Guided Reading Idea #2

Okay so I slacked a little on my resolution - posting at least once a week. HOWEVER, I have good reason. My husband has been working out of town for three weeks so I have been doing the single mom thing - I so appreciate it when he is home to lend a hand. I also had the flu last week - thank goodness for Tamiflu and my parents living close by to lend a hand with the boys. But, now I am back!!!! Okay so again, it's an idea I found and then tweaked and changed a bit for my class and now I am sharing. I went to this workshop and the presenter called it harvesting ideas!! So, the last week of every month we do a brown bag book club. We read a book, work with it all week and then on Friday they sit with their group, a partner, or someone from a different group - I change it up - and they eat popcorn and discuss their book. Through out the week they have been filling out the page they have glued to the front of the bag. This helps them remember the story - then they have questions. Each person draws a question and answers it for the group. Depending on time they trade and answer their new question. Here are the questions:

Questions for Book Club

Here is what we glued on the bags:

          

I want to give a special thanks to the first grade parade for this awesome idea!!
Visit them to see the original at:
 http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-01-13T17%3A38%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=9

Guided Reading Idea #1

Last Monday when I presented at our in service I had a blast!!! I was so nervous - I had even made my mom, who is a 1st grade teacher, come to my school on Sunday so I could practice on her. Turns out I liked presenting and they liked what I had to say!! So I am really fired up about my blog and sharing my stuff. A lot of what I do, make and share is something I get from someone else and then tweak it to fit what I need. I will always do my best to share the original source/idea so you can have both and make it fit what you need! So....here is one of those ideas I loved and then made it fit what I needed. 

Awhile back I was looking for something for my high groups. They are reading chapter books and I had them filling out chapter summary pages. It was a lot of copies and well, I just didn't like it. Then I came across bookmarks at loryevanspage.blogspot.com and I loved it!!! But then I had trouble with the books. They are awesome but I needed something a little more generic so I could pull it out for anything - even when they choose their own. So here is my version:

Click here to download

My groups love this and so do parents. I have gotten that now they can read and write in the car on the way to a practice and that it's easy to keep up with. Plus when we get together to discuss what we have been reading it gives us a starting point. I love seeing what they write and it leads to great discussions. Let me know what you think!!