Revisit, Remind, Review

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I can't believe how fast the holiday break went. I enjoyed my time off spending time with my three boys. We went on a 7 day cruise aboard the Norwegian Spirit and visted Costa Maya, Belize, Roatan and Cozumel. On a positive note may I just say, I love the beach!!! On a negative note- I don't think I would advise anyone to take two 3 1/2 year olds on a cruise. My twin boys had the most meltdowns ever. However, this past week I spent a lot of time with my boys and catching up on housework. I also took some time for myself on Friday and did a little shopping. Now the holiday break is up and I am anxiously awaiting Monday's arrival. My brain of course is spinning with ideas and I am begining to stress over state testing that is soon approaching.

So, what does next week entail? I will revisit, remind and review rules, procedures and expectations for my version of the "Daily Five". Not sure if I should even call it that since I kind of do my own thing. I'll let you judge!

My goal for the remainder of the year is to implement my version of the "Daily Five" or centers during the last 30 minutes of the ELA block. I believe I said this at the beginning of the year and it started out well, but with the pressure of testing and intervals I lost time and then it dwindled away. So, I am starting again and I believe with the help of my new student teacher we can make this successful, student driven and highly engaging as it was once before.

So, my plan for this coming week, during the 30 minute time block after lunch till we switch classes, is to review the rules and guidelines of the centers each day, and model and have them practice. Hopefully, by the following week they will be ready to jump in and just need a few reminders. They will go to one center a day five days a week.

Here is a run down on the Centers

1. Read to Self - (I am going to review on Monday)

On Monday, I will use SuperFudge by Judy Blume to model. I would like to teach students how to really analyze what they read using sticky notes to note things they learned, questions they may have, and things that are interesting. I will model this using a chapter from the Superfudge book. Then model how to write a summary of the pages read and then use a sentence starter to make a connection. Life in 4B has a wonderful anchor chart describing how she does this with her students. I am borrowing it! Then hopefully if I don't talk to much they will have a chance to practice.

2. Work on Writing- (Tuesday)

On Tuesday, I will review rules and guidelines for work on writing. They have had lots of practice with writing for homework, and on our kidblogs. So, I will just let them practice and if they are done early they will continue reading their Superfudge book and respond.

I am using a writing lesson from the book Notebook Know How Strategies for the Writers' Notebook by Aimee Buckner. I just purchased this book and it is wonderful. Anyone else read this book and implement practices?

3. Netbooks (Wednesday)

On Wednesday, I will review the rules and guidelines for Netbooks. Students will have three things to accomplish during this center. First, they will log into Edmodo and post a question about the story for the week and answer at least one question from a classmate. Next, they will begin a new blog post on one of the following topics Goals, Passion, Family, Choice, Favorite Subject, Sport, or hobby. They must start with a hook and write at least 5 sentences about their topic. We will practice this on paper on Wednesday. Finally, once they complete Edmodo and Kidblog they can go to Spellingcity.com using their vocabulary words for the week.


The next two centers will be guided practice with the teacher. The first center is guided reading practice which will consist of reviewing the reading skill for the week with the students using a short passage for them to independently read and analyze. The second center will be a guided writing center to assist them with editing their writing.

I use a lot of resources and passages from the site Read Works I will most likely use the short passages from the site to practice previous, current and past skills. During guided reading practice students should be reading silently and analyzing what they read with the guidance of the teacher- hence the name guided reading pratice. I would like them to use their sticky notes during this time.

During the guided writing center students will come with their writing folders to peer conference, edit, use dictionaries and thesauruses to make their writing better.

4. Guided Reading Center

5. Guided Writing Center

So, there it is my plan for revisiting, reminding and reviewing.