July 2009 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
any 3rd grade teachers?
There is a potential opening for a 3rd grade teacher at the school where I work. I'm just wondering if there are any gr. 3 teachers out there who can give me a look at what their literacy block looks like. I have been working with mostly first grade the last few years and I need a refresher on what a 3rd grade block may look like!
Thanks!
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Re: any 3rd grade teachers?
*raises hand*
3rd graders are simply the best! I'll post later when I have more time...
I student taught in third grade. The literacy block wasn't all that different than in K, except in K we have a longer time for whole group instruction because everything is new to most kids. In third grade there was some sort of mini-lesson on grammar, a whole class shared reading and then differentiated groups reading books that were thematically similar to the anthology reading -- comprehension strategies were addressed in this time. There was also handwriting, writing and spelling times built in each day.
However, my cooperating teacher was super old school. I know that in my school now centers/learning stations are very important and our third grade team (I think most of them) do some form of the Daily Five.
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What are you looking at?
Ok let's see...
For AM work 4 days a week I either give a grammar practice book page or a daily language practice workbook page (just correcting sentences, etc.) and we go over these together 2 days a week - the other 2 days I put their percentages in my gradebook.
Monday mornings I give a spelling pretest. The kids write down their words and I send them home to study for Friday's sentence dictation test. I assign spelling sentences Monday for homework (giving something different along the way - circle verbs, adjectives, spelling quotations, etc.). I use the 5-5-3 rule: at least 5 words in each sentence, at least 5 sentences total, no more than 3 spelling words in each sentence. Wednesday and Thursday homework is also a spelling practice. I don't give much homework other than a quick assignment and reading log. Studies have shown that most homework is ineffective and that the best thing an elementary student could do other than practice their math facts is to READ!
Reading works differently depending on the day. Monday's reading is my least favorite. We have a district adopted curriculum through Houghton Mifflin. The stories for the most part are very cute, but it's too structured for my taste. I teach in a very high achieving school (our API was 965 or something like that last year), so many of the assignments with this curriculum need to be beefed up. We start by going over the vocab for the story, looking up the words in the glossary or dictionary (depending on how much time I have...). Then we start reading the story as a whole group. After the first 1/2, I have the kids either finish reading the story with me, or some go off with their reading partners to partner read the rest of the story. THey then have a couple comprehension pages to complete individually.
I NEVER do centers. Too much upkeep for 27 kids and no aide in the room.
I like setting up my kids with a reading partner who reads at about the same ability. Anytime I tell them to partner read, they know to go to that person and they always go to their selected reading spot (we rotate spots throughout the year, and I change partners about 1/2way through the year too). This saves tons of time b/c the kids aren't wasting away looking for a friend, etc...
We have grammar activities with each weekly story. I fill in with these whenever I have a few min. throughout the week. I have created interactive activities to go with many of them on my SMARTboard, so while the kids are working they are called up in table groups to play for a few min.
The rest of the reading time throughout the week we have more of a reader's workshop format - Lucy Calkins is my hero. We do writer's workshop too, and she has FABULOUS books out now that guide the entire year if you're school's up to purchase them for about $180ish. We started this program before all of her books came out though, so it's totally doable (there's tons of free ideas on the scholastic site too.) The glory of reader's workshop is that it self differentiates for the kids! During reader's workshop I teach a quick mini-lesson about one topic (could be finding main idea, details, cause & effect, building a book box for independent reading, selecting a reading spot, how a character changes over time, the list goes on and on...). During the minilesson I read a picture book to demonstrate the idea. While I'm reading, we take notes together on the smartboard and once they have the hang of it, they keep track of their own notes in their own little reading journal (ie composition book). After the minilesson, the kids go to their book boxes and read independently - remembering the minilesson and completing a response in their reading journal. During this time, they may discuss their book with their reading partner (sometimes I have pairs select the same book, others not) and I also conference with kids at that time - once again only selecting ONE topic to assist them with. Reader's workshop is an incredibly powerful tool b/c it teaches what readers do.
Each child has their own magazine file to which they keep their independent reading books inside. Each table has time to "shop for books" one day each week, and that's the only time that they may put books away or get new ones. They also keep a pencil and sticky notes inside of their box. If they don't understand something or want to point something out to me or their partner, they write it down on their note. I also have them look for specific things throughout the year, for instance at the beginning of the year I have them write the main idea of the chapter as they finish each one, and stick it in their book. Then at the end of the book, they put all of the sticky notes in their reading journal and they have a summary of their book.
Anytime the kids finish their work early during reading time, they know to go to their book box.
Book talks are a highlight of reading time. Each day we take the time for the kids to discuss a book they have read in class or at home for reading log (I assign this M-Th and they are to read for 20 min at the start of the year and then it increases...). The kids explain the title, author, genre, setting, main characters, problem, and they say, "If you want to know more, read the book!" Then any students who wish to read that book raise their hand and it's passed on immediately to another student. I find this powerful since...isn't that what adults do...talk about books? Plus, kids love getting in front of their peers and this is a great opportunity.
Certain times of the year we also read novels and I incorporate them into my reading time. We simply skip reading from our adopted reading curriculum for a while. Novels we read include: Wishing Tree (it's out of print but usually my kids' favorite - a teacher passed them on to me and I"m so glad I didn't pitch them), Charlotte's Web, Badger Claws (a book about a Chumash boy since they are from our area), book club selections, etc.
Please let me know if you have any more questions. I'm sorry my response is so long, but I think it's really hard to give a good idea of reading time!