1. Calendar Time- We do this every morning at our carpet/couch section. Each week we have a new leader for the calendar time. They are in charge of asking the class questions,getting the correct answers, writing on the pig, and putting up the correct information. Each day we do today's weather and make a prediction for tomorrow's weather, tell the time of the clock, do the place value chart, tell how much money is in the bank, tally mark the days of school, graph the weather, do the past, present, and future, and change the date on the clock. The next two items we alternate between: tell how much time has passed and figure out what our change is after we make a purchase.
2. Word Wall- We have a word wall at the back of our room. Each week we add the words that we have been working on in our spelling. These are trickwords that don't follow the phonics rules.
3. Word Families- Each week we work on a word family. We add words, that fit into the family, on the poster. The posters are next to our word wall. The kids have an entire wall dedicated to words that they need to know. The word families are from the book On Solid Ground by Sharon Taberski.
4. Monthly Posters- At the beginning of each month, we take out our new poster. During the month, we add words that pertain to that season, month, or topics that we are studying.
5. Library- My class library has the books organized by their Guided Reading levels. Each level has it's own basket with a label- coded by color and letter. There are also baskets for non-fiction, math books, language books, I-Spy books, as well as themed books. The theme labels are from another educator's website, Mrs. Newingham.
6. Reader's Choice- I have a section in the classroom dedicated to "Reader's Choice." The students read a pre-selected text and decide if they would recommend it or not. I never question the children as to why made their selection. This is their section of the book area! This idea is from another educator. She made mention of it on the Scholastic website.
