February Currently, Text Evidence, and Day 4 of Blog Hop!

As early childhood teachers, it is natural for us to integrate social studies and science into our literacy instruction.  Our units and lesson plans are created for this exact purpose and the topics become motivators to our children’s learning.  Last week in first grade, we focused on our nonfiction text reading and writing as we studied polar animals!  I used my Winter Writing Pack throughout the week to help my students become better at finding evidence within the text as they read and researched various polar animals.  

First, we practiced reading a text three times.  The first time, we read it for flow.  We practiced reading the words and getting a general idea of the main topic.  Then, we read it for understanding.  We worked with a partner to read and talk about each sentence in the text.  We highlighted key words or interesting information that jumped out at us.  During our third read, I asked them a variety of questions and they had to find the exact sentence within the text that answered my question.  It was a great lesson that really helped my students understand what it means to look closely at a text and truly understand it.  It also helped that they were reading about penguins and polar bears! They were fascinated!
 

 If you have not done a lot of focused close reading or directed partner reading with your students, I encourage you to give it a try.  It is a structured way for students to dive into a text together – much different than simply Reading to Someone during Daily 5 time.  I hope you get to listen in on the natural discussion you will hear your students having about the text with one another!  The more they practice this structured type of reading, the easier and more confident they feel with it. 

Can you believe we’re already into the first full week of February?  Below is my February Currently!  I have linked up with Farley from Oh’ Boy 4th Grade! for her monthly linky party.  Click {HERE} to head over to her blog and link up!

It is Day 4 of the “For the Love of Teaching Blog Hop of Freebies!”  Today’s freebie comes from Practice Makes (Almost) Perfect!  She has a great freebie for you that will only be available for a short time.  Click the button below to head over and check it out!
day 4
I’m off to watch The Bachelor and catch up on some grading! Happy Learning,

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7 Comments

  1. LOL @ your neighbor and the leaf blower! That can't be funny when you're listening to it, but I can just imagine someone trying to move snow with a leaf blower, and it's quite comical.

    I wish I had a class set of iPads too! Or, just a few! I don't even have one. They are so neat!

    My kiddos are working on informational reading and writing with polar bears and penguins as well! The kids are loving becoming experts on these animals! I can't wait to finish up our little projects we're working on! I've never done this before, so I'm a little nervous.

  2. Reading your Currently too quickly and my eyes on the pet peeves went from "old" to "people"…..I thought I might be in big trouble!!!
    Glad to know I may still be appreciated in my old age. LOL

  3. haha! I'm so glad to know that someone ELSE has frequent fights with the copy machine. I'm pretty sure the one at school absolutely HATES me! 😉

    Ohhh I wish for a set of iPads, too! I keep telling my admin that I would make it a paperless classroom for him if he would "JUST" give me iPads for every student. So far, that hasn't worked — lol — but I'll keep trying. Good luck to you!

    ~Mrs. K. from The Teacher Garden Blog

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