Teacher by the Beach: writing

Spider week!

There are so many great books - but these are just some of the ones I set out in bookshelf for the kids to read through, and that I might read throughout the week.

For small groups - I'll use Reading A-Z, like usual. I pretty much use their books all the time because I can find thematic books all kinds of different levels.

For centers, I'll post the link to Storyline Online reading Sophie's Masterpiece and have the kids do a reading response that goes with our standards for the week.

Another listening center will be to listen to BookFlix Diary of a Spider and a Spiderling Grows Up.

Throughout the week, we work through vocabulary - this one is one of my favorites "camouflage" - giving them cut outs of different color spiders and they have to think of a way to camouflage their spider.

We also add it into our SPELLING JOURNALS

As we read more nonfiction books, we add to our Tree Map.

Then they start writing out their research.

One of the crafts we do, if we have time, is create their own spider webs and spiders - you'd be surprised at how hard making those spider webs are! But I love how they come out.

We like to throw in some math in there every so often too.

Ooh! And some poetry! We work on rhyming, verbs, adjectives, and of course fluency!

Here are some of the CENTERS we do - this has changed over the years, since we started having 1 to 1 laptops, I was able to add in some other activities and research.

One of the fun things we do for our grammar lesson, working on prepositions, is our Spider Walk Book! . I get THESE RINGS, and they last a few years. Totally worth it, because it just makes the book so much more fun!

Click the picture below to grab your FREE BOOK.

Oh, and at the end of the week? We celebrate with SPIDER DONUTS!

I just love teaching in October!

Centers time - its one of my favorite times of the day. . (Read about it HERE).

One of the things on the rotation slide is Journal.

Sometimes it's a reading response to a "listening" station...

and sometimes it's a journal response to something we've been learning about or something that goes along with our theme for the week.

(You can see it on the wheel in the background)

One thing I have my kids do EVERY day is WRITE.

Yes, we have a guided writing time, but I also want them to have a free-writing time... a time where they just WRITE, without me grading it and without them worrying about spelling and conventions, although a lot of students still love to use their Spelling Journals during this time, which I encourage them to do so if they want.

Ok, so I DO grade it, but just in the sense of "Did you do enough or your best effort??" I mean, you have to give effort, right?

When I taught First grade, I made our journals out of the storybook paper for each month.

(Spelling Journals HERE)

But in Second grade, they don't need to start off writing so big, so I can use regular composition notebooks. So instead of making covers for the front of the big journals I used in 1st grade, I made these composition notebook tabs for each month.

Same concept... they color the cover and cut it out (with the tab attached still) and glue it on the page that starts the month.

You can see how the tabs are spaced out so you can see each month.

You can grab this freebie in my TPT store!

And you can grab the Storybook Paper Journal covers HERE

What do I have my kids write about???

Well, a lot of activities come from my Monthly Writing Activities.

There's a set for each season and a Fun and Nonfiction theme.

Here's what each set contains:

There are thematic writing papers included, but I also have my students write in their journals - these writing papers I use when we are going to be hanging them up and showcasing their work.