Today, I had the pleasure of starting a new book with my ruby
reds. I have four students in this group three boys and one girl. This new book
is called, All you need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle To begin our group I
had the students do some pre-reading vocabulary. We went over the definition of
mound, thousand, stacked, triple, couple, and wool. The students did very well
in mastering the vocabulary. Two of my students in the group can read much
better than the other two in the group, so I made sure to reinforce the
definitions of the words, and had each child tell me the word and its
definition.
Once we completed vocabulary I had the
students imagine a time when they had created a snowman. I asked them questions
like, What did you use to build the snowman?, What did he wear?, etc. I had
them think about the questions but not to answer them. After the students
imagined I read the book aloud to the students. I made sure to check for
comprehension by posing questions such as "How many snowball did they
create to make a snowman?, What type of hat did the children choose for the
snowman?" I also made sure that they had grasped vocabulary by asking the
meaning of the words once I read them. Next, I had the students take turns on
reading the pages. As I said two of my students are better readers so they very
quickly read the pages without hesitation or problems, whereas the other two
had problems with the words and with fluency, so while one of the slower
readers were reading my better readers wanted to act up, so I had to make sure
that they stayed on task and followed along while the other students were reading.
Once completing the reading I asked the
students more comprehension questions and had them find the answers in the book
before we moved on. Finally I had the students do a who, what, where, when
chart so that we could break up parts of the story.
|
Who
|
What
|
Where
|
When
|
|
The
children
|
built a snowman
|
outside
|
in winter
|
The main goal for the group
is to be able to create a summary of the story that they had read. We were not
able to complete the group work today, so tomorrow it will be completed for
group time.
This is a great book to read for second graders.
Taylor! It sounds like you are doing a fabulous job with your kids and having so much fun! I completely understand how it can be trying to keep kids on task who are already finished working. I have a small group I work with on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the distractions are so real when one finishes early. Thanks for sharing the book! Maybe if I wind up in second grade I'll steal this from you. Keep doing what you're doing!
ReplyDeleteHey Taylor. I love the group name "ruby reds." I also have the same issue with working with students in a group where they seem to be on different learning levels and paces. The students who finish first always want to act up or find a random object to play with. I'm hoping that as we get to know our students better that we will be able to figure out what we need to do to keep them on task before they even become off task. Nice blog!
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
Taylor Lanning
Thanks for the book recommendation. What impact did the experiences this week have on your future classroom experiences? How are you using small groups to intentionally target the need of the students in the group? How are data informing your decisions?
ReplyDelete