Guided Reading Literacy Stations

 I love using my Literacy Station Signs and I Can Task Cards to help me organize my guided reading and literacy station rotations.  Since I have an ocean themed classroom, I call them Sea Centers. I have four guided reading groups so I have four literacy stations that the students must complete each week.  Each group goes to one station each day. 

Literacy Station Rotations

 The literacy station signs are a great visual to post at each station since they match the border to the pocket chart headers and task cards. My students know exactly where they need to be during my guided reading and literacy station block. 

 Below are some examples of the task cards I put at each station.

 

 

 

Once they complete their station for that day, they can complete an anchor activity.  I have four different colored boxes (I bought them last year from Target) labeled with my 4 reading groups so they know which anchor activities to complete.  Each basket contains extension activities to extend their learning.  I use a variety of anchor activities, but my favorite ones to use are called Activity Cards for Early Finishers from TheMailbox.com.

Anchor Activity Boxes

  On Friday, students have time to finish any station they did not get to complete during the week.  Once they complete all of their stations, they can do Fun Friday!  Fun Friday is an opportunity to play a fun reading game of their choice while I do running records on my students.  I always remind them to do a whisper voice when I am doing my assessments.  This cute voice level chart freebie from Teaming Up to Teach really helps!

Below are some of my favorite items from Lakeshore Learning that I use in my literacy stations. 

My students love these leveled writing activity pockets!  They also make it easy for differentiation.

The partner scripts were a fun addition to my reading center.  Students love taking turns reading the engaging stories and then asking each other questions about the story.

Prefix or Suffix Flower Craftivity and Butterfly Life Cycle

Have you ever had a stressful week at school and you just need a little pick-me-up?  There is nothing like hanging up a cute craftivity that my students made to put a smile on my face.  This fun craftivity is just what my students needed to practice using words with prefixes and writing them in sentences!

 

First, they wrote the prefix in the middle of the flower (mid_). Next, they wrote 8 words with that prefix on each petal (midnight, midday, etc..).  Then, they wrote 5 sentences with the words from the petals on an index card or piece of paper. Next, they colored and cut out the flowers and pot. They then glued their sentences to the flower pot on construction paper. I gave each student two flowers since we were learning about the prefixes mid_ and mis _ the same week.

Butterfly Life Cycle Pasta Activity

Here is another fun activity we did when we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly.  I had my students go on a nature walk to collect sticks, leaves, and flowers to use on their plate to make it look more realistic.  They divided their plate into 4 sections egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly.  They then glued the items they found onto their plate.  They then used dried split peas or rice for the eggs, rotini pasta for the caterpillar, shell pasta for the chrysalis, and bowtie pasta for the butterfly.  

Happy Birthday to My Blog!

 

Happy 1st birthday to my blog!  I am excited to announce that my blog is having its first birthday this month on June 22nd!