Hidden Treasure Tuesday #2

It is time for another edition of "Hidden Treasure Tuesday"! 

For those of you who missed the explanation, feel free to visit my explanation post here. And don't forget to snag the first "hidden treasure" while you are there ;)!

This week, I am bringing you an oldie but goodie management tool that I used during my Daily 5 stations last year to assist my students in solving problems independently and thus avoid interruptions during my time with groups!

This anchor chart is one that I had hanging up all year above my guided reading table for my students' to reference. (I promise I will break it down in English as well!)

The chart outlines the variety of ways that I had presented to my students at the beginning of the year as to how to solve a problem on their own without wasting their or my precious learning time!

The chart is titled "What can I do if there is a problem during centers?"

The question directly below is "Is it an emergency?"

This is the first question my students had to ask themselves in working to solve the problem. 

If so, (blood, flood, vomit, ya know the works) then they would follow the red "¡Si!" step and find the teacher immediately.

If the child answers "No", then green means go and they must work to follow one of the following other suggestions on the poster to solve the problem without interrupting my group session.

1. "Pregunta a tres, y a la maestra después./Ask three before me.":

I encouraged my students to utilize one another as resources. Generally, if they had a question about a center activity, how to operate something, spell a word, etc. there was a peer that could help them as well as or sometimes even better than I could!

Fonts/Graphics: Scrappin Doodles, Print Candee, Kevin & Amanda

I had this poster hanging on my board throughout the year as well, as this was a strategy I did not only use for centers, but throughout the entire day. I really wanted them to use one another as resources! You can grab it for free in Spanish (as shown) or English too by clicking on the image!

2. "Escribo mi problema en una nota adhesiva,/I write my problem on a Post-It note.":

I had a pad of Post-It notes readily available on my desk all school year. I told the students that if there was a problem that they would like me to resolve that was not an emergency (something broke, iPod died, ran out of paper, etc.) that they could jot me a quick note, and I would then see it at my nearest convenience and work to resolve it as soon as possible. This worked really well as it not only let them feel that they were getting the information to me, but also the Post-Its served as a constant reminder that something needed to get done or resolved and I kept them sticking there until it was done. I find that if the students just tell me something throughout the day I may forget, so the Post-its are a great visual tool!

3. "Uso mi 'voz de grande'. Use my 'Big Voice'.":

The "Big Voice" is a concept I gleaned from "Conscious Discipline". It is a strategy for helping students to solve problems with their peers in an efficient manner as well as independently without always having to seek out teacher assistance. At the beginning of each school year, I read the text "Shubert's Big Voice" which teaches the students how to use this "Big Voice". More or less the idea is that the student shares with another what it is they have a problem with by stating "I don't like it when you...." and then go on to share what they would like the outcome to be. For example, "I don't like it when you talk loudly during our station time with friends, please use your quiet voice so that I can concentrate on my work". The other child should then respond with an acknowledgement of what the peer is stating and stop the problem behavior. We role play this a ton at the beginning of the year, after the reading the text to prep them for using it on their own!

4. "Voy a mi próximo centro./I go to my next center."

The premise of this idea is basically just that at times, particularly with technology in the mix, things might not always work and we must be flexible. If there weren't enough computers for some reason or an iPod died, etc. my students knew that they could just go ahead and head to the next station to begin working and that they would make it back there in the next round when there were sufficient materials/items were working again. This in no way gave them the opportunity to skip around centers as they pleased, but the okay to move ahead if need be so that learning was still being done :)!

What are some tricks of the trade that you have in place to minimize interruptions and increase student independence during your station time? I always appreciate adding ideas to my bank!

Daily 5 Station Ideas

Each Monday we collaborate with our building's new and Dual Language staff members for a professional development session based on what they highlight as their needs and/or desires for learning!

This week we focused on Daily 5 ideas as all of our staff are currently working hard to get their stations and guided reading up and running! The teachers who attending the session came up with a variety of wonderful ideas and activities that could potentially be used throughout the year in these work stations. I thought some of you may enjoy taking a gander at what they came up with as well!

Just a little background... we utilized a strategy many of you may be familiar with called "Round Robin" to gather ideas during our meeting. The staff were given the anchor charts with only the titles and asked to add any activity ideas they were doing, would like to do, etc. based on the title on their paper. We gave each group 1 minute to brainstorm and write their ideas, and then they were asked to pass the poster to the next group. We continued to do this until all posters had made it to all groups. 

This is a great strategy that you could use with your students as well to assess their background knowledge and/or learning of concepts. You could even do it at the beginning of the year to see what activities they already know and enjoy doing during Daily 5 if they are familiar with it from the year past! This may give you some insight as to what they may want to do in your classroom as well!

Alright now onto the posters...keep in mind these were quickly written by our staff and we discussed them a bit after as well, so not everything may make perfect sense! But feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have any and I would be happy to try my best to answer!

After our meeting, I also took some time to type up all of their ideas onto one page for them to hold on to and refer to throughout the year. You are welcome to a copy if you'd like- just click on the image below :)!

(Graphics: Scrappin Doodles, Priscilla Concepcion)

Roll a Fairy Tale

Today we went as a school to see a performance of "Into the Woods" at a local high school. For those of you that are not familiar with the show, it is a show comprised of a mix of different fairy tales. Thus, I found it to be a perfect opportunity to embark on a short fairy tale unit in class!

We spent the past week and a half learning about fairy tale characteristics and analyzing several fairy tales in search of examples of these elements. 

Your Spanish lesson for the day :)

Cenicienta = Cinderella, Blancanieves = Snow White, Juan y los frijoles mágicos = Jack and the Beanstalk

After the show today, we then worked to learn a new activity that I will be placing in our "Work on Writing" center, called "Roll a Fairy Tale".  The purpose of this activity is for students to select the various story elements necessary to write their own fairy tale. The kicker is the story elements will be determined by the roll of a die!

Here are the pages necessary for the activity:

1. The elements sheet (it comes in English too :)). Students will roll a die four times, once for each category to determine which they will use to create their fairy tale.

2. They will then create their story on this writing page complete with a fairy tale intro! (It comes in Spanish too :))

I copy the pages back to back so that the students can refer to the planning page while they write. I also ask my students to circle the elements after rolling the die so they remember what they need to use.

Here are some examples of my own students' writing from today in class. They did a great job for their first stab at it!

(Once upon a time there was a boy names Bob and his mom Ally, the queen. They lived in a castle and his mother told him to do everything that she told him to do. His mom then told him to go outside to pick flowers and when he went outside he saw a magic wand and he used it to make all of his dreams come true and he lived "happily ever after".)

I had to include this next one too because it just cracks me up...ohh a second graders sense of humor..

PS. One of my native English speaker's wrote this one!

(Once upon a time there was a princess named Mrs. Toots-a-lot (I kid you not this is what he wrote ;)). But an old woman wanted the princess for herself because the princess was very beautiful. One day the princess saw a magic ninja and the ninja did not like the old woman either. So both took all of the food from the old woman and the old woman died. Then they lived happily ever after!). 

Grab a copy of the activity for your classroom for free by clicking on the image below.

Book Recommendations

One of the options that my students have in their "Read to Self" center is to write a book recommendation. It is just a short and sweet way for them to share what they are reading and enjoying with others (and it is a quick way for me to check in with what they are reading as well!). 

In our classroom library hanging on the wall we have our "What do you recommend?" board. This is where the students post their recommendations. I have it located in the library so that they can check it out when they book shop to see if there is anything they would like to check out!

Here is what the recommendations look like up close filled out by a few of my kiddos...

English

and Spanish (I have them printed back to back so they can decide based on the language of the book they are reading)

One thing I would highly recommend if you want quality "reasons for recommending" is to create an anchor chart and brainstorm with your students some good reasons/examples of why one may recommend a book. We did this (I meant to snap a photo of the chart...sorry for my failure!) and it really helped to boost their reasoning beyond because it was good or interesting, etc.

One other thing to note, is that I have my library organized by genre for the most part and then a few baskets mixed in with Dr. Seuss or Clifford books, etc. Thus, my students have the option of writing the genre or basket name depending on what makes more sense. I have left this option for you as well as created some with just "genre" and some with just "basket" as an option to hopefully accomodate for different library set ups.

Snag a free copy of this book recommendation that we use in both English and Spanish by clicking on the image below:

(Font: Kevin and Amanda, Border: Creative Clips)

"Super Five" Bookmarks

Another "Monday Made It"...gosh I love these days! The ideas you all come up with are just so much fun (...and at times detrimental to my checkbook ;)). 

So this past week I finished up "Super Five/Súper Cinco" Bookmarks for my kiddos next year. (Super Five is my version of "The Daily Five" based on the book "The Daily Five" by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser).

Here is the finished product...with a little explanation for everybody:

I am hoping since my kiddos have never done the "The Daily Five" before (they are used to centers), that it will give them (...and me for that matter) a little more structure in starting the process, while still having some choice in the matter as well. 

Here are the bookmarks in English and Spanish for "Super Five" or "Súper Cinco" if you'd like to make your own copy. (You will need to add an accent to the Spanish version on "Súper" as the font I used would not allow it, and for some reason I just could not get a line small enough to suffice.) The font is Kevin & Amanda and Graphics are from Scrappin' Doodles.

Here is also a version of the bookmarks for "The Daily Five" or "Diariamente Cinco" if you prefer this over the super themed ones.