Nonfiction Resources

So, I'm a little late on this.  However, I just found this great article by Beth Newingham  about her top ten non-fiction resources and thought I would pass it along.  She always shares great ideas for literacy (and other content areas if you look throughout her website) on Scholastic.  This article is no different.  Because she teaches third grade, I immediately thought about the third grade curriculum and how this would fit in so well with what you do in the first non-fiction unit.  But give it a look and see what you think.  I love the free printables and graphic organizers that she shares.  These would be great for all learners, but especially your lower readers.  And I am certain that the technology component would be a big hit with some of you as well!  I'd love to hear your thoughts and how it might improve the non-fiction units that you have done.

Clutter Free

I'm going clutter free!!  Well, that's my hope at least.  This post isn't going to have anything to do with literacy, but I am convinced that students learn better in a clean and clutter free environment (even in the Lit Lab).  So, with the help of Jodi on Clutter Free Classroom, I'm going to give it a go.  Maybe some of this will even transfer to my home life as well...again, I can hope!


Jodi is doing a series on how to get a clutter free classroom.  She has some wonderful ideas to make the process manageable and also has made available some freebies to help.  Some of her materials and ideas are available in her TpT store.  But I'm going to link up with her and see how this goes.  This first blog is a description of what she hopes to do to help us all get a clutter free and organized classroom.  She has a great weekly plan designed to help us tackle it step-by-step.

Anyone interested in joining me??

Word study resources

As we being to look at which word study program we are going to be using in the future, I've spent a lot of time researching and looking for ideas.  I came across this idea a while back and it's just been sitting on my desktop.  So I'm going to share it with you.

This is something that can be done outside of the word study time, and I actually envisioned it being used during writer's workshop more than anything.  It's called "Have A Go."  From what I've researched, I think it can be traced back to Faye Bolton and Diane Snowball in their book, Teaching Spelling.  The concept behind it is that a child needs to make an attempt at spelling the word correctly before the teacher will jump in and help them.  They sound out the word and then the teacher will help them work through it until they get it correct.  Franki Sibberson talks about all the different components of word study in her article, Word Study is More Than Spelling, on the Choice Literacy website.  I can't seem to find the original source for this Have-A-Go that I've found.  It's a PDF that I've put on the Literacy Lab website.

If you use something like this, or something a little different, I'd love to see what you use or how it works in your classroom!

Great resources for great resources

There are two sites that I keep coming across as I wade my way through my day blogs.  Just like many of you, there are wonderful teachers out there doing wonderful things.  Many of them share their ideas and resources on their blogs and they are free (my favorite!!).  But many of them have put countless hours into creating their materials and they decide to sell them.  They are always a reasonable fee and an instant download to your computer.


One site that I find a lot of teachers have posted to is Teachers Pay Teachers.


The other is Teachers Notebook.

Both sites offer lots of free resources as well as resources available for a fee.  Fee range in price from a few cents to a few dollars.  I rarely see anything over $5, unless it is a really big file with lots of pages and information.

Take a few moments and check them out!  Maybe you have something you'd like to share/sell as well ;)

Happy New Year and Welcome Back!

I'm a little late on the New Year's greeting and I'm a little late on the welcome back.  That's what happens when my kids decide to get sick.

But I wanted to share a link to a website that I thought had a great back to school idea.  If you can't use it this year, then pin it to pinterest and keep it for next year :)

Christan at 4th Grade Frolics always posts some great ideas.  I loved her back to school idea (she also talks about some great math packs which might be of interest to you as well).  I think it's a great idea to re-visit Lucy's resolution lesson at this time of the year and get kids going on the right track for the rest of the year.  She has a great book mark that she shared for free.  This would go great with a mini-lesson around revising resolutions and may help to get students thinking about their reading habits again.

Follow up to Thinking Clouds

Last week, I posted a link to Thinking Clouds that can be used during guided reading groups to help kids stay on task as well as to foster conversation about their metacognition once they are done reading.  One of the clouds is "Author's Purpose" and it says on it, "It's all about PIE."  I found another great free resource to go along with that and help teach what PIE stands for.  This website has a set of short posters that explain each of the letters in PIE (persuade, inform, entertain).  I printed them off and laminated them to have on hand when the conversation comes up.

Guided Reading- Think Clouds

**I haven't blogged all year...oops!!  But I have recently come across a lot of really great tools to help with literacy and I thought I would try to keep stuff here.  That way friends and colleagues can look here for what I've been finding.

I get a lot of questions about guided reading and how to manage all that is involved with it.  One thing that gets difficult with guided reading is the fact that the kids at the table are all reading at the same time (which we know is best practice) but the teacher can only work with one at a time.  I found a little tool to monitor reading even when you aren't listening in. Hope King , who writes the blog 2nd Grade Shenanigans,  posted some great Guided Reading Think Clouds.  I have been using them during my LLI lessons for the students at the highest levels and they love them!!  In fact, sometimes they fight over who gets to take them.  

The thought behind them is that when the student notices their thinking, they take the Think Cloud.  This way, when you are done reading with everyone, you can use the think cloud as a discussion spring board.  They are great for all levels, but I have found a lot of success with my higher readers (which are at levels L-N).  I've even been able to get a few kids talking about their thinking when they wouldn't do that before!