What Your Teacher's Guide Won't Tell You About Comprehension

Hi there!  It's Hannah from The Classroom Key.   Do you ever feel like your kids are drowning in all the reading strategies and terms you have taught them?  When you ask for the main idea of a text, do they just give you a one word answer?  Or do they launch into a full summary?


One of the first reading strategies I teach is finding the main idea.  Then later we also talk about summarizing... and along with summarizing comes identifying story elements... and some assessments ask students to identify the topic of a text... and on, and on!  Geeze, my head is spinning already!

What your reading series teacher's guide (if you even have one!) won't tell you, is that kids need a way to organize those strategies and terms in their heads!  It may be that your students are good comprehenders but they're getting lost in the terminology.  This can be especially problematic on assessments when you can't prompt them for less or more information. 

Enter: a solution!  This chart shows how some of the most common reading comprehension terms and strategies relate to one another.  

Notice the bottom of the pyramid is the whole text.  This is the maximum amount of information.  Next is a summary which offers a little less information.  Up higher is the major story elements (characters, setting, problem, and solution) or content from text features (for nonfiction) which is less information still.  Then comes the main idea which is probably just a sentence or two.  Finally at the very top is the topic which would only be one or two words.  

If you ask your students to identify the main idea and they start launching into a summary, draw their attention to this chart to define the difference.  Conversely, if you ask for the main idea of a text and a student says "owls," you can point out how a one word answer would be the topic, but a main idea statement gives a little bit more information.  

Click the picture to download the chart and also a black and white version you can copy for students! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Hannah

Clip art in this post comes from the talented Sarah Pecorino.

Fall-themed Books to Inspire Learning

Hi everyone!  It's Anita from Primary "Teach"spiration.

Today marks the beginning of fall.  Yeah!  I love the fall season!

Do you have your classroom library stocked with plenty of fall-themed books?   There are some good ones about fall out there that can inspire some great learning opportunities.

I have selected twelve books to help inspire your primary students to enjoy the fall season and extend the reading into some great learning activities.

Some of the informational books, like Awesome Autumn by Bruce Goldstone, might lead to the science behind leaf changes, why birds migrate in fall, and much more.  

There are the magical books, like By the Light of the Harvest Moon by Harriett Ziefert, that are a pure delight. These types of books set the stage for students to extend the fall theme into craft and/or writing activities.

Other books, many humorous, are purely for the enjoyment of a good read.  And, we all know, kids love funny.

Then there are books that lead to math and literacy learning activities, such as Counting on Fall and Autumn:An An Alphabet Acrostic.

Counting on Fall by Lizann Flatt is one in a series of books that highlights math concepts in nature.  Read this book before going on a nature hunt.  Then have the kids extend the learning with some fall-themed math activities.

Although I don't show it here, having the kids use items from the
nature walk for the manipulatives would be even better.

Autumn:An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur is a perfect lead-in for teaching poetry and reviewing ABC order, along with fall-themed literacy activities. 

Click HERE to read more about the books I've mentioned and the rest of them in this collection.

Happy Fall!

                                

All About Me Writing

Happy Monday, friends! It's Lisa from over at Second Grade Stories with a writing idea for getting to know your students these first few weeks of school. Although we might do a little bit of writing the first few days of school, I like to save any writing I'm going use as a sample for after my kiddos have gotten adjusted a bit.  The first real writing piece we do is an "All About Me" expository text.  I have found that my kiddos come into second grade with a pretty good grasp of the basic format of writing an informational piece (thanks, grade one teachers!) - topic sentence, 3 details and a closing sentence. My main goal for this little project is to just review what they have learned in first grade, see a little of their writing and most importantly - get to know my kiddos!

I did this activity last year and I really learned quite a bit about my new friends. (You can read my original post over on my blog {HERE.} We started with a read-aloud (of course!) that set the stage for "we are all special." Last year I read, I Like Myself. This year I might try one of my new beginning of the year books! (You can click {HERE} to see some new titles I found.) Then we brainstormed a little about ourselves and recorded our ideas on a simple brainstorm sheet.

      

Next, we chose 3 ideas and used them to create an "All About _______" flip book. Here are some samples from last year's kiddos.

I put all the sheets into a little freebie you can download by clicking on the image below.

Last year we stopped there, but this year I might do things a little differently. Still using a simple brainstorming sheet, I might take things one step further and use an informational writing graphic organizer to plan our writing. Then I can decide, depending on my group of kiddos (kids don't start until this Wednesday for us!), if I want to try having them take their writing from the organizer to a more formal writing piece.

These sheets are from my August/September "Writing Workout" resource. There are brainstorming sheets, graphic organizers and themed writing paper for an "all about me" themed writing piece. This way, I can really tie into the format of an expository piece, while choosing a topic that everyone can be invested in. What second grader doesn't want to write about him or herself?! (You can download these pages by clicking on the image above.)

Building community is so important at the beginning of the year, and getting to know each other better helps develop those bonds. By waiting until my students have settled in before tackling our first writing piece, I feel I get a better sense of what everyone can really do. How about you? Do you wait to start your writing samples, or do you use something from the first day? What topics do you write about?

Lori Flaglor- What's the Buzz about Collective Nouns?

Hi everyone it's me again, 
Lori Flaglor with another blog post for Show-N-Tell Saturday. If you missed my last blog entry "Let's Create Memories" click here. Like everyone else, I'm getting ready to head back to school and I am thinking about teaching all of those Common Core Standards. One of the new standards for 2nd grade is Collective Nouns. Well I can tell you, I had never taught or heard about Collective Nouns before, but I have to admit it, it is one of my favorite lessons now. 
  SO, let me share with you the BUZZ... about Collective Nouns!

    I began my hunt for materials on Collective Nouns by visiting my good friend our school librarian. She had a wonderful assortment of books about Collective Nouns. Pictured above are a few of the ones our school owns. My favorite book to start my lesson is Have You Ever Seen a Smack of Jellyfish? by Sarah Asper-Smith.  I like to read the book to the children and then afterwards have them brainstorm all of the Collective Nouns they heard in the story and make a chart with their answers.

   Next, I like to discuss the difference between Nouns and Collective Nouns. I have them sort these adorable bee cards that contain words onto the correct bee hive. When we complete the sorting activity together, they will complete an interactive journal page very similar to the word sort activity to check for understanding.

 The next day I would introduce my Collective Noun mini-book and review many of the concepts from the day before. We will continue to work on this mini-book for several days.

 During the course of the week I would have the children work on the learning centers to deepen their understanding of Collective Nouns. Finally, I would do a simple assessment with an interactive journal page.*Download a copy of this interactive journal page for FREE by clicking here and opening up my PREVIEW page.

  You could totally get carried away with teaching about Collective Nouns! Wouldn't it be great to make an ABC class book on Collective Nouns? You could assign each child a letter of the alphabet and they could write and illustrate a page. Put the pages together and VOILA, you would have your own Collective Noun book.
  Also, I have found a great FREE site that has beautiful coloring pages featuring Collective Nouns. Click here to check it out.

   Love what you see, and want to get started with Collective Nouns? Just check out my product and see what the BUZZ is all about!

 

Click here for product. 

Thanks for visiting this page. I would love to hear from you, so don't forget to leave me a comment!

 Happy Teaching!

Lori Flaglor

Bucket Filling with Lauren Lynes

Hey there! Lauren Lynes here from Simply Second Grade! I am here today to do some "show and tell" about bucket filling! If you haven't done this in your classroom, you must! My team teaching partner and I spend a great deal of time on bucket filling and building our classroom community. If we only teach our students one thing, it is that we want them to be kind, caring, and empathetic towards others. And I can truly say that every year, our students really take care of each other, and that we become a family.

To kick off bucket filling, you will want one of these books; or if you are like me, you will have both :)

After we read and discuss the book of choice, we like to demonstrate how hurtful words or actions can't be taken back, no matter how many times we say sorry. We do this using a tube of toothpaste! As students give examples of "bucket dippers," we squeeze some toothpaste onto a plate. After the toothpaste is all squeezed out, we call students up and have them try to put the toothpaste back in the tube using a toothpick. It is really hard to do, and we can never get all the toothpaste back in... just like we can't take back hurtful words or actions. 

Next, we make two anchor charts--bucket dippers and bucket fillers. Our class always decides that we should throw away the bucket dipper chart and only display our bucket filler chart!

We also have our students do this bucket filling/bucket dipping sort. 

And to make sure our students are "bucket fillers" all year long, we have a little station where students can fill each other's buckets. All you need are some library pockets! These will serve as your students' "buckets." Then throughout the week, they can write kind notes to each other to fill each other's buckets!! 

You can find bucket filling slips and other bucket filling activities here :) If you've never done bucket filling in your classroom, you should try it out! You won't regret it! I hope everyone has a FABULOUS year!

Summer Pen Pals

Hi, everyone!  It's Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars to share a great tip to keep kids reading and writing all summer long!

A few years ago my son's best friend at the time moved a thousand miles away.  He wanted a way to keep in touch with him.  We decided that writing letters to and from each other would help them keep in touch.  I couldn't find any good stationary for him to use, so we made some to go with his tastes.  He loves sports, so we chose a sports theme for the stationary.  Here is what we came up with.

Click on the picture to download your copy!

Since letter writing is a part of our second grade curriculum, this would be something easy for all of your students (or own  children) to engage in over the summer.  You could pair two students up to write to each other or even have them write letters to you.  My teachers always did that with me when I was in school.  They could write about books they are reading or even about something new they have learned over the summer.  The possibilities are endless! 

Here are some more stationary templates you could easily use.

Click on the picture to download your copy!

Enjoy your summer!  I know that I will and have started to already!

Easy End of the Day Summary Activity

Hi! It's Bex here from Reading and Writing Redhead!

I have a fun tip for you that you can probably use during the upcoming school year. It is an easy routine to implement, does not take long and for a small activity does a lot!

This is My Week is an end of the day activity I do with my second graders. Each day they write about what happened (at the beginning of the year I model, we brainstorm 3 ideas together, they copy one...then they move to writing one sentence independently and later, two or more!) and at the end of the week they bring it home and it is a great communication tool for students and their parents. My students usually like to read their sentences aloud which is fun and while they are writing it allows me a minute or two to do an end of the day task myself.

This activity works on writing, spelling, grammar, organizing ideas, and if students read it aloud, reading, expression, and by the middle of the year, students are usually finding errors and editing it, too! I imagine you could modify it for use with first grade, and third grade and up to!

You can click  here to see it and if you like it download! Here is what it looks like. Clicking on the image below takes you to TPT to download it. It is FREE by the way!

Free Wearable Learning

Hola! We're Nicole and Eliceo Sanchez from www.NicoleAndEliceo.com and we feel honored to be a part of this new collaborative kindergarten blog. Since we began the journey of designing this blog and recruiting bloggers to team up with us, we have met so many talented teacher authors along the way. Today we want to take a moment to introduce ourselves and share a free sample that we designed that you can use with your students. 

Let's start by telling you a little bit about ourselves. We currently live in Yucatan, Mexico, with our two kids, dog, adopted cats, about 200 exotic chickens, a few peacocks and a quickly growing number of rabbits. We are both stay-at-home parents and work out of the home while our kids are at school. We also do occasional volunteer team-teaching at nearby schools. We never pictured our life looking like this. In fact we usually like to plan everything in advance, and we can tell you, this is nothing like we planned. So how did this happen? Click to read more about "Our Story." 

When we're teaching, we love to incorporate hands-on "wearable learning." It's a great way to boost excitement about a topic plus it helps motivate students to do their best work as they are making something that they will get to proudly wear.

We use crowns and bracelets to teach the alphabet,

we use bracelets to teach phonics,

 

we use bracelets to teach math concepts,

we use crowns to teach about diverse holidays,

 

and... we use bracelets to teach kids about bullying.

Today, for Sample Sunday, we want to share a sample of some of our bracelets with you. They're super easy to use in the classroom, and my students always love them! All you need to do is print out the templates, cut them apart into strips and let the fun begin! Students will have fun tracing the letters, number or shapes and coloring the graphics. Then they will get to wear them proudly throughout the day. Another great thing about them is that they help communicate with parents what their kids are learning at school as they will see them wearing them home in the afternoon.

FREE BRACELET SAMPLE

We hope you enjoy these bracelets and look forward to your feedback, and as always, happy teaching!