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!

My Lesson Planning Style {Core Inspiration by Laura Santos}

Words cannot describe how thrilled I am to share my first-ever post on Elementary Entourage! For those of you who don’t know me, I am Laura Santos from Core Inspiration. I currently teach second grade in California but have also taught third and fourth grade during my seven years in the classroom. Today, I am going to give you a peek into my ever-evolving lesson planning style.

For this first year ever, I am using a digital lesson plan book. I have tried so hard to take the leap to paperless planning for many years but always reverted back to a trusty paper plan book before the first day of school arrived. I am all about being eco-friendly and having remote access to my classroom, neither of which are supported by a paper plan book that never makes it past my classroom door.

This summer, I sat down an analyzed what was causing my paperless planning anxiety. I quickly realized that I had yet to find a format that truly fit my needs, so I decided it was time to design my own digital plan book.

To create this paperless plan book, I simply added a table to Google Slides, inserted the days of the week, added the most consistent time blocks in my classroom schedule, and started filling in my plans. I also added a little flair to help with my withdrawals from colorful pens and washi tape. If you would like to use my Google Slides plan book as a starting point for your own digital plan book, you can grab it here for free. 

My weekly lesson plans are guided by the long-term plan my team and I design at the end of each school year. Compared to my experience with planning during the summer, I find this end-of-year planning session results in more detailed and strategic decisions (without the side effect of summer brain invading our planning mojo). This session guides the creation of standards-based, cross curricular units that make our teaching more powerful and efficient.

Our year-long “Master Plan” makes weekly lesson planning quick and easy because I simply research the specific lessons to support the topics and units we are teaching that week. This frees up a lot of brainpower for creating enrichment activities for my advanced learners and curating reteaching materials for students that need extra support. If I’m lucky, I may even have an extra hour to gather my materials for the whole week and be uber-organized for a few minutes.  

One last feature I love about my personalized digital plan book is the “Master Mind” page. The three columns on this page are a lifesaver. 

Each time something does not go as perfectly as planned, I take note of it in the “Revise For Next Year” column to save my future self a little sanity. Anytime something happens that makes me feel like I’m floating on teacher cloud 9, I make a quick note of it in my “Remember for Next Year” column.  The “Do Now” column is filled with notes I copied from my “Remember For Next Year” and “Revise for Next Year Columns” from last year’s paper planner – so far my advice to myself is really paying off.

Today was our sixth day of school and I have not jumped the paperless planning ship yet…I may have finally converted! Would love to hear about your paperless planning struggles and victories in the comments below. Want a peek at some of my other organization tips? Swing by Core Inspiration for more.  

My Lesson Planning Style {Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten}

Hello friends!  Everyone has their own style when it comes to lesson planning and I like to be prepared before the school year starts, so my lesson planning style begins with long term planning! After my first year teaching kindergarten, I decided that it was time to lay out a plan for the following year.  Our district was big on creating your own curriculum and thus didn't have many "set" programs in place that followed a specific scope and sequence.  This was a blessing and a curse. As a new teacher it was difficult to constantly try to pull things together coherently, but at the same time the freedom to teach what and how I wanted was amazing! Here is a picture of the "Curriculum Calendar" I created for the month of September.

Now let me break it down for you in case you want to do something similar for yourself. Here is a better look at the first page:

Start with the dates
Some weeks are shorter so I like to have that listed at the top when I am planning out numbers of lessons, read alouds, etc I want to fit within that week.  This saves me from flipping through all of my other calendars as I plan.

Unit of Inquiry/Themes

Our district was moving towards an inquiry based approach to teaching in the content areas which I loved, but still had to put my kindergarten spin on it.  I always taught thematically.  I enjoyed it, the kids enjoyed it, so I tried to find a way to make that work with the inquiry model.  Here are the themes I used.


















Read Aloud

I always end the day with a read aloud.  As students pack up their bags and get ready to go, I begin reading.  This helps quiet students down so my room doesn't turn into a zoo.  It also gives me something purposeful to do for the last few minutes while students are being picked up for buses, or after school programs. I try to pick a chapter book that relates to the season or themes we are learning about. I choose frog and toad at the beginning of the year so that students get used to the routine with shorter chapters that often have a few pictures to share.  Later in the year I read Charlotte's web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.

Poem
I use a new poem each week to practice letter, sight words, concepts of print, and more.  On Mondays we read the poem together, students illustrate it and add it to a binder. Then we do a different activity with the poem each day.  Sometimes it is the same for all students sometimes I differentiate the task for students' needs.  Here are the poems that I use:

Daily 5/CAFE
I introduce one component of the daily 5 each week starting with week 2 of kindergarten. I list them for myself so I know what to plan for and focus on.

Comprehension
Our district had a partnership with Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis so we used their Comprehension Toolkits, which were FABULOUS for focusing on specific comprehension skills. The lessons referenced are from that toolkit.  Underneath the lesson is a second concept that I would focus on throughout the week. This concept came from the CAFE menus by the 2 sisters. I tried as much as possible to have the 2 comprehension skills closely related so that they worked together in my teaching.

Accuracy/Fluency/Vocabulary
During my Daily Five rotations I have time for 3 mini lessons daily so I rotate the focus of each of these mini lessons between comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary. I made this schedule for myself so that I'd know what type of lesson I was fitting in where.

The topics you see on the curriculum calendar come from the CAFE menu again, our list of letters (from No More Letter of the Week), sight words (district list), or our kindergarten word family list.

On to page 2...

Writing Workshop
We use the Units of Study from Lucy Calkins for teaching writing so these are pretty straight forward.  We try to teach 2-3 lessons a week because several lessons take more than one day and/or require reteaching.

Class Books
I LOVE making class books with my students.  They are great for fluency and repeated readings and the kids are always motivated to do their best.  I usually squeeze in 1-2 a week when they relate to read alouds/shared readings.

Math Unit/Focus
Again we moved away from a packaged curriculum and focused on writing our own units of study.  So while we of course spiral review throughout the year, especially during calendar time, we choose at the kindergarten level to focus on one topic at a time. In September we start with Counting and Cardinality (Number Sense).  As  grade level we choose the concepts from the common core that we would address each week and created lessons from there.

Math Vocabulary/Graph/Journals
I use a workshop model for math in my classroom and it runs exactly as my daily five rotations do with 3 mini lessons within each daily math block. I rotate the focus of each of these mini lessons between vocabulary, graphing, and journaling.  These are the graphs and journals I use in my classroom.

Math Stations
I use Debbie Diller's Math Workstation model for my math centers. Each week I introduce 5 new stations.  I do not get rid of the stations from the previous week however, so I usually have 10-15 stations students can choose from each day.  Students make their own station choices so they meet with me in a group fro one rotation and choose 2 other centers to work on for the other rotations.  The centers I use are available here.

Last, I list anything important such as field trips or testing on the bottom as a reminder to myself. Keep in mind that these plans were a work in progress over 5 years, and they got several huge updates every year.  The nice thing is that I have them printed out for myself and make notes on them throughout the year so that I can make changes to pacing and things that did/didn't work! Hopefully this was helpful, if you are tackling year long plans, good luck!

Fresh Ideas 2015 {Amber from The Sunny Side of Second Grade}

Hi friends! Welcome back to our blog!! To finish up this month I have a question for ya. What do you do to keep your small groups dynamic?

We are all familiar with the importance of data. My literacy coach, she's the best in my opinion, has really taught me how to analyze data. Of course I am talking about our very own Dianna Radcliff. She has taught me how look at my data and arrange my groups that meets the needs of all students.

This led me to create a visual schedule to help manage the several groups I pull during the span of one day.

I take this schedule a bit further with each of the plan pages you see below. This week was the first full week I implemented this new scheduling and planning system... and it went beautifully. I took it to my team and urged them to take another look at their schedules to see where they could provide more intensive support.

Next to having your schedule and planning pages prepared is having your materials prepared. Below you will see some snapshots of how I organize my small group area for ease of access.

{Organize small group tools into baskets - writing, math, reading, and phonics}

{Organize your units and resources into binders for easy access}

{Label classroom library by genre with your guided reading sets labeled separately}

{Arrange weekly materials and group books and lesson plans in drawers or bins}

So my fresh idea is to revamp your small groups. Try to analyze your data at least once quarterly and keep your groups dynamic, or always changing. Your data changes...and so should your groups.

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Fresh Ideas for 2015 plus a GIVEAWAY {For a Love of Teaching}

Hey everyone! It's Kim here from For a Love of Teaching! I'm here today to share with you some Fresh Ideas for 2015! I know by this point in the school year we are all noticing a few things we'd like to do differently, or if you're like me you've pinned a few hundreds of ideas on Pinterest that makes you scream, "I've got to do this!" Here at The Elementary Entourage, it's our goal to share with you some fresh ideas and inspiration to get you through the rest of the school year. Check back each day from now until the end of January for new tips, tricks, and ideas that we've each tried or would like to try in our classrooms. Hopefully, they'll bring inspiration to you, too! Stick around, because there's a very special giveaway at the end! :)

I have one problem this year that is driving me crazy!!! It's called, "THE NO NAME PAPER!" For some reason, the class I have this year is famous for leaving their name off their paper. I'm used to having one or maybe two students do this on a regular basis, and I'm even pretty good at recognizing handwriting by this point in the year. However, this year is an exception! No matter how many times I remind my students, I still get home with a handful of papers to grade with NO NAME!

I found this meme from Tracy Orman that I loved! (You can find her post on using memes in the classroom here.)  I posted it beside my turn in drawers. My 4th graders instantly loved it! However, I still have those pesky NO NAME PAPERS every week!

So, I searched Pinterest once again for this cute little highlighter idea I had seen a while back. 

This brilliant idea came from Elizabeth over at Fun in Room 4B. I remembered seeing it and thinking - what a great idea! I have no clue why I've never tried this before, but I'm now in the process of finding cute ribbon and making labels. I'm hoping this will do the trick and solve my problem!

Here's an idea I love that actually came from one of my best friends that I'm lucky enough to teach with, too!  Monica from NC Teacher Chick saw this on Pinterest last summer and immediately went to the Dollar Store to pick up baskets that would fit inside her student's desks. Her desks are now so neat and organized! 

Lose papers, pencils, sharpeners, etc. are neatly placed in these baskets. No more messy desks with papers sticking out of the sides and coming out the front! The image above comes from a photo tour of Amy's classroom from What Happens in First Grade.  She has some great ideas! This one just happens to be next on my fresh ideas list to implement this year!

Here's another idea I've not only seen on Pinterest, but also from other teachers in my school.

This idea came from Rebecca over at Create Teach Share, and I love them!  I'm constantly struggling with displaying student work in the classroom or the hallway. I love bulletin boards, but I hate changing them constantly. A few teachers in my school decided to make some of these and then hot glue them to the wall outside of their classroom. They easily change student work without the hassle of staples or tape. You can also hang these on a clothesline in the classroom. No more ripped papers from staples, and your bulletin boards don't have to be changed constantly! I love the chalkboard look, which just so happens to fit my classroom theme perfectly! These will more than likely be my next snow day project!

I hope you've enjoyed my fresh ideas! Come back for more inspiration during the month of January.  We have so much to share! 

Here's the best part!  The Elementary Entourage is hosting an amazing giveaway for one of my favorite laminators! This Scotch Thermal Laminator is perfect for the classroom and all your fresh idea projects. It even comes with 100 extra laminating sheets! Be sure to enter below to WIN! 

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