Celebrating Valetine's Day Early at 3L + 1T

It is February 1st so...Valentine's Day is RIGHT around the corner.  Have you started to think about what you want to do in your own classroom? I'm sure there will  be yummy treats, cute little crafts, and maybe some cards exchanged.  Have you thought of some fun ways to include learning into the mix of it all?

Have no fear, Mrs. Valentine's Day to the rescue! Catchy, right?  I have created a few products that will allow your students to still have fun, think about the holiday, and learn as well!

The Perfect Match: Synonyms & Antonyms

I cannot wait to use this in my classroom! I think this activity will be great when working in small groups during stations/centers.  The product includes:

• 21 pairs of matching synonym cards
• 21 pairs of matching antonym cards
• 1 quick check assessment for synonyms
• 1 quick check assessment for antonyms
• 1 combined assessment to use a synonyms and antonyms in writing a story and identify the words they used

I can see myself using the cards during my Word Word Station where students can play matching games with partners like memory or a Go-Fish kind of activity.  I also think it would be great to get notecards, and students can write cloze sentences where their partner has to find the missing word to go into their sentence. Really make those kiddos think!

The assessments would also be great to use after a mini-lesson or when you feel your students are close to mastery.  The assessments include matching, defining, using in a sentence, and identifying.  The final assessment asks students to write a story of their choice.  They must use a certain amount of synonyms and anytonmys.  When finished, they must go back to underline and circle those words they used. I love assessments that allow students to be creative, but also apply the skills they learned.

Have no fear...this product isn't JUST for Valentine's Day.  Use this all year around, as the only thing Valentine's Day about this is the hearts and the title.

 Check it out...here!

 

Valentine's Day Letter Writing

I just reduced this price on this product! I created 2 templates---one a post-card and the other a letter for students to write friendly letters to teachers, friends, and/or family members.  This would be a great way to start your day off. Have students finish up before starting your day of lessons and during the celebration in the afternoon...take a 10-20 minute break to go and hand deliver the letters/post-cards. It will make someone's day! I love teaching students about the gift of giving. Check out my Christmas post here to see how I try to do this all year long! 

I would absolutely love to see these products in action, especially the post-cards and letter templates.  Feel free to comment below to share some of your student's work!  

Grab the product...here!

Valentine's Day Synonym Cloze Writing 

The last item for you to pick (also reduced in price) from is a Valentine's Day synonym cloze activity.  This one is great for a writing center, morning work, or an "early finisher" type activity.  Students are asked to read the letter and fill in words that would  make sense or use the word bank in the bottom part of the paper to help students.  The choice is up to you! Although there is a answer key included...but you can always ignore that! Make it even more challenging for your students and have them create their own letter using 10 "fancy" adjectives.  Have them impress their loved ones.

 

Get the product here 

What Makes a Good Friend? Opinion Writing Project

Start a Valentine's Day theme next week with your students right before the holiday.  I am really excited to complete this project with my class.  The project goes through each of the stages of the writing process. Students can start with a heart shaped graphic organizer so they can organize their thoughts. I focused a lot on the next stage which is explaining each one of those hearts in greater detail.  This is where I see my students struggle as they do not know what to say about these subtopics.  From there, there a page dedicated to each heart where students can organize their thoughts deeper so they can elaborate on the individual hearts.  

The next steps are to write the first draft, edit, and revise. Students are given the appropriate paper, and a small quick-check rubric so they can remember to check their own work. I normally incorporate another rubric into the mix---one that I make with students before starting the writing so they understand their expectations and objectives from the start.  

Students can finish the project by rewriting their paper on the final draft format and complete a picture in the decorative hearts as a final step in their publishing.  I also like this project because you can make it into packet format to complete together, in small group, or individually if you think your students are up for the challenge. 

Hope you enjoy this and more importantly...your students have fun with this!

Check it out!

Happy {Early} Valentine's Day! Don't forget to share the love by pinning, liking, and sharing my products on your social media sites!

Breakdown of Each Center/Station

Hopefully you got the basis of what my classroom looks like and how it functions during centers/stations from my first post.  This post will focus on each of the stations that occur in my classroom.  One day, I'll post activities for each of these stations to make life just that much easier for you.  Check out a few FREEBIES below to add in your classroom. Enjoy!

Read to Self:  At this station, my students are required to stay at their seats to read.  If I catch them reading and engaged in their book, I give them a "Hooked on a Book" coupon {FREEBIE}, where the next time they are at the Read to Self station they can read anywhere in the room using pillows, stuffed animals, or the bean bag chair. They really strive for those coupons! One last thing you can incorporate if you want students to have a finished product at this station is a Reading Response Slip.  From this, they either tell me what they learned if it is a non-fiction book or give a brief summary of the story/chapters read. This gives them some responsibility during that station  for the last 5 minutes and the teacher a sense of whether they are actually reading during that time or not. I also make students stick to one book (this depends on grade level) so they can finish books and not start-stop-and never finish.

I kept a basket near my Teacher's table so I could quickly get up when my group was reading or working independently to pass the coupons out.  Students could choose to use them immediately, but often realized to wait because they would have more time the next time they were at Read to Self. 

Check out the Reading Response Slips HERE!

Writing: This station is very flexible in my classroom, just one requirement...to write!  I come up with a variety of activities for students to do here, and many times it is tied into our reading comprehension/response that we are working on during that week/unit.  For example, students may be asked to read 2 short stories/passages and write a paragraph to compare/contrast the two.  I have also allowed free writing, incorporated some grammar skills into their writing assignments, or even reading a variety of passages to identify the genre and why it fits there. 

Word Work: This station really changed from my second to third grade groups and students only visit this station once a week.  In second grade, students are working with stamps, magnetic letters, word families, spelling words, the list goes on and on! In third grade, since students had a good understanding of their phonics skills, I treated it more like a vocabulary station. Students would given an organizer {FREEBIE} to complete items such as the definition, in a sentence, part of speech, picture, & synonym/antonym of the word.  By asking students to do this, they are working on ABC order and guide words as well as what is asked on the organizer.  Check out my post on Vocabulary. 

Work with Teacher: At this station, I work with individual groups that are working on the same skill or reading at the same level.  Many times it will be focused on fluency practice, a specific standard/skill, comprehension practice, and reading strategies. Look out for a post soon in detail about lessons I have created and the order of them. 

Listening: This is another station that students only visit once a week.  Most of this is done at the computer now that our reading series does not provide a CD for each of the stories from our reading series. On the computer they are completing tasks from a website portal called My Big Campus.  Students are to complete games, activities, quizzes, etc. through this program based on the standards we are working on that week/unit. My class also piloting a classroom set of tablets, so I integrated those into this station too. 

Give this a chance, especially if you are not planning a lot of time for them. In a few months, my students could complete this independently, quickly, & it would be quality work. 

*Work with Teacher (Additional Teacher): In our school, Title I teachers are licensed teachers so I respected their teaching ability and they created their own lessons.  We would co-teach on Mondays during the station time to introduce the learning target for that week.  We would also meet at least once a week to discuss what the groups needed to make sure between the two of us we were covering all of their needs.  I was really lucky that my Title I teachers were amazing and I trusted what they were doing with my students. 

How Do I Begin Centers/Stations?

Centers...Stations...whatever you may call it, is something than can be overwhelming to add into your classroom, especially if you've never experienced them in a classroom before.

Starting out as a Title I teacher, I was able to be "exposed" to many types of stations. After viewing all of these types, I took a little something and created my own.  With that, I also researched Daily 5 to create a great foundation for my classroom. With this being said, because my class was never the "model" class, I had to role with the punches to create the best engaging methods that worked for them.

The Daily 5 should be broken down into these 5 stations: Read Independently, Read to Someone, Work on Writing, Listen to Reading, & Word Work. I took these 5 stations and created a variation that worked with my teaching style and my students' needs:

• Read to Self
• Writing
• Word Work
• Work with Teacher
• Listening
• Work with Teacher (For 2 years, I was lucky enough to have a Title I instructor in my classroom, so I added a 6th Station those years)

For more information on my specific instructions in these stations, please visit Centers/Stations Part 2.

Before I jump right into doing stations, I spend 2 days during the station times to explain rules & have a practice round.  I know these days won't go perfectly, but students will have spent time with me practicing my expectations. A few weeks of practice, my classroom is silent during stations unless a group is supposed to be working together. *Note: I don't normally start stations until the 2nd or even 3rd full week of school. I want my students to master the rest of the classroom/school procedures before bringing in a whole new set of them to learn. 

Day 1: Expectations: I walk around with the entire class for the full hour (I'll discuss timing later) and we decide at each station what they should be completing during that time and what I should be completing at that time. I fill out these expectations sheets {FREEBIE} with the students and then post them when I am finished so it is always there at that particular spot so they can reference later. No excuses! 

Day 1: Book Selection: In my classroom, I found these great cloth red bags from Goodwill that my students hold their books they selected for that week.  Now, I have used these bags now for 3 years and they are still holding up, so I suggest buying something at a higher quality that will last for years instead of plastic baggies or boxes. 

When I explain how to pick books, we go through how the classroom library is organized.  I explain my expectations that books need to go back in the bin they were selected from whether it by reading level or genre.  This takes a while, but a few months (yes months!) they get the hang of it. Once they start understanding genres it becomes easier.  My students pick 5 books (4 for my 3rd graders). Of those 5 books, 3 need to be Fiction and 2 need to be Non-fiction. This allows students to read a variety and not pick the same type of books each week.  (3rd grade: 2 Fiction; 2 Non-Fiction).  Students are allowed to keep the same books from week-week if they are not finished.

Weekly Visits/Timing: I switch each station activity each week.  Students visit each station twice a week except (Listening & Word Work).  Mondays were for co-teaching and Tuesday-Friday were stations.  That is the goal, although students are given different amounts of time based on what they need extra help on.  Also, some years I have differentiated within the station.  My expectations are different for each of the groups based on what they can accomplish during that time frame. For example, my lower achieving students might only be required to write a paragraph at writing station, but my highest achieving students may be asked to write 3 paragraphs in that given time.  

As for timing, in second grade, I had three 20-minute stations.  They would rotate when the bell rang.  In third grade, because I felt they needed more time to accomplish their goal I had two 30-minute station. Many people thought this was too much time, but I took time and value into planning stations so student activities were worthwhile. I was really able to get quality work from each of them. Quality always trumps quantity.  

This is a screenshot of my lesson plans for stations.  They are not very detailed as I know my requirements and do not want to take up a lot of room on my lesson plan template. 

Grouping: Of all the things needed to prepare to add centers/stations into your classroom creating groups and organizing them can be the most difficult. And if your classroom is anything like mine, students are coming in-out for other services during that time so I need to make sure they are receiving the instruction from me that is needed. It can definitely get confusing. After organizing groups by ability/skill (depending how often you're wanting to change groups), I give each group a name. My groups always go with my classroom theme:

• Rainforest Theme (all animal named groups)
• Garden Theme (flower named groups)
• United States Themed (Midwest states)

On the chart I use, I color code each station so it makes it easier to see if I missed a station for one of the groups.  I also go day-by-day to check over my work and literally say "Kentucky is at listening while Indiana is working with me.  Ohio is working with Title I, and Michigan is at writing".  I say each day aloud to make sure groups are not doubled at one particular station. Let's just say...I have learned from my mistakes on this one! 

This is a quick example of how I color code to make sure every need is met.  Now my Kentucky group has outside needs, so I make sure the second station is things they really need to work and not miss out on. 

Organizing each Station: Stations stayed the same on Tuesday/Wednesday and on Thursday/Friday.  This allowed me to only have to put out supplies on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I would have all the supplies they would need, minus lined paper as that was in a specific bin within the classroom.  I also always had my Word Work station stocked with dictionaries, pencils, scissors, and anything else they may need during that time frame.

Most Importantly: You have to make stations work for you and your students.  If you are stressed during stations, your students will be stressed during stations. Set your expectations high, especially in the high-stress times of the year (BOY, holidays, EOY). If you do, your students will take it seriously and it will run smoothly. Good luck & let me know if you have questions.