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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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