Hi all, Lol...my questions come in swarms...sometimes I dont start a thread for a while...then soemtimes I have like 3 questions a day! I just got evaluated yesterday and Im kind of nervous about it...mainly because I know Im not spending nearly enough time on reading. Im trying to get a block of time put in somewhere where I can have the time to do it....but while I work with Guided Reading groups in the back, I want to find ways to keep the rest of the class quietly working on their own at centers (or anything else if you have some idea...aslong as it ties into academics). What do you do during Guided Reading time? What centers do you ues and how do you come up with things for them to do? Thanks a ton! Ryan
first of all what grade do you teach. If you are like third grade or so then you can get a magnetic easel with the magnetic words and little letters and have them put together short little two or three sentence stories in groups of 3 that can be done pretty quietly, I believe kids need interaction with each other during lessons to share ideas and help one another. there is also a game that we used in one of my education class. It goes like this, what ever story you are reading in groups of 4 to five they sit in circles and one person gets up and without words or noises Acts out one of the characters or something a character did or they can draw 3 clues as to who they have chosen then the other students write down who they think the person is trying to get them to guess. who ever gets it right goes next. Another thing I have seen done is you have a sheet that has a few general words on it, a, and, the, ect. and you get plastic eggs and in each egg you put 2 laminated words. they don't have to connect, they could be key words or spelling words, each child gets two eggs from the basket and tries to make a many sentences out of their 4 words and the free words form the page as they possibly can logically. This is all I have for now if I think of any more I will post them.
They can write acrostic poems. Put spelling words in ABC order. Look up information on a topic. Find phone numbers of business in your area. Plan a dinner for their family. Give them the sale paper from a grocery store and have them find out how much it would cost to buy the items for their dinner. Find 10 contraction, proper nouns, adjectives, or what ever part of speech your working on, in a book they are reading. Have them find 10 words in a book they are reading and with a thesaurus find the synonym or antonym of the word. They can take a paper plate and divide it into fourths. They can practice sequencing by retelling a book. They write a sentence or paragraph and draw a picture. They can recreate a scene from their book by using any scrap materials you have (construction paper, Popsicle sticks, cotton balls) They can create a time line of their life. They can write interview questions for a character in a book. A partner must answer the questions as the character would. Hope this helps!!!!!!
My practicum teacher had a 3rd grade class. She would do two groups of guided reading every day while a resource teacher came in and worked with a 3rd group. Some of the students in the 3rd group came from other classes too. The students who were not in the groups would work on idependent reading, AR tests, or possibly even an ongoing assignment from writer's workshop. it always worked really well. the only trouble that we ever experienced with it was either too many people at the computer for the ar tests (i.e. observers) or the students getting slightly too loud. but a word of warning would always get the students back to their desks or quietened down.
I have a 90 minute block for reading... I usually do 20-30 min of whole group 50-60 min of centers (1 group is the anchor group at their seats, another is at the rug working on their own on an activity, another works with me, and my rigor group (independent) works on a book contract/works on a project. The kids rotate every 20 minutes or so. approx 10 min of spelling (depending on the day) I have been trying to come up w/ some different ideas- -newspaper activities (have them summarize a article you cut out, match headlines to photos & articles etc) -I spy (cut out pictures from magazines, and have them do writings w/ them). -webquests -flip books for vocabulary -putting words in abc order -read a novel & do a book study I have websites that give more information, and hard copies of the activity explanations on my school computer. If anyone would like it emailed, feel free to pm me your addy.
