I've Got Character....Traits!

We are half way through October and it has already been the busiest month yet!  I have.not.stopped.  Here is what has happened in the past week...

Last Thursday was one of my best days yet in my new position.  I spent my day doing what I love, planning out curriculum!  That is one great thing about my new job.  I get to spend time at work planning!  Thursday I went to another school in my district and helped them plan Reading Workshop for their 3rd graders.  It was great sitting down with other teachers and talking curriculum!  (Only a teacher would find that enjoyable!)  We worked on getting their unit on book series up and running.  My tip to any teachers that are planning on using Calkins book series units, make sure you have several copies of multiple books in a series.  So suggestions for 3rd grade would be

Over the years I have learned that in order for children to become better readers, they need to practice reading.  This year with the Common Core standards, I am ecstatic that all students are allowed and expected to read independently for longer stretches of time.  I love using the Reading workshop to teach reading skills and Calkins character unit is superb!  When  I taught this unit in 3rd grade, we used the book Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo as my mentor text throughout this whole unit.  I made a poster with Opal in the middle and came up with all kinds of traits to describe her.  We kept this poster up all unit.  Several times throughout the unit we would add new traits that came up as the book progressed.  This was great because I was able to have discussions with my students about how characters change.

 Here are a few anchor charts from this unit (ignore my shoes! I had to stand on a chair to get the pic!)

 We also included discussions on Flat and Round characters.  I created these posters of them that we used on an anchor chart.  These really helped my students begin to see how a character is important to the story and that minor characters support the main character.  Pick up yours here for free!

The second grade teachers at my school have been working on the Writing Workshop unit about Authors as Mentors and used Kevin Henkes as their mentor author.  To tie this into their character study, they used Lilly from Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.

They used Lilly as their character map.  After really studying about how Lilly acted, they had their students draw pictures of themselves and add words around them that describe them.  I love looking at these as I go down the hall!

Well I'm off to do a model Kinder lesson on pumpkins!  Wish me luck!  For all your Kinder people out there, this is new territory for me....check back later to see how it went!

Feebie Friday - The Last of 2011!!!

I LOVE Freebie Friday!!!  And couldn't wait to participate in the final one of 2011.  I have a sweet Reading Comprehension poster to share with all my bloggy friends.

Make sure you check out all the Freebies and load up on them today!  I will also be looking for new blogs to follow!

Reading Poster Give Away

I previously posted about my sweet Reading Comprehension posters that I have made while on break.  I changed a few things on them to make them even more colorfu; AKA fun!  Here is a quick preview of a few of them.

While I was checking out my friend, Amber's blog Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher, I saw that she was giving away her new math posters.  So I decided to have my own giveaway.  Check out Amber's sweet math posters and get them while you can!

 In honor of all my new bloggy friends I have decided to give these away for, wait for it...FREE!!!!  All you have to do is follow my blog (if you don't already do so!), follow my TpT store and leave a comment below.  Do all this by January 5th and I will send you a copy of the file with all 6 posters to your email!  It is already up on my TpT store for $4, but why pay that when you can get them free!!!

Anchor Reading and Writing with Awesome Charts

I have been using anchor charts for a few years now, but this year I am really into them. I have some awesome new sharpie poster markers that really help the posters pop! (thanks to my awesome teammate, Erica!) To help my students really understand a skill I am teaching, I find that if I draw pictures that go with the text, they seem to grasp the concept better. The only problem is...I am a HORRIBLE artist! My kids know that I am not very confident, but continue to tell me that I'm doing a good job. (its so sweet of them to lie!) I am using these anchor charts in both reading and writing workshop. After we finish using them in our weekly lessons, I move them to an open wall in our classroom to allow students to access them all year long.

This is my first year doing the writing workshop, and it is a brand new learning experience for me! I am constantly learning new things about myself as a writing instructor. I am a great writer, but find that it is one of the most difficult things to teach. The workshop model has been a great help with that. The anchor charts are there to help students remember the key points of the lesson taught that day. This helps me and my students recall what was taught on any specific day.
If you haven't use anchor charts in your classroom before, I encourage you to do so in the near future. Let me know if you have questions, or need resources, I am always happy to share!