Literacy Work Stations: Station Rotation

Happy Wednesday Friends.
Spring Break is half over for me. :( I suppose I should look on the bright side though....for some of you Spring Break is COMPLETELY over.

Today I thought I would share with you how I rotate students through my Literacy Work Stations.

First off, I use Debbie Diller's model of stations from her book Literacy Work Stations: Making Centers Work. It sells at Amazon for about $18. ( 3-6 teachers there is also a book for your grade level too if you are interested.)

 

A few summers ago, I went in search of something that would help me during our ELA block. I did not like how I utilized that time and I didn't feel like the center time I had inside my head was actually being done in practice. At the time we split our three 2nd grade classes by Tiers for reading. I always had the lowest tier of kids. But we began talking about changing that and keeping our homeroom groups regardless of reading ability. I knew I needed to do something different.

 

Enter Debbie's book. ( I refer to her as Debbie as IF I had the good fortune to know her personally. Haha!) I borrowed a copy from the library first because I wasn't sure I would like it. 2 chapters in, I ordered my own copy. I shared it with the other K-2 teachers in my building and now most of us use stations at some point during our ELA block. This book is my teaching bible.

 

 

Our ELA chunk of time is from 8:45- 10:50. During this time we do comprehension, writing, spelling, and stations. Stations take up about 50 minutes of that time. And I do two rotations during that 25 minute period of time. This is the time I meet with small groups. I also have a Title 1 Para pro who works with small groups during that time. ( I also have other times that Title 1 works with some of my students. We are very blessed at my school.)

In the book it gives you some examples of other teachers station boards. When I made mine I wanted something that I could use year to year and that I could easily rearrange students during the year if I needed to.

What I came up with were 5 pieces of poster board ( I happened to use different colors, but the colors don't really mean anything specific). Each poster board represents a different day of the week. We do stations every day.

( Please ignore the glare and the fact that Monday is blank. I'll get to that in a minute.)

Each side has all of our stations listed out and then with a number for which station it is ( either station #1 or #2 since we do 2 stations.) 


This is what it used to look like. ( If you recall, one of my Spring Break goals was to update these since I haven't in over 2 years!) This is for the 2nd set of Stations because there is a number 2 by every one.

This is what it looks like now that I updated the board. Next to each station I put the students pictures so they know which station to go to. Everything is held on with tape so I can easily rearrange the pictures if I need to. ( This is the 4th time this year I have moved them around.)

So that is how I manage who goes to which station and when. The kids know to check that the station board is out in the morning. They flip it over when the bell signals for Station 2. It has worked out really well for me for 3 years now, so I am pretty sure I will keep this system as long as I do stations in my room. In the future I will share a little about how the kiddos are grouped and I will share more about each station and what they do at it.

Enjoy your evening friends. I will be back on Friday for the linky parties. :)

April Currently

 

Happy ( SUPER EARLY) Monday Friends! I can be up this late because I am student-less this week as we are on spring break. Even so, it is super late and I need to get to bed. But before I do I wanted to link up with Farley for Currently. 

 

 

Listening:  I don't really like reality television that doesn't involve some level of talent, like The Voice and DWTS. But this gypsy show really sucked me in over the summer and now I am hooked! The things they wear and the way they talk....oh boy!

Loving: That's just an obvious given. Who doesn't love and welcome Spring Break? :)

Thinking: The estimation packet should be ready to go later on today. So check out my Facebook page later on for a giveaway! :)

Wanting: It has definitely warmed up from the crazy winter. Most of the snow is gone. But I was hoping for at least 50- 60 degrees all week. Mama needs to spray paint! :)

(PS: So I woke up this morning to SNOW ON THE GROUND! GRRR! Looks like mother nature is playing a little April Fools joke on us here in Central Michigan.)

Needing: Checked out my TPT wish list over the weekend....it used to be full of activities...now its full of things to make those activities myself. It's exciting and overwhelming all at once. :)

Advice: My BBF ( best bloggy friend) Angela over at Hippo Hooray For 2nd Grade was featured on Amanda Maddens blog Teaching Maddeness  this past week for her budding bloggers showcase. Angela said something that really resonated with me and that was, to be true to yourself. She said something about writing the way that you talk...so she doesn't use y'all in her posts because she is a cheese head and we just don't use that kind of language up north. It made me laugh because I want to use y'all so bad ,but anytime I write it I just feel like I am trying too hard.

I wanted to include Angela's advice because I think it is so important and it has really helped me this week. But I also wanted to add my own. It is hard for me sometimes to not get down on myself or think I have nothing to offer just because I only have 168 followers and someone else has thousands. It is hard for to not get down on myself when I put something on TPT and it doesn't sell like I thought it would. It is hard for me when I read peoples blogs and they seem to really have a niche in the blogging community, like "oh they are the go to person for math", or "they really seem to have 2nd grade nailed."

Sometimes I think I should give up on Diving Into 2nd Grade.

But, I think about the reason why I started blogging in the first place...it is because Pinterest opened this door to a whole teaching community I didn't even know existed. I saw all of these cool ideas and projects and products and I thought " Hey, I want to join in on the fun!" I had, what I thought, was a cute classroom with fun, engaging activities and other teachers blogs have just taken it to the next level. Teacher bloggers have really changed my classroom and my teaching for the better and I want to be a part of that.

Really, my advice is for me. But I hope, if you are struggling with some of the same thoughts as me, that it helps you too.

(Ok, so I woke up this morning to some really awesome comments that made me feel great. So I just had to add to the positive end of my paragraph about remembering why I started a blog. Teacher bloggers are SO helpful and kind to one another. We are so willing to help each other out and I think that is awesome. I think those doubts that I was talking about above plague everyone from time to time. But, like I was reminded this morning, we have to focus on the things we HAVE going for us and give ourselves a little credit. )

Sunday Linky Time

Hello and Happy Easter Friends!

I am 2/4 on Latoya's Lets Get to Know Each Other Linky's. I really meant to post yesterday with that and my spring break bucket list. But had to get my house ready for 18 people coming over for dinner today. Soooo, here I am today with this weeks linky. Plus my plans for spring break.

 

 

This weeks theme is favorites. So, here are mine.

 

Favorite Place to Shop

 

 

Hands down it's TJ Maxx. I am a TOTAL Maxxinista. :) The closest one to me is about an hour away. I love their purse selection most of all. I will not spend more than 20- 25 bucks on a pair of shoes ,but I don't think twice about dropping 4-5 times that much on a purse. LOL!

 

Favorite TV Show

This is almost like asking me which of my students is my favorite.... I would say children, but I only have one of those. :)

 

Right now, my top is Scandal.

 

 

I love this show soooooo much. I love every twist and turn. I love that I can simultaneously love and hate the characters in each episode. Seriously, if you aren't watching, START! It's AMAZING!

 

Honorable Mention Goes to: Glee, Greys Anatomy, Dancing with The Stars, The Voice, and Community.

 

Favorite Sweet Treat

This is a two way tie between my Grandma's home made Lemon Meringue Pie and my mom's Dirt Pudding.  

 

                                                                                                 

I never used to like cake. I have since changed my ways. So growing up my mom would make me dirt pudding instead of a birthday cake. I am going to be *cough* 31 *cough, cough* on my next birthday and my mom still makes this for me. :)

 

Favorite Food

 

I have a lot of favorite foods too! I am going to go with the one that I always use when we do our favorite food writing in the fall, and that is pork chops and broccoli cheese rice. Again, something my mom would make for dinner on my birthday. We always got to pick what we wanted to have for dinner on that day. That was always my choice.

 

 

Favorite Restaurant

 

This is easy. OLIVE GARDEN! 

 

I love their delicious breadsticks and the salad with the Italian dressing. I love, love, love their fettuccine with seafood. Ok, I am seriously hungry now. :)

 

 

Geesh, that was tough trying to pick just one of each. Apparently, I've got a lot of favorites.

 

 

Now, on to Brigid's Linky for my spring break plans.

 

1: Work on my TPT creation list.

I LOOOOOOOOVE making lists. I love crossing things off my to-do list and then re- writing the list so it is fresh. ( It's a sickness) :) Lists help me focus. I am new to making things for TPT. I have long had a ton of ideas floating around in head. I finally made a list of all the things I wanted to make the other day and I am hoping to make a dent in that list this week.

 

Sidenote, since I'll be making some new stuff this week be sure to check out my facebook page and my blog this week for some flash freebies. :)

 

2: Re-do my Station Boards

A couple of Fridays ago I shared my new Math Stations board, which I love. My Literacy Work Stations boards are different. I will do a post on them, when I have them updated... which I need to do because we rearranged small groups with Title after our last progress monitoring. Plus, I like to switch it up and keep the peanuts on their toes. :)

 

3: Get caught up on the laundry, organize my home office, go through my closet, organize the hall closet  CLEAN MY HOUSE

 

4. ( My most important) Spend LOTS of time with my peanut. She doesn't always get the patient, creative, energetic side of me because of how draining this thing called being a teacher can be. When we are on break I try to spend the majority of her awake hours together.

 

5. Enjoy being up a little later and getting to sleep in a bit.

I am a TOTAL night owl. If I had my way I would be up until 11:30/12 every night. But then I would only get 6 hours of sleep and I would be a SUPER crab. The peanut sleeps in until almost 8 on the days when we don't have school so it is perfect for me. :)

 

All right, well if you are like me and you have this week off enjoy. And if not, enjoy your time with your peanuts. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 



It's Friday! It's Friday! It's Spring Break! It's Spring Break!

Do you do anything special with your peanuts to celebrate making it through another week together? We do a Friday Dance every Friday after we get into line to go home. It's possibly the easiest song and dance in the world. Are you ready? You sing " It's Fri-day! It's Fri-day! It's Friday!"  while holding your pointer fingers in the air and moving them up and down. ( We also have a version for when school ends on a Thursday or Wednesday like it did this week.) So go back and read the title and imagine me singing it and doing a little dance. And then another dance of joy because I am officially on Spring Break!! :)
 
So, here I am linking up with TEACHING MADDENESS and DOODLEBUGS TEACHING to share about our week.
 
 
This week we took all of the 2nd grade peanuts to a place called Frederik Meijer Gardens. They do a live butterfly exhibit every year during March and April. It is so much fun. It is inside this humongous green house. This is pretty much what it looks like through the whole thing. It's amazing!

 

They have different areas for you to learn about butterflies like this little house where you can see them hatching!

 

As you walk around butterflies are flying all around and you can see them THIS close up.

Gorgeous isn't she?



 Sometimes they even land on you, which always SO cool when it happens for the peanuts. I wish I could show you the picture I took of this little peanuts face when this one landed on her...Priceless!

 And, sometimes they don't land on you at all. This poor peanut tried SO hard the whole time we were there to get one to land on her...The little girl in the above picture had TWO land on her while we there...And this little one didn't have any. I'm sure it was quite a sight to see me excited for the one and trying to console the other one. It was a good lesson for both of them.

There was also this really cool Simple Machines exhibit that we went to as well. Here is one of the peanuts trying out the pulleys.

#2 One of my favorite blogs is Little Miss Organized. EVERY time I go to check out her blog I find something new to incorporate into my class...and in easy ways too. One of the things she posted about last week was how she organizes her writing lessons. It was a great post and you can check it out HERE One of the things she talked about was using brain food to motive her writers. In her words " if you're not writing you don't need snack cause your brain isn't working to need it. If you are writing, then your brain needs energy. So I better feed it." 

We NEEDED to finish up these research reports that we have been working on for FOREVER so I prepped them Wednesday and told them we would be writing for a long time the next day but that I would have a treat for them. I told them pretty much the same thing Amy told her kiddos. It worked GREAT! I didn't hear a single complaint over how long they were writing for ( over an hour for some of them!)

 Side note: I love the potential of this writing piece. I was happy to see the spacing and capitals and periods since some of peanuts are still struggling with that. But I love the great mini lessons we can have that I see in this piece. We can work on choosing different sentence starters and compound sentences.   I can't wait to revise this piece with him....and revising is not my favorite thing.

#3 I snapped a picture of these two peanuts actually using the resources in our room to spell something. It made my heart so happy. Sitton Spelling is the program we use for spelling at my school. There are a list of about 160 words that are commonly used in 2nd grade writing and those are the words they practice spelling all year long. They go on our word wall after we have seen them but I have the full list on my objectives board.

 #4 We did a fun measurement activity this week. We were learning how to measure using feet and inches. I had a few kiddos lay down around the room. Then I taped off where their head and feet were.

After that I grouped the peanuts and they practiced measuring their friends and writing the amount using feet and inches. Then they reported out to their classmates. I didn't put the person they were measuring in any of the groups in case they already knew how tall they were.

#5 This is my favorite out of all my things I have to share. I was gone at PD twice last week. When I am gone I leave a writing prompt for the kiddos to work on instead of trying to explain where we are in our writing to a sub. I found this cute writing prompt on TPT. You can get it HERE. I got some really cute, quality writing  out of my peanuts on this piece. But this one I just loved SO much that I had to share. :)

( Just in case you can't read it very well it says: When I grow up I want to be a teacher. I want to be that because my mom did it. And I want to be like Mrs. Robinson. because she is the best teacher ever! And I even have to teach to make sure the kids learn and make sure that they are in a safe and healthy learning environment.)

 

 

Ok, does that not just melt your heart!! What a thing to come back to after being gone all day. I am going to be making a copy of that one to save for a long time.

 

If you haven't yet, go check out Jenny over at Suntans and Lesson plans. She is having a 100 follower giveaway that I am a part of.  This may be THE cutest giveaway button I have EVER seen. :)

 

 

Well, that is all for me. I'll be checking back in tomorrow to share my Spring Break bucket list. Happy Friday!





Comin' Clean and Friday Link Up

Happy Friday Friends!

Ok, so first I need to tell you which two were my truths and which one was my lie. ( Not sure what I am talking about? Check out the last post HERE.)

These were my 3:

1. I once won an oatmeal cream pie eating contest by eating 9 of them in a row.

2. The movie Dirty Dancing helped me to be excited about having my daughter.

3. My daughter is named after the street my husband grew up on.

#1 was a..........TRUTH! It was just a fun impromptu competition amongst my friends. I really won with 6 oatmeal cream pies. But I wanted to see how many I could do and wound up eating 9! I still enjoy them to this day but never as many in one sitting! LOL!

#2 was a ...................TRUTH too! I wanted a boy. so. bad when I found out I was pregnant. I just always pictured myself as the mom of a little boy. But, I had a feeling from the beginning that she was a girl. Still, when the ultrasound tech told us it was a girl I was disappointed, after the initial high of finding out. I had all these dreams of my little boy and I had to let them go and that was hard. That night Dirty Dancing was on tv. I had to watch because, well,  that is what you do when you find DD on tv. As I was watching I started realizing all the cool things that I could do as the mom of a girl...like watching Dirty Dancing for instance. ( Not that I couldn't watch with a son, it just wouldn't be the same.) The next morning I woke up with a totally 180 degree change of attitude about it. I was overjoyed about my little girl and to this day remain SO happy that God knew me better than I knew myself.

So then #3 was the lie...sort of. My daughters name happens to be the name of the street I grew up on. But that isn't the reason we named her that...it's just a coincidence. If #3 were true my kids name would be 80th Avenue. :)

That linky was so fun. I need to go back and check all of the ones I commented on. ( I made a list on paper so I could check them all!) If you want to join in the fun its not too late. The linky is open until Sunday when Latoya will hold another one. This weeks theme is would you rather.

Ok, on to my Friday link ups.

                         
Doodlebugs Teaching         Teaching Maddeness

This week I was out at two conferences. That meant 2 chances for my favorite breakfast: McDonalds!
( Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel combo is my go-to!)Soooooo good!

And actually the best part was both PD's were beneficial with things that I can implement now and things for next year...The best kind in my opinion.

I have been unhappy with my management of math stations for a long time now. I have station boards for our literacy work stations. I send them to two stations a day and I choose where they go and who they work with. Once there they have some choice as to what they can work on.


Because I make so many choices during that set of stations, I wanted to keep the math ones more free flowing and allow for more choice on their end. There are 5 stations that they need to do throughout the week. I have those choices listed as I Can statements. You can see that HERE. They have about 15- 20 minutes 4-5 days a week for math stations, before we do our whole group lesson.

But without the boards it was hard to keep track of who was doing what. So I made this station board. ( The cute chevron letters are by Teaching in a Small Town.)

They simply highlight their name on the list under the station they completed that day. They can do them in any order and can do them more than once. But they need to do each of them by Friday afternoon or lose free time on Friday afternoon. They did a really great job of tracking themselves this week and I am much more confident that they aren't just all playing BUMP all the time.



We learned about rounding to the nearest 10 this week. I won Angela Nerby's estimation scoot a while back and have been waiting to use it. Finally that day came! After our whole group lesson we played scoot to practice. They really had a good time and loved hearing me shout "Scoot" in funny voices.



 

I loved that they were able to move around so much and I could instantly assess who was getting it and who wasn't just by peaking at their clipboard.


The peanuts had their musical this week. It was circus themed. They did a good job and I will be singing the songs FOREVER! This is the super cute scenery. I wish I could share some pictures of them in their costumes. But their faces are partly what makes it so stinkin' cute.

We had our science fair this week too. This is the board the peanuts and I made.

Next week is my last week before Spring Break. That is so crazy to me. This year is FLYING by!



 I will get to spend some much needed Mommy/ Daughter time. Look at this nut! I was playing around with my new phone and taking her hammy little pictures...Before I knew it, I had 100 of them! I don't like to put her face on the internet too much, but this was too cute not to share. :)

Enjoy your weekend friends! I am off to link up.

Let's Get Aquainted Linky

I'm linking up with Latoya over at FLYING INTO FIRST for her Sunday Let's Get Acquainted linky party. I am super happy to actually link up with this one. I had a post half finished for last weeks linky and never finished it.

 

 

This week it is 2 truths and lie. You share 3 things about yourself and one of them is false. :)

 

Here are mine:

 

1. I once won an oatmeal pie eating contest by eating 9 of them in a row.

 

2. The movie Dirty Dancing helped me to be excited about having my daughter.

 

3. My daughter is named after the street my husband grew up on.

 

Can you guess which one are my truths and which one is a lie? :) ( Forgot to put this in originally, but I will tell my truths and lies in my Friday post. )

 

I am going to leave you with a sneak peak at the cover of the packet I am currently working on for TPT.

I am super OBSESSED with the chevron font and background. They are by TEACHING IN A SMALL TOWN. I LOVE it!

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend friends!

 



Friday!!!!!! ( Link Ups)

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy....It's Friday!!!

These 5 day weeks seem to drag and fly by at the same time. Am I right?

Linking up with Teaching Maddeness and Doodlebugs Teaching for my Friday ritual.
              

I posted on my Facebook ( That's right! I have a Facebook page now and you can follow HERE) that I wished it was the weekend...I just wanted to blog stalk! :) And now it's here and I could not be happier.

So here is what went down this week...

First up! I am SUPER psyched to have placed something on TPT that isn't a freebie. I made a homophones book for my kiddo's to use. It took me forever, mostly because I am learning as I go, but it is done.

This is a picture I took of the cover. However, I realized after I printed it that there was a weird space between the word Homophone and the parenthesis. So I changed that. I think I *FINALLY* have the formatting all the same. It is $2 in my store. But I will give it away for FREE to the first 2 people who comment with their email address on this post. :)  If you are not one of the two and then you can go to my TPT store HERE and purchase it. 

 

This is a picture I snapped today of one of my peanuts working on their copy.

 

 

Last week I mentioned that our reading month theme was science related. Our Kindergarten Round Up ( like an open house for incoming Kindergarteners) always has the same theme as our reading month. These were a few super cute elements of that.

 

One of our Para pro's made this DNA strand that was hanging in the lobby area. 

And this was a periodic table of the elements that we made with pictures of the kids at our school. It's not all of them...there are over 300 kids in our building...but it is still WAY cute. 

 

 

Today we had more reading month activities. Today was dress like your favorite book character. This is me with my grade level team.  We had Pete the Cat ( with Pete Jr...called Re-Pete...ha-ha), Peter Pan and Clementine. ( I got a ton of compliments on my super curly hair today, but will probably never wear it that way again. I like my extra 20 minutes of sleep thankyouverymuch.)  

 

 

We also had an author come visit us today, Tyler Benson who wrote The Adventures of Onyx and The Guardians of the Straits. He is actually from Michigan and went to high school with one of our Kindergarten teachers.

 



 

You can get a copy HERE.

 



This week I was a winner in the CLOSING THE GAP IN A CUTE OUTFIT 100 follower giveaway. I won an item from IDEAS BY JIVEY. I chose her DIGGING FOR NON FICTION TEXT FEATURES activity. It fit in perfectly with both our writing and our comprehension this week. It is a book with pictures and explanation for 10 different non fiction text features. Then you cut out and paste the correct text feature on to the page. There is also a search that you can use with other texts. We are leaving these in our reading corner so that we can reference them when reading non fiction texts.

 

Finally, I leave you with these super cute "rose" cupcakes. One of my peanuts had a birthday today and her step mom MADE these. They were delicious.

 

WAIT! Before I go! I wanted to share with you a SUPER giveaway that I am a part of. My Best Bloggy Friend Angela over at Hippo Hooray For 2nd Grade is having a 200 follower giveaway...should seriously be 2,000! I highly recommend you hop on over and check out what she and the "bunnies" have been up to this week and join in her giveaway.

 

That's all for me tonight. I am off to bed. I'll be blog stalking in the morning. I can't wait to see what you all did this week:)