-bloggers here at The Elementary Entourage have shared many incredible ways they manage and monitor effective small group instruction. Let me just tell you, we have some rock star teachers in this group!

I am an Instructional Technology Facilitator, and I'm always looking for new and innovative ways to bring technology into the classroom. Today I'm going to share with you 5 Fast & Effective Apps to Use in Small Group Instruction. Some of these apps are free and some you have to purchase, but all are very effective! You can easily use any of these apps to enhance your small group instructional time.

#1 Stick Pick ($3.99)

Oh, how I love Stick Pick! This app lets you pick a student at random with a tap, swipe, or a shake, but that's not the best part! Stick Pick is unique because it suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond to the questions and small group discussion. The questions are based on Bloom's Taxonomy, and you can easily change the question level for each student. Stick Pick is also a great app for building and recording formative assessment data on students. It's definitely not your average student picker app!

          

#2 Popplet ($4.99 - free for the lite version)

    

Popplet is getting a lot of buzz in the world of educational technology right now and if you've ever used Popplet then you know why! This is one of the best customizable and interactive graphic organizer apps I've found. It is very simple and engaging to use which makes it the perfect addition to your classroom or any small group setting. Popplet will allow you and your students to capture and organize ideas in a visually appealing way - perfect for your visual learners! Create graphic organizers in a snap, illustrate a story, arrange the main idea with details, compare and contrast stories...the possibilities are limitless!

Popplet Lite is FREE! It offers many of the same options, but you can only work on one popplet at a time. Unless you plan on keeping your popplets stored on the device, the free version works great!

          

#3 Grammar Jammers (Free for Primary Edition - $2.99 for Elementary Edition)

   

Grammar Jammers is such a fun app full of catchy animated songs and rhymes that make learning exciting! This kid-friendly app teaches a variety of grammar concepts such as parts of speech, punctuation, and capitalization. Each animation unlocks a quiz. If students answer the quiz questions correctly within the Grammar Jammers topics it will unlock an interactive reward. This app is the perfect tool to use in a small group setting to introduce or review new grammar topics. There is also a reset feature that allows teachers to clear the data and reset the game for another group or the next user. 

Grammar Jammers was created by Pearson and is available as a series:

Primary Edition - FREE

Elementary Edition - $2.99

Middle School Edition - $2.99

#4 Learn Sight Words (free)

If you need to practice sight words with your small group of students - then this is the app you need! This app has over 300 flashcards with high-frequency words and easy-to-read print for students. Students can hear each word pronounced clearly or you can opt to turn the sound off. Learn Sight Words is a simple to use app that allows students to swipe through the cards of a 25-word mix. There's also a category for any words you flag to review for later. Students power through all 300+ words with 25 cards at a time. It's the perfect app to quickly review sight words within small groups.

          

#5 Running Record Calculator (free)

Why not make the most of your small group time and throw in a running record! This fast and accurate app makes testing literacy easy! It combines the standard running record calculator and stopwatch into one convenient app. It even has an audio recording playback option. The easy to use flagging function allows you to quickly refer back to the audio and it automatically counts errors and self-corrections. This running record calculator gives you immediate feedback. You will see the student's scores for words per minute, self-correct ratio, and accuracy percentage.

After you complete a running record with this app, press the email button to send a report of the running record to yourself, administrator, literacy specialist, or parents.

          

Students need a variety of opportunities to work with different classmates in different ways, and students love using technology! So, don't be afraid to incorporate it into your small group time. Students always surprise me at how much they can do and how quickly they learn how to use a new app or piece of technology. Even if you only have one iPad you can still incorporate many of these apps into your classroom or small group instruction.

Making the Most of Small Group Instruction {with Core Inspiration by Laura Santos}

About 60% of our second grade day is spent in small group instruction. Although this teaching approach is highly targeted and differentiated, it is also intense to plan and deliver. Over the past few years, I have evolved from a teacher who hated small group instruction to one who fully embraces its undeniable benefits. 

The driving force behind my growth is organization and the development of unique small group instruction management routines. The tricks below have helped make the management aspect of small group instruction more...manageable. But first, here is a peek at the two small group instruction areas in my second grade classroom:

Our reading aide meets with small groups four days a week in at the reading table. During their time with her, students are currently participating in scaffolded literature circles. Each day, they read a chapter, work on their Guided Reading Journal (filled with reading response activities that give them practice with reading concepts they have mastered), and then participate in a guided literature circle discussion and activity. These are the supplies my students use at the reading table. 

I meet with small groups in our Mini Lesson Zone. I don't mind sitting on the floor and the kids love it so we sit side by side during our reading conferences, use the table if there's anything we need to write down, and refer to our mini lesson notes/posters on our easel. Anyone who's waiting for their turn to meet one on one with me reads at one of the placemats so they can quickly join me when it's time. 

My small group instruction is more like individualized instruction, therefore students are required to bring their own book bins and journals. 

Whiteboard markers, highlighters, and pencils are provided so students don't waste transition time gathering these supplies. 

Okay, now that you have an idea of where small group instruction takes place in my second grade classroom, here are the details on how I keep our small group instruction time running smoothly. I’ve set these details up as solutions to common small group instruction problems or roadblocks.

Problem: My students do not transition quickly during small group instruction.

Solution: PowerPoint Transition Slide Deck

Use PowerPoint to create visual reminders for students. Saving these reminder slides on your computer and displaying them specificlly during the instructional time they are needed reduces the need for posters and clip charts that are only used for a short time during your school day.

I use this slide deck during Daily 5 and have a similar deck for Math Workshop. It is my absolute favorite classroom management tool. The deck is filled with slides that are connected by a series of timed transitions and sounds effects that signal when it is time for a brain break or for a new round of Daily 5 to begin. At the start of Daily 5, I simply click play and the slide deck keeps track of time, makes peaceful noises that signal when it’s time to transition (so much better than having to say it...the less we talk...the better), gives a visual countdown, and shows who should be working in the small group areas.  I’m not going to lie, creating this originally took me more time than I’d like to admit...but now that the templates are created, it takes less than five minutes to change small groups based on assessment results.

Problem: I work on different activities during small group instruction time each day and my students forget what they are supposed to bring to the small group area.

Solution: Visual Reminder Posters

Post a sign that informs students which activity they will work on each day, the supplies they need for that activity, and what they should do while they are waiting for their instruction to begin. Once again...save your voice for the important stuff...the less you have to use it for silly verbal reminders, the less likely you are to sound like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon.

I hang these signs on the whiteboard behind me near our mini lesson zone because each time my students meet with me, they need different supplies.

• Their own Word Pocket (for Words Their Way instruction on Monday)
• Their personalized book collection (for reading conferences on Tuesday, Wednesday) 
• Their personal Word Collector’s Notebook (for collecting words in context and their weekly mini assessment on Thursday, Friday). 

In honor of this blog post, I created a sign for the reading table where my aide hosts her small group instruction. This sign is simply a reminder that students should work in their Guided Reading Journal while they wait for other students to finish their reading in preparation for their group reading response activity. She uses guided reading books and literature circle books so students don’t need to bring anything with them when they visit her.

Problem: My system of using bins to store supplies for reading groups isn’t working.

Solution: Get smart with your classroom furniture. 

Find furniture that reduces classroom clutter and keeps you organized. This 5 Bin Storage Tower from The Container Store is an easy way to keep supplies together for your reading groups without having to deal with overflowing bins that create visual noise in your classroom. Each day, you can gather the supplies for the small groups you will be instructing and tuck everything out of sight once small group time is over.

In my classroom, this tower is used solely by my reading aide. To keep our storage tower optimally organized, I added a group label to each bin and have each group’s literature circle books and Guided Reading Journals inside. I keep student work out of folders because it removes an extra step when I need to quickly assess student work. If work is tucked inside a folder, I tend to forget about it…#teachertruth.

I would love to hear from you about any additional roadblocks you may be facing during your small group instruction time. Please also share your unique solutions to the roadblocks mentioned above. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Read Alouds We Love With Greg From The Kindergarten Smorgasboard

Hello everyone!  It's Mr. Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard!   I am super excited to share two of my favorite read alouds with you today!

I LOVE reading and books!   I love teaching reading!   I love seeing my students become readers and loving books.

As a kid, I couldn't read enough.  I used to get in trouble for reading under the blankets with a flashlight.  In 3rd grade, the librarian had to make a special rule just for me (Yeah...I've always been spoiled..) so I could check out reference books.  I'm also a big nerd and read the almanac! 

So sharing my favorite read alouds makes me glitter heart happy!

I'll start with one of my favorite books since I was a kid!

I remember the first time our teacher read this book to us.  I was hooked.  I have multiple copies in my classroom library and LOVE reading it to my kids!

After we read Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, we do some opinion writing and a fun art project!  With food of course!

Why yes, we GLUE Cheez-Its and Oyster Crackers and sprinkles onto our art work!

And since Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is my favorite book, I dress the part!

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is also great for teaching about compound words!  In the past, we've listed all of the compound words in the story!  

Now I want to share one of my newest favorite read alouds.

This one was an accidental discovery, but it is great for a read aloud and great for persuasive writing and debating skills!  (And arguing...let's be honest...)

The great message of this book is that we can all do things to make others feel special and important.  I love that!

But I love that the ending of the book is vague so it leaves the door open for research and debate.

(Short summary...cow is sad.  Chickens put egg under cow.  Egg hatches.  Says MOO!)  

So we debate if it's a cow or a chicken.  And of course, I play the devil's advocate and counter the arguments.  

"It's a chicken because it came from an egg!"

Me-"But it said moo."

This continues until things get heated.

Then we vote on whether we think it's a cow or chicken.

And then we write a persuasive argument for the cow or chicken!

Click here to get your free writing paper, graphing labels and recording sheet!

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