Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m trying to blog more – and yay – this is two days in a row. I also said I’d write a post about my introductory math stations. That was the goal, but monthly benchmark testing got in the way today. So…instead of math stations – I have anchor charts galore for you to show you a few things we’ve been working on.
Anchor Chart #1 – All week we have been doing a review of short vowels in addition to working on words with consonant blends. Below you’ll see a tree map used to categorize different words depending on their short vowel.
Anchor Chart #2 – Schema Chart. Today we read the story, Super Completely and Totally the Messiest by Judith Viorst. First of all, super cute story! The kids really identify with the messy character, which is what makes this story perfect for teaching schema – text to self. My schema set-up comes from Debbie Miller’s, Reading with Meaning. I shared my schema during a think aloud while reading. The kids then pair shared and shared their connections. Then, they shared out and we charted it. Soon they’ll be ready to start writing connections on their own.
Anchor Chart #3 – In writing today, we started to review nouns. I asked the class at the beginning who had heard of nouns back in first grade. Well, that response was scary. I got a lot of 2nd graders shaking their heads no, some with confused looks, and a lot of kids with their thumb down. So, we moved on and watched a little clip on Brainpop Jr to either introduce it or review it. We then came up with our own list of nouns (which all happened to be common) and used a tree map to organize our thinking. By the end, we had a basic understanding of nouns and/or a quick review to get us back up to speed.
Happy Wednesday! Only two more days til the weekend!
